Oregon’s Tsunami Risk

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/oregons-tsunami-risk-between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea

by quickthrower2 • 7 years ago

139 58 7 years ago

Short term economic gains now, with deferred death-tolls later, sounds like business as usual then when it comes to earthquake risks.

dgzl2• 7 years ago

What economic gains are to be had?

rm_-rf_slash• 7 years ago

Money made in one place goes to shareholders and profiteers somewhere else.

Fezzik• 7 years ago

I imagine EdwardDiego is referencing the economic gains made by not spending the funds to appropriately prepare for the disastor...

JetezLeLogin4• 7 years ago

Well, everybody loves it when real estate increases in value, and gets turned over at a higher price, with or without first being "improved" by being built on. Notice that tends to ruin it for everyone else though. Wouldn't it be grand if that whole strip of coastal land were just public parks instead of retiree cottages.

"Who will buy a house in a neighborhood too dangerous for a police station?" he asked. "Who will start a business in an area where fire stations are not allowed?"

Preferably no one?

davidw• 7 years ago

Or risks in general. How many people are killed in car crashes every year?

tracker12• 7 years ago

I know right... Why anyone ever strayed from using horses is beyond me. Then again, if you've ever been kicked by a horse...

Of course, people who cause car accidents are usually distracted or otherwise impaired.

PhantomGremlin• 7 years ago

As bad as it sounds for the coast, if/when the big one hits, a tsunami will be the least of the region's problems.

That's because a magnitude 9 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone is predicted to have effects well inland. E.g. most of Portland's bridges won't survive. The recently constructed Tilikum Crossing is up to modern earthquake standards, probably the new Sellwood Bridge, but the older bridges aren't. Those older bridges include all the interstate highway bridges.

How long can the Portland Metro area survive without electricity and without water and with much of the road infrastructure unusable because of damaged bridges?

A strong earthquake along the subduction zone can also affect the entire Washington Coast and Seattle. It could also affect Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.

Does anyone believe that FEMA could cope with a disaster like that? I don't. If and when the big one hits, a lot of people will be in for a lot of hurt.

This is generally known in the area. E.g. my daughter learned about it in a high school geology class. The high risk area is "anything west of I-5". But, as the article points out, the politicians have opted for Gollum's "I'm not listening" attitude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone

xrd3• 7 years ago

I live in the Portland area and so I'm interested in the impact.

A 8.0 earthquake just happened inland in Peru.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Peru_earthquake

2 people died. From what I understand subduction zone earthquakes can be terrible, but it depends on the depth in the ocean at which they occur. If they are the right distance from shore and depth, devastating. But, further out and deep enough, they can often result in no tsunami. Does anyone know if that's supported by evidence?

I also keep seeing the author's quote about a 1 in 3 chance within 50 years that the big one hits. But in other places I've seen it say 5%. I'm a little confused by that number and what's correct.

It's scary either way. But, it does seem like the biggest death tolls occur where massive populations are spread near the coast, like in Indonesia.

geoka9• 7 years ago

The scale is logarithmic (9.0 is ~32 times stronger than 8.0 in terms of energy release).

iamtheworstdev• 7 years ago

It wouldn't be on FEMA at that point. You would have the nearest Carrier group and the Army/national guard moving in to provide support. And, as disappointing as this is to say, because you're an actual US state it would not be anything like how we treated Puerto Rico.

glenneroo• 7 years ago

because you're an actual US state it would not be anything like how we treated Puerto Rico.

Tell that to New Orleans.

dgzl2• 7 years ago

Not surprising, this governor of ours is pretty lousy.

mxcrossb• 7 years ago

The good news is that Oregon, according to the article, also gave up on its climate change bill. This means that many of those coastal buildings might already be under water by time a tsunami strikes, avoiding the problem.

kayfox• 7 years ago

"Gave up" in this case consists of a certain party's legislative membership fleeing to Idaho to deny quorum.

BeetleB6• 7 years ago

"Gave up" in this case consists of a certain party's legislative membership fleeing to Idaho to deny quorum.

Umm... no. They returned in time to continue the session. It didn't pass because there weren't enough Democrats who supported the bill.

The move seemingly ended a fight that has strained relationships in the statehouse since the first days of the session. HB 2020 would create an overall cap on Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions and would charge companies for their pollution.
But the bill saw backlash from industries that felt added costs would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and from citizens who chafed at an expected increase in gas and energy costs. Ultimately the pushback was apparently enough to convince three Democratic senators to oppose the bill, meaning it would likely not have enough votes to pass.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/as-republicans-return-senat...

Edit: Probably violating HN guidelines, but: I provided a reliable source, yet am being heavily downvoted without any counterpoint or counterreference. What's the issue with my comment?

jdminhbg2• 7 years ago

At 60M tons (and steady) of a worldwide 10,000M tons (and sharply increasing) of carbon emissions per year, those buildings’ underwater status is unlikely to be affected by Oregon’s carbon bill.

rpenm• 7 years ago

You must walk before you can run. An Oregon carbon tax could serve as a model to others, and help inch us toward international consensus. It's a coordination problem; signalling serves an important role.

gdubs• 7 years ago

Cannon Beach is the “Goonies” beach, and it’s spectacular.

This type of regulation feels ominously similar to the choices made in areas like Paradise California, which burned last year. Too little respect for the urban-wildland interface.

It’s hard to truly appreciate the scale of natural events until you’re in the middle of one. Even a mild earthquake is a vivid reminder of the scale.

klyrs• 7 years ago

My dad's family lived in Cannon Beach when the tsunami of '64 hit. It innundated downtown, destroying some buildings, and tore others off their foundations. My dad was home when the house floated away...

And that was caused by a quake in Alaska.

philshem• 7 years ago

This is from the 2015 Pulitzer winning author of “The Next Big One”, about the eventual mega-earthquake in the Pacific Northwest.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-...

neilv• 7 years ago

This new article is best read after reading the 2015 article.

skybrian2• 7 years ago

There is something for people outside Oregon to do. Google Maps and hotel booking sites could delist hotels in the inundation zone. (Or at least put a big warning.)

skybrian2• 7 years ago

Perhaps downvoters could explain why they don't care about keeping tourists safe? This might seem mean, but it's the logical consequence of taking this threat seriously.

quickthrower2• 7 years ago

Maybe it’s google maps taking moral stances. There will be a lot of people who’d like google maps to delist or rename things to suit an agenda, well intentioned or otherwise so it’s probably best if google stay out of it.

kolbe• 7 years ago

The fact of the matter is that people, despite knowing the tsunami risks, have decided to live in the tsunami-inundation zone. These people probably should also have fair access to public services. I know some writers in some media circles tend to think that government should be a heavy handed nanny. But even when people make a supposedly bad decision, like living on the Oregon coast, they are still tax paying citizens who deserve access to the services they pay for.

rootusrootus4• 7 years ago

A lot of the inundation zone is fairly narrow, in many places the mountains get fairly close to the ocean. I would bet that in most areas it is possible to have public services within a reasonable distance while locating those services on ground that is high enough to be [relatively] safe.

ghaff• 7 years ago

Or they live in an area that has significant earthquake risk. You can argue about the relative odds of course but it seems as if the same logic could be applied to building in much of the Bay Area including SF.

matchagaucho2• 7 years ago

I've lived in Cannon Beach, OR. And while I respect the quality of this Journalists work (she did win a Pulitzer), the perpetrated fear-mongering on this topic is disappointing.

Millions of people live on or near fault lines, yet we don't see calls to prevent building Fire/Police/Hospitals simply because "they would perish too."

The Oregon Coast is no exception. Those who live there, service personnel included, do so because they love the region, despite being reminded daily with all the "Tsunami Warning" signs up and down the PCH 101.

cheerlessbog• 7 years ago

Isnt it a little different? The area threatened by tsunami maybe be less than a mile from the coast. If there's a nearby hill, less. It should not be a tremendous burden to keep your hospital a mile inland, or a hundred feet up the hill. Those who choose to live in the area can make a plan to briskly walk uphill when they feel tremors or hear sirens.

The area threatened by a major earthquake may extend for hundreds of miles and elevation is no defense. We have no choice but to locate public facilities in that area.

matchagaucho2• 7 years ago

Risk of forest fires are far more imminent. More people are prepared to run down the hill than up on any given day.

mrob• 7 years ago

If building tsunami-resistant buildings is too expensive, are there alternative options? E.g. mandate that everybody has easy access to an enormous ball of expanded polypropylene, with a hollow center and a tunnel big enough for entry. EPP is very tough and impact resistant, so it might save the occupant while it's floating in the tsunami. I don't know if it would actually work, but has anybody even studied this type of idea?

im_down_w_otp• 7 years ago

Wouldn't good ol' fashioned fallout shelter technology suffice, save for a few use case specific alterations?

You won't be underwater forever. How long does it take for a tsunami to recede?

tracker12• 7 years ago

There's material design, shape and reinforcements to consider, but a tube would probably be a decent start. Requiring such a think, along with a alert system (loud sirens/speakers) in the region should probably also be a requirement.

tempguy9999• 7 years ago

has anybody even studied this type of idea?

Yes. Kind of. A bit. Well, project moose, but not really I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE

tejtm• 7 years ago

general background info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_subduction_zone

An important detail is:

``` forty-one subduction zone earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone in the past 10,000 years, suggesting a general average earthquake recurrence interval of only 243 years ```

With the last being in the year 1700 which puts the next firmly in the overdue with respect to average interval but not beyond the range of observed variance.

Infrastructure related folks in the area might want to look into https://www.shakealert.org/

b_tterc_p• 7 years ago

The average is surprisingly unimportant for rare event detection like this. The San Andreas fault, for instance, is overdue by that logic. But it could easily be decades away from another big one.

Coincidentally Wikipedia suggests the San Andreas daily erupted today?

JetezLeLogin4• 7 years ago

For the curious here's a tsunami inundation/evac map of the Pacific Northwest coast: http://nvs.nanoos.org/TsunamiEvac

Oregon’s Tsunami Risk

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