that is, of course, the Yellowstone volcano zone of explosion.

Perception of safety is a funny thing.

I was down in Panama a few years ago,couple of weeks post invasion, working as a photographer. My traveling companions and I were doing a tour around Panama City, talking to residents, seeing the damages up close etc.

At one point, we came across a group of folks who were basically living on the sidewalk of an apt building, the building itself had been shelled so badly it was no longer safe to be in. Huge holes in the walls, no utilities. We stopped and spoke to these folks for a while, heard their stories, I took some photographs. When we got ready to leave, they all asked us where we were going, when we told them our next destination, they implored us to not go there, it wasn't safe for anyone to go to that part of town they claimed. So we asked about going back the way we'd come, no, no, don't do that either, it's not safe there either. Apparently the only safe place for 3 American journalists to be was right there with them.

I'm still struck by how those folks kept up their own sense of what safety means, to them it meant staying in the shadow of their former homes, to us it meant not knowing where the unsafe places for us to be were in advance. We left them there, made our way to the "unsafe" parts of the city and back to our hotel that night unscathed.

It's a funny thing, perception.

JohnE

Yes, that is the ideal blast fallout footprint. On a more realistic basis, the prevailing winds and the Rockies, Blues and Steen mountain ranges should aid greatly in preventing most of the worst of it from reaching quite that far into Oregon and Washington. When St. Helens blew, I wasn't living that far away, and yet the only ash exposure I received was what went around the planet once. I was less than 80 miles from the eruption at the time. Granted there's a lot more energy expected from the Caldera eruption, but that is still going to be a whole lot of atmospheric energy to have to overcome. Given that Nuclear fallout maps from GZs all along the west coast show virtually no plume extending into SE Oregon, I'd say it is a fair trade-off. Given the sheer volume of ejecta that would be put into the atmosphere, I would think that what gets deposited in Oregon will be not much greater than average global depositions in the northern hemisphere anyways.

There's always a chance that large destructive media might make it that far, but I think propogational losses will be great enough at that range that it should be negligible compared to the general hemispherical threat of coverage of fine particulates. 1200 cubic miles of ejecta, most of it being fine particulates able to stay suspended in the atmosphere, will be the most likely hazard to deal with.

However, the caldera is only one factor of many to consider, and given that most of the others are relatively so low in occurence and effect in that region, especially the most frequent sort, I concluded SE Oregon would be a relatively safe, if not inconvenient, haven.

"...it's been 360,000 years since it's last eruption..."

I wonder who marked the calendar back then???

I assume you mean Dec 1989 / Jan 1990. The local folks may have meant safe for them for you to stay not for you. I noticed once the "Dignity Battalions" were reduced, The local populace figured out bombs and artillery were NOT falling where the Americans WERE standing. Go figure, but they may have been covering their own butts.

When I was in Panama City (mid-60's), the DingBats didn't exist. The "LaGuardia National" were the army/police/everything. Most drove around in battleship grey '57 Chevy P/U's with tin "camper shells" over the bed, open ended. Inside were Browning M1919's pointing out the rear. I was there 18 months, they had about two coups during that time, so there was a lot of .30 cal flying around. When that went on, there was no safe place outside of the Canal Zone...

The "DingBats" were real good at being a pain in the donkey. (Mostly abusing their own countrymen.) Oddly, one well placed 7.62 NATO round in the group tended to deflate the machismo. Amazing how folks don't want to stand around when the pink and grey mist starts falling.

And that gentlemen, is where the signature line came from.

"...were real good at being a pain in the donkey. (Mostly abusing their own countrymen.) Oddly, one well placed 7.62 NATO round in the group tended to deflate the machismo..."

Sounds just like the LGN...

Was the LGN official or just a bunch of dirt bags somebody organized?

I think I deciphered what you wrote Desperado, but no, it wasn't about the local folks feeling safer when we were there. The shooting was pretty much over by then, although there was a grenade attack that occurred while we were there.

My point was that the folks there in Panama City had a perception of safety that was incongruent with the reality of the situation, they weren't any "safer" camping out near what remained of their homes than they would have been elsewhere. Given that many of the buildings were near ready to collapse, one could make the argument that they would have been safer in leaving. But they, like people everywhere, were clinging to a notion of safety in familiarity.

Much like those of us who live in California live pretty much in denial about earthquakes and those who live in hurricane zones do about storms. Better the disaster we know than the one we don't.

JohnE