Earthquake Risk Growing

In my 21 years in state and local emergency management (time after my military service) I have only known of the increased certainty of more earthquake risks.  No one has ever stood up and said, "The earthquake risk is not what we thought it was, it is less."  Here in Washington State three major crustal earthquake fault zones have been discovered in those 21 years.  All of them are in highly urbanized areas.  The use of lidar technology has helped considerably in these discovery efforts.  

 

Predicting or if you prefer forecasting when the next earthquake will occur is a risky business.  Yet, I think because scientists keep getting the question asked of them they keep trying to provide answers.  In that vein, there is the recent announcement about Northwest coast at high risk of quake in 50 years  In this particular case they are talking about the lower half of the Cascadia Subduction Earthquake Fault.  

 

 

The prediction of what might happen and when it might happen is based on past history.  I'm thankful we have talented people who understand the science and are working on our behalf to discover and then share what they know.  A big issue I've seen in the past is this lack of interaction between the scientists and the emergency management practitioners.  What science knows--we need to know, so that we can educate others, plan for contingencies and "imagine" what we need to be prepared to respond to.  

 

The good news of a "50 years" time frame is that most people will equate that to "in my lifetime."  This shorter prognostication is helpful over an announcement that says we will have 10 earthquakes in the next 1,000 years--if you know what I mean.

 

Getting people to move from awareness of the threat to having it guide their actions is the next challenge.  Again, there are social scientists that can help us in those endeavors.  Let's use the science that is available across the spectrum of knowledge to make a difference in our communities.