West Coast Mega-Earthquake (8-9+) Predicted THIS WEEK

[Uncensored2008]

I'm in Seattle. Lived up here about 90% of my 63 years.

I have lots of water ..dozens of unused bathtubs I can fill immediately.

It kind of figures that any bathtub or shower you would have would be unused, Rev. Jim.

A nice generator. Several gallons of gasoline. I can run my fridge and cook. Lots of blankets and sleeping bags. My two huge pit bulls give off mega heat so sleeping is already comfortable with the heat off.

Been through three 6-7 ish quakes already.

Those were just bad trips.

Earthquakes are not really that devastating around here.

Move to Northridge.

 

[Old Rocks]

A 9+ quake is not just a larger shake. That kind of quake lasts up to 5 minutes of motion. There are ground waves as high as 5 feet. The combination of ground motion and length of movement means that almost every bridge and overpass from Cape Mendecino to northern Vacouver Island would be down. For most of the injured, there would be no way to get medical help for days. The grid and most services, water, gas, and sewage, would be down for months in many places. Many, many residences would simply be unlivable. That were still livable would have no heat or power in most urban areas.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGhYMM2xeEo]Clip #1 from "Though the Earth Be Moved" - YouTube[/ame]

 

[paravani]

A 9+ quake is not just a larger shake. That kind of quake lasts up to 5 minutes of motion. There are ground waves as high as 5 feet. The combination of ground motion and length of movement means that almost every bridge and overpass from Cape Mendecino to northern Vacouver Island would be down. For most of the injured, there would be no way to get medical help for days. The grid and most services, water, gas, and sewage, would be down for months in many places. Many, many residences would simply be unlivable. That were still livable would have no heat or power in most urban areas.

Clip #1 from "Though the Earth Be Moved" - YouTube

Hi, Old Rocks!

Most people don't get this. They think "Quake? I know what a quake is!", and they totally don't get that a subduction zone event is the Mother of All Quakes.

-- Paravani

 

[lolhahaha]

I was over 200 miles south of the 89 SF quake at work and it was a pretty good jolt. That quake wasn't even a 7.0. If there's a 9.0 near the coast then everybody on the entire west coast will feel it I think and 1000s will be dead because the roads and buildings haven't been upgraded for the most part.

It kinda sucks that my RV is sitting next to a cliff that will definitely collapse if we get hit but otherwise it'd be the perfect location for after an earthquake. Maybe i'll move it later today lol.

 

[Grandma]

It's not just up and down the coast - an earthquake that size would be felt well inland where the buildings are far less up-to-date.

I dread the day when it does happen.

 

[Franticfrank]

It's bound to happen eventually. Important to have some kind of plan in place for it.

 

[Old Rocks]

Most people do not realize the geographical isolation of western oregon and western washington. After a 9+ quake, the roads will be unusable for any distance because of bridges and overpasses being down. The Airports will be down indefinately, runways jumbled, and no power. The nearest large runways capable of supporting large aircraft are in Moses Lake, and the mountain pass highways will more than likely have slides over them after the quake. Same, for sure, for I-84, in the Columbia Gorge. Grants Pass, from the south, will likely be closed also, for the same reason.

Should the quake happen in the winter, there will be an additional hazard in the passes being closed due to snow.

As for sea delivery, there will be no docks to unload on. In fact, the best way to deliver from the sea would probably be using the same kind of equipment that we use for amphibeous warfare. And in Oregon, there is the coast range between us and the ocean. Navigating the Colombia after the quake would be very risky for a large ship.

So immediate relief would have to be by heavy lift helicopters, and even with the whole of the US military engaged in that task, it would still be inadaquete.

The subduction quake, when it comes, will dwarf any previous disaster that this nation has endured.

 

[Old Rocks]

It's bound to happen eventually. Important to have some kind of plan in place for it.

Exactly. Yet, we still have the people factor. After the Japanese subduction quake, the authorities thought it would be a wise move to check the equipment we have in place to warn of a tsunami on the Oregon Coast. A good many mayors of small coastal town simply opted out of the exercise, because they did not want to be bothered. In some of the towns that did participate, some of the warning equipment was found to be defective for various reasons.

 

[Neurotika]

Does anyone here live on the West Coast? Anyone at all?

-- Paravani

yes, puget sound. will fill up some water receptacles just in case and at work for the wildlife..in case <3

 

[HUGGY]

Most people do not realize the geographical isolation of western oregon and western washington. After a 9+ quake, the roads will be unusable for any distance because of bridges and overpasses being down. The Airports will be down indefinately, runways jumbled, and no power. The nearest large runways capable of supporting large aircraft are in Moses Lake, and the mountain pass highways will more than likely have slides over them after the quake. Same, for sure, for I-84, in the Columbia Gorge. Grants Pass, from the south, will likely be closed also, for the same reason.

Should the quake happen in the winter, there will be an additional hazard in the passes being closed due to snow.

As for sea delivery, there will be no docks to unload on. In fact, the best way to deliver from the sea would probably be using the same kind of equipment that we use for amphibeous warfare. And in Oregon, there is the coast range between us and the ocean. Navigating the Colombia after the quake would be very risky for a large ship.

So immediate relief would have to be by heavy lift helicopters, and even with the whole of the US military engaged in that task, it would still be inadaquete.

The subduction quake, when it comes, will dwarf any previous disaster that this nation has endured.

There would be thousands of places to off load supplies all in and around Puget Sound even after a "mega" quake.

I've travelled practically the whole sound from Orcas to Olympia by boat. I see no reason why most of the ferry landings would be destroyed. They are designed super strong and if power was cut off they could function nicely with generated power. Much of the shoreline is gradual some steep incline but nearly ALL of it has roads right up to the water. It wouldn't take much building to fashion temp docks in hundreds of locations. There are probably a hundred barges with their own power capable of driving pilings. Plus there are tens of thousands of private boats that would lend a hand in transfering supplies to areas to shallow for bigger vessels. One thing we do well up here is water transportation. My little 35 foot Chris Craft is Coast Guard rated to carry up to twenty passengers.

 

[Charles_Main]

Most people do not realize the geographical isolation of western oregon and western washington. After a 9+ quake, the roads will be unusable for any distance because of bridges and overpasses being down. The Airports will be down indefinately, runways jumbled, and no power. The nearest large runways capable of supporting large aircraft are in Moses Lake, and the mountain pass highways will more than likely have slides over them after the quake. Same, for sure, for I-84, in the Columbia Gorge. Grants Pass, from the south, will likely be closed also, for the same reason.

Should the quake happen in the winter, there will be an additional hazard in the passes being closed due to snow.

As for sea delivery, there will be no docks to unload on. In fact, the best way to deliver from the sea would probably be using the same kind of equipment that we use for amphibeous warfare. And in Oregon, there is the coast range between us and the ocean. Navigating the Colombia after the quake would be very risky for a large ship.

So immediate relief would have to be by heavy lift helicopters, and even with the whole of the US military engaged in that task, it would still be inadaquete.

The subduction quake, when it comes, will dwarf any previous disaster that this nation has endured.

There would be thousands of places to off load supplies all in and around Puget Sound even after a "mega" quake.

I've travelled practically the whole sound from Orcas to Olympia by boat. I see no reason why most of the ferry landings would be destroyed. They are designed super strong and if power was cut off they could function nicely with generated power. Much of the shoreline is gradual some steep incline but nearly ALL of it has roads right up to the water. It wouldn't take much building to fashion temp docks in hundreds of locations. There are probably a hundred barges with their own power capable of driving pilings. Plus there are tens of thousands of private boats that would lend a hand in transfering supplies to areas to shallow for bigger vessels. One thing we do well up here is water transportation. My little 35 foot Chris Craft is Coast Guard rated to carry up to twenty passengers.

If you can't see how they would be destroyed, you do not grasp the destructive power of the Side effect to such a Hurricane. Tsunami.

 

[HUGGY]

Most people do not realize the geographical isolation of western oregon and western washington. After a 9+ quake, the roads will be unusable for any distance because of bridges and overpasses being down. The Airports will be down indefinately, runways jumbled, and no power. The nearest large runways capable of supporting large aircraft are in Moses Lake, and the mountain pass highways will more than likely have slides over them after the quake. Same, for sure, for I-84, in the Columbia Gorge. Grants Pass, from the south, will likely be closed also, for the same reason.

Should the quake happen in the winter, there will be an additional hazard in the passes being closed due to snow.

As for sea delivery, there will be no docks to unload on. In fact, the best way to deliver from the sea would probably be using the same kind of equipment that we use for amphibeous warfare. And in Oregon, there is the coast range between us and the ocean. Navigating the Colombia after the quake would be very risky for a large ship.

So immediate relief would have to be by heavy lift helicopters, and even with the whole of the US military engaged in that task, it would still be inadaquete.

The subduction quake, when it comes, will dwarf any previous disaster that this nation has endured.

There would be thousands of places to off load supplies all in and around Puget Sound even after a "mega" quake.

I've travelled practically the whole sound from Orcas to Olympia by boat. I see no reason why most of the ferry landings would be destroyed. They are designed super strong and if power was cut off they could function nicely with generated power. Much of the shoreline is gradual some steep incline but nearly ALL of it has roads right up to the water. It wouldn't take much building to fashion temp docks in hundreds of locations. There are probably a hundred barges with their own power capable of driving pilings. Plus there are tens of thousands of private boats that would lend a hand in transfering supplies to areas to shallow for bigger vessels. One thing we do well up here is water transportation. My little 35 foot Chris Craft is Coast Guard rated to carry up to twenty passengers.

If you can't see how they would be destroyed, you do not grasp the destructive power of the Side effect to such a Hurricane. Tsunami.

A Tsunami in Puget Sound? Not likely. Maybe you don't know the layout around here. The ocean beaches and vicinity could be wiped out by a 30 ft tsunami but frankly the coast population is small. In the winter it is almost non existant. There is also high ground to go to with easy access all along the Washington coast. Inland the Straight of Juan Defuca is fairly narrow so a 30 ft tsunami on the coast would only result in 3-4 ft in Puget sound. Unless it happened at high tide on a full moon we just wouldn't have the flooding like what happened in New Jersy and New York. Even at extreme high tide a tsunami wouldn't do anything to our ferry landings. They are built over 12 feet higher than extreme high tide. The only ones that are not constructed on bedrock are in downtown Seattle. They are built on fill material and probably would not survive a 9 earthquake. All the rest are sitting on rock. Like Orcas in the San Juans where I am from all of the Islands coastlines are solid granite and the homes even near the water are usually up 30 ft from high water already because of the salt water spray from even normal winter storms. My childhood home was 1/4 mile away and about 75 ft high of the water on our beach and we still could still taste salt water in the air during a 60-70 MPH storm.

One thing ya gotta remember "geologically" speaking is that our coast is a hell of a lot younger than the East Coast. Where they have a lot of sand and dirt under their feet we have for the most part solid rock. Only in certain places like the Denny regrade in downtown Seattle is there enough depth of unstable soil to liquify. Same thing happened in SF. Only the "man made" areas of fill really went nuts during any of their quakes. Much of SF's buildings built up on the hilly areas didn't have much damage at all.

 

[paravani]

There would be thousands of places to off load supplies all in and around Puget Sound even after a "mega" quake....

... My little 35 foot Chris Craft is Coast Guard rated to carry up to twenty passengers.

If you can't see how they would be destroyed, you do not grasp the destructive power of the Side effect to such a Hurricane. Tsunami.

A Tsunami in Puget Sound? Not likely.

... Inland the Straight of Juan De Fuca is fairly narrow so a 30 ft tsunami on the coast would only result in 3-4 ft in Puget sound. The only ones that are not constructed on bedrock are in downtown Seattle. They are built on fill material and probably would not survive a 9 earthquake. All the rest are sitting on rock. Like Orcas in the San Juans where I am from all of the Islands coastlines are solid granite ...

One thing ya gotta remember "geologically" speaking is that our coast is a hell of a lot younger than the East Coast. Where they have a lot of sand and dirt under their feet we have for the most part solid rock. Only in certain places like the Denny regrade in downtown Seattle is there enough depth of unstable soil to liquify. Same thing happened in SF. Only the "man made" areas of fill really went nuts during any of their quakes. Much of SF's buildings built up on the hilly areas didn't have much damage at all.

Hi, All!

Huggy, you've made a lot of assumptions here that aren't entirely accurate.

First, earthquakes travel farther through bedrock than through loose soil. The East Coast is actually more bedrock than here -- that's why even small earthquakes travel so far there.

Washington Coast cliffs are not granite: they are sedimentary build-up of former sea bed. That's why you find so many agates and agatized fossils on our beaches: because as the cliffs erode, they drop new agates out of their sedimentary matrix.

With regard to "tsunami" --

The Cascadia Subduction Zone event will cause the ground to rise and fall by about six feet over and over for more than five minutes as the slippage travels along the 600-mile-long fault. This means that in addition to inflow from a tsunami generated at sea, the waters of the Puget Sound itself will splash back and forth, like a gigantic bowl filled with water being vigorously shaken and sloshing from side to side.

It's going to be a pretty rough ride. So, while I hope that the ferry docks will be intact after the event, there is some question whether the ferries themselves will be anywhere to be seen... Or, for that matter, any boat, including your Chris Craft.

However, if you live on the coast and you have food stored up, a well or other source of water that doesn't need an electric pump, basic sanitation, and wood heat, you'll be in pretty good shape... especially if you can hunt, trap, fish, and know how to forage for other traditional native foods. (Stay away from plants with blue or purple flowers, and any bulbs that don't smell like onions. All fuzzy berries are edible. Don't mess with mushrooms unless you already know them really well. If the flowers look at all like tomato flowers, it is not good to eat!)

I found a couple of great videos on YouTube. The first one is called MegaQuake Could Hit North America - BBC (Full Documentary)



The second video is a 6-minute clip. The first minute of it is a KOMO news story from last Wednesday night, with a geologist discussing the 6.3 quake that day on the Juan de Fuca plate, and saying that "we'll be watching this carefully for the next few months". The rest of the video is the poster's own discussion of what they've seen on USGS over the past few months, and what it might mean. It's a little boring, but I concur what they've seen and the conclusions they've drawn.



Thanks to all for your posts on the thread!

-- Paravani

 

[Qantrill]

I'm covered. I have everything needed to gaurantee my safety and survival against any concievable attack. That's what I do here at the motel. Run off gang bangers, whores, pimps, druggies, drug dealers, homeless tryin to break into the rooms. It's gettin old honestly. Spozed to be a three or four month "favor". Been three years. The whole place is fenced off and I'm on the third floor. It would be damn near impossible to get up to my rooms without gettin killed. It would take a dozen or so of some very determined people and most if not all would die in the effort. I am a damn good shot but frankly a 120 lb male and a 70 lb female pit bull is an awesome deterrent.

Gotcha...most of the people who cast their multiple votes for Obama. By the way, that sounds a lot like bin-Laden's hideout in Pakistan. Do you go out and stroll around the fenced in back yard at sundown?

 

[Qantrill]

Does anyone here live on the West Coast? Anyone at all?

-- Paravani

Well, I don't live on the west coast but, I'm not a LONG ways away from it. I'm a good distance away from it but I'm still somewhat close and thereabouts. I suspect it's possible that a quake on the coast could impact my area and, also, a quake here might be a portents to a bigger one on the coast, or vice versa.

Maybe your neighbors, Nevada, Idaho and Arizona will be the new west coast some day and you won't be nearly as far away. We can only hope.

 

[paravani]

Maybe your neighbors, Nevada, Idaho and Arizona will be the new west coast some day and you won't be nearly as far away. We can only hope.

Quantrill, before you gloat, you may want to research the New Madrid earthquake of 1812.

I found a cool video about it for you, too: The MEGA New Madrid Earthquake is Coming Soon:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfklmGapKEw]The MEGA New Madrid Earthquake is Coming Soon - YouTube[/ame]

Enjoy!

-- Paravani

 

[Uncensored2008]

It was about 1966 when I first learned that California was about to fall into the ocean. At first I was concerned, but then figured that the coming ice age would create an ice bridge between the cast off island and Arizona. Besides, Jesus would return in the meantime and snatch us all up. Furthermore, the population bomb was exploding so a few million deaths were needed to stop that. Of course, this was all mucked up by the eruption of Yellowstone and Global Warming, which would melt the ice bridge. But it doesn't matter because the asteroid is going to hit Earth and wipe out all life anyway, which will cure the bird flu.

 

[auditor0007]

It isn't just an earthquake, but a Subduction Zone Event, or SZE.

The word "earthquake" doesn't quite communicate that what we are talking about here isn't just a little shake-n-shimmy. Rather, it's the massive readjustment of two entire continental plates that have been slowly building up more than ten yards -- that's thirty feet -- of tension between them over a period of three centuries. When that much earth shifts over a span of six hundred miles, the power is truly awesome -- and more destructive than you can imagine.

I've been studying earthquakes for years, and it still terrifies me when I think our SZE may be imminent... as I do now.

... So please pardon the wet spot...

Have any firearms to protect your water and generator and gasoline and fridge and blankets and sleeping bags and pit bulls?

Or are you just going to scare people off by wearing your Obama Halloween costume?

My hubby and I weren't comfortable with the idea of being stuck in the city in the aftermath of a Subduction Zone Event.

I've worked as an engineer for City Light, and I'm not at all confident that our dams will hold. The youngest and largest of the dams in the Cascades in Skagit county, Ross Dam, is more than sixty years old. The next youngest is Diablo, which was built in 1929.

If either of those dams or any other major generation facilities are significantly damaged -- which is likely -- it may be quite some time before our power systems are back up and running.

Much of downtown Seattle is built on fill soil that was trucked in from the Denny "regrade" area at the base of Queen Anne hill. You can expect that soil to liquify in an earthquake.

Furthermore, Seattle is built right on top of the "Seattle Fault". When my brothers and I were kids, you could see the fault when you drove past it on the freeway: the earth on the side of the hill just south of downtown is layered, and at the fault the layers don't match up.

Geologists think it is very likely that a Cascadia SZE would release any built-up stresses along other major faults on the West Coast, such as the Seattle Fault, the Portland West Hills fault, and the San Andreas fault.

Much of the public water supply is held in large above-ground cisterns -- water towers -- that could conceivably topple in a large earthquake. Pipes will break; and clean water may not be available in most or all of the city for weeks.

Of course, there are still lots of rivers and lakes on the West Coast... but we haven't exactly been keeping them clean, have we? So in order to use that water, people will need to have filters and/or water purification tablets stored in advance. Those items won't be easily available after the fact.

More good news? Oh, yeah, roads. None of the freeway overpasses built before 1995 were constructed to meet modern seismic standards. Your best bet for north-south travel in the aftermath is along 405 -- but I wouldn't count on even that.

Pray you aren't in downtown Seattle, where the glass will pile up two to three feet deep in the streets, and the Key Tower will knock against the Columbia Center.

(City Light is in the Key Tower. When we were hit with a minor earthquake, the civil engineers got busy calculating the range of motion of both towers. In a 7 or greater earthquake, they'll sway enough to collide at their top floors.)

And we all know the Alaskan Way viaduct will do an Alameda.

Downtown Portland may experience severe tsunami-related flooding hours or days after the event, as the tsunami works its way up the Columbia and the Willamette.

Oh, and that hill behind downtown Portland? That hill marks the West Hills fault, where one landmass moves up and the other moves down. All those expensive mansions and condos up there? ... I think you can guess the rest.

So... what to do in the aftermath if you were one of the smart ones who got ready? What will others do when they're dying of thirst and the lakes are too filthy to drink? What will they do when they're hungry and they smell your food?

My hubby and I didn't like those questions, nor the answers that might be given even if we were armed.

So, we moved away from the city. Now we live next to a year-round creek in a neighborhood that can only be reached by one bridge, and there's plenty of dynamite nearby to blow that if necessary.

We aren't rude enough to ask our neighbors whether they're prepared for a disaster; but when the power went out for two weeks last winter, several of our neighbors already had generators. We're fairly certain that most of them have food, too; and the creek can take care of our water needs forever.

-- Paravani

I'm not poking fun at your prediction, because something like this could happen at any time, now or in the next thousand years. I was just wondering though, is this suppose to happen around December 21st?

 

[Charles_Main]

There would be thousands of places to off load supplies all in and around Puget Sound even after a "mega" quake.

I've travelled practically the whole sound from Orcas to Olympia by boat. I see no reason why most of the ferry landings would be destroyed. They are designed super strong and if power was cut off they could function nicely with generated power. Much of the shoreline is gradual some steep incline but nearly ALL of it has roads right up to the water. It wouldn't take much building to fashion temp docks in hundreds of locations. There are probably a hundred barges with their own power capable of driving pilings. Plus there are tens of thousands of private boats that would lend a hand in transfering supplies to areas to shallow for bigger vessels. One thing we do well up here is water transportation. My little 35 foot Chris Craft is Coast Guard rated to carry up to twenty passengers.

If you can't see how they would be destroyed, you do not grasp the destructive power of the Side effect to such a Hurricane. Tsunami.

A Tsunami in Puget Sound? Not likely. Maybe you don't know the layout around here. The ocean beaches and vicinity could be wiped out by a 30 ft tsunami but frankly the coast population is small. In the winter it is almost non existant. There is also high ground to go to with easy access all along the Washington coast. Inland the Straight of Juan Defuca is fairly narrow so a 30 ft tsunami on the coast would only result in 3-4 ft in Puget sound. Unless it happened at high tide on a full moon we just wouldn't have the flooding like what happened in New Jersy and New York. Even at extreme high tide a tsunami wouldn't do anything to our ferry landings. They are built over 12 feet higher than extreme high tide. The only ones that are not constructed on bedrock are in downtown Seattle. They are built on fill material and probably would not survive a 9 earthquake. All the rest are sitting on rock. Like Orcas in the San Juans where I am from all of the Islands coastlines are solid granite and the homes even near the water are usually up 30 ft from high water already because of the salt water spray from even normal winter storms. My childhood home was 1/4 mile away and about 75 ft high of the water on our beach and we still could still taste salt water in the air during a 60-70 MPH storm.

One thing ya gotta remember "geologically" speaking is that our coast is a hell of a lot younger than the East Coast. Where they have a lot of sand and dirt under their feet we have for the most part solid rock. Only in certain places like the Denny regrade in downtown Seattle is there enough depth of unstable soil to liquify. Same thing happened in SF. Only the "man made" areas of fill really went nuts during any of their quakes. Much of SF's buildings built up on the hilly areas didn't have much damage at all.

The Sound will actually make a Tsunami even worse man. It funnels the Wave causing it to gain power.

That said I am not sure why I even posted on this thread. It's a silly speculative scare piece. Call me when a Mega Quake actually happens.

lol

 

[Qantrill]

Maybe your neighbors, Nevada, Idaho and Arizona will be the new west coast some day and you won't be nearly as far away. We can only hope.

Quantrill, before you gloat, you may want to research the New Madrid earthquake of 1812.

I found a cool video about it for you, too: The MEGA New Madrid Earthquake is Coming Soon:

Enjoy!

-- Paravani

I don't need to research it Para...my ex-hometown of Paragould, Arkansas is basically in the Mississippi River bottoms of N.E. Arkansas across from the "boothill" of Missouri. It's flat a pancake all over that part of the state...EXCEPT for one ridge of hills (Crowley's Ridge) that runs from the Mississippi river way up in Missouri all the way to Forrest City, AR, about 300 miles to the SW. Formed by the 1811/12 New Madrid Quake. The river actually flowed NORTH during the EQ. I know all about it. But at least we won't fall into the Pacific Ocean.

By the way my great, great grandma washed out to sea in the Galveston, TX hurricane of 1900.

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