Cascadia Earthquake in Oregon Spells Disaster

Oregon's Earthquake Commission has released a report on what it will mean when the next Cascadia Earthquake lets go and the Pacific Plate diving below the North American Plate gives way.  See The Oregon Resilience Plan

It points out what we emergency managers know.  It will be a day etched in our brains, life changing in every way to those who live and those who die.  All the naysayers will be proven wrong and those who have put off disaster mitigation and preparedness will rue the days they did nothing to invest in resilience.

Following the burials there will be investigations into what could have been done better.  People will demand answers as to why governments and businesses were not ready for an event that everyone knew was going to happen eventually.  

This will all happen in the future.  Today the impact of the story Cascadia earthquake, tsunami could cost Oregon $32 billion gets some major print media attention and then within a month or so...it will fade into history will little action by anyone.  

I remember when a similar study was done here in Washington State (referenced in the story below) and the people who participated in writing it thought that, "With this report and data it will cause people to sit up and take action."  Fat chance!  Nothing happened other than there is now a document that will provide a "Told you so!" record forecasting calamity in the future.

Which brings me to another earthquake story, New Zealand earthquake holds lessons for Seattle  Here there is a little hope that something might be done.  There is at least some proposals on the table to deal with unreinforced masonry buildings that are at greatest risk of failing in an earthquake.   There will be plenty of push-back by those who don't want to spend the money to retrofit these types of buildings.  The alternative is to just clear the rubble away after they have collapsed at some point in the future.

One of my favorite quotes about failure is, "Lessons will continue to be taught until they are learned."  Can we not learn from New Zealand?  Must we suffer losses ourselves before we are motivated to do something in our own community?

Mark R. Pierepiekarz who is quoted in one of the articles above shared the link to the Oregon story and Diane Newman shared the Seattle Times article.