The 8.8 magnitude quake triggered tsunami warnings along the West Coast of the United States — some 3,400 miles from the epicenter. Fortunately, waves that arrived on our shores hours later proved to be minimal, giving us time for pondering the possibilities of a local earthquake rather than rebuilding from significant damage.
In 2015, in a Pulitzer Prize-winning article for The New Yorker, Kathryn Schultz detailed the realities that would accompany a major earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone, a 700-mile fault line that runs under the Pacific Ocean along the West Coast.
"The northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as 6 feet and rebound 30 to 100 feet to the west — losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries," Schultz wrote. And Kenneth Murphy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was quoted as saying, "Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast."
Federal estimates at the time were 13,000 fatalities, 27,000 injuries, 1 million people requiring shelter and 2.5 million needing food and water. FEMA estimated that 15 of Portland's 17 bridges would fail in a major earthquake.
According to the best available science, the Pacific Northwest has experienced 41 subduction zone earthquakes in the past 10,000 years — one every 243 years. Experts also say, based on oral histories from Native Americans and accounts of a tsunami in Japan on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, that such an earthquake occurred in January 1700. That puts us 325 years into a 243-year cycle.
Of course, there is no way to predict a major earthquake with pinpoint accuracy or to prevent one. But as Schultz wrote, the people of the Northwest have been "lulled into nonchalance by their seemingly benign environment."
None of this is revisited as an attempt at fear-mongering. Instead, it provides an opportunity to examine how the United States' approach to disasters has been altered in just the past 10 years.
In the first 100 days of his second term, President Donald Trump denied half the requests for major disaster aid that crossed his desk. That included a request from Washington following a bomb-cyclone windstorm that caused an estimated $34 million in damage late last year. It also included denials for relief in Arkansas, California, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Trump, meanwhile, has said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be eliminated. There are no firm plans to scuttle the agency, but funding for disaster preparation and relief has been withheld in multiple instances.
In Washington, the most likely disasters are severe wildfires or earthquakes and resulting tsunamis. The state has taken strong steps in recent years to improve wildfire reporting and suppression; it also has adopted an early warning system for earthquakes. But even the best-laid plans cannot prevent all damage from disasters. And that is why the federal government has a vital role to play.
In the past, Washington taxpayers have willfully paid when a tornado strikes Oklahoma or a hurricane batters Florida, with the understanding that help will be available for us when it is needed. Now, that social contract is being undermined; our nation is weaker for it.
© 2025 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
