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It's funny, unless you are from the PNW and are well aware of the Cascadia fault almost any other American would hardly think of Seattle being associated with earthquakes. You will always here "I could never live in California because of the earthquakes", while in fact, a devastating earthquake in Seattle is far more likely than in San Diego, even as we get plenty of small to medium size shakers we are far away from the San Andreas fault so the risk here is pretty low for The Big One.
The Cascadia fault line and San andrias fault line are connected in Cresent City California.
Earthquakes and volcanoes. Both could be real doozies: 1) Cascadia Subduction "Megathrust" Earthquake and 2) Mt. Rainier blowing her top.
Yeah. Seattle is definitely on the ring of fire. Even Yellowstone isn't that far. You see evidence of Yellowstone's destruction all over Washington state.
I would never really call a blizzard a natural disaster though. They happen most years here in the Midwest, but you just hear about them in advance, then it snows, you shovel it and go back to work/school. There's no "disaster" in them, it's just a weather event that you then forget about a week after it happens.
I would say ice storms can be a big problem and closer to a "disaster", but those are mostly in the south, not the Midwest.
I know this is an old comment, but the first part is so off target it warrants a response. Blizzards don't happen every year in the Midwest, and you don't always just shovel and move on if it is a severe blizzard. That is like saying a flood can't be a natural disaster because it rains all the time.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Our city is about 23 miles east of Seattle, on a plateau at 600' elevation and on solid bedrock. While we are still subject to earthquakes, we don't have to worry about the liquefaction or tsunamis, or old brick buildings as in Seattle. Here a major quake would cause damage but not too serious, as most homes were built after about 1980 and up to standards. We are also well above any large bodies of water, so no chance of flooding, we have to go down several long hills to go anywhere. With a lot of old growth timber still left here and there in pockets of small forest, we could have fire issues, but it's not very hot even in summer and we get 66" of rain from September-June. What we do get is 2-3 power outages a year from wind storms. Our power lines are buried, no poles but the mains coming up from the lowlands to the plateau are on poles, with lot of trees nearby. We had one outage for 12 hours this year so far, but one year (2007) we went 5 days without electricity.
Seattle's not at risk from Rainier, except for ash. It's 50 miles away. A river used to head our direction but it doesn't anymore.
Ash can be a problem. But that would tend to blow east.
An earthquake could do tons of damage, but we're apparently at less risk than the coast. And as the years go by more of our built environment is built to better seismic standards. The danger seems to be mostly in waterfront fill sites, steep hillsides, unreinforced masonry buildings, and older bridges. There's some tsunami potential in Puget Sound (vs. a major issue on the coast).
Here in Northern California fire is the the threat. Lots of close calls. Earthquakes?
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