There was a STUDY just published that looked at the emergency response in Oregon and the State of Washington. I think they identified about 40-50 towns and communities that are at immediate risk of a large tsunami, in the event of an earthquake (magnitude 8-9) on the Cascadia fault. The RESULT of the study is this - IF EVERYONE starts walking towards high ground immediately after the earthquake happens, then no-one should be killed by the tsunami. In other words, all these people are close enough to a large hill that they CAN make it ... provided that they get moving immediately.

I think the study said that there are about 95,000 people "at risk" from the tsunami wave - if it happens. Geologists seem to be very confident that the tsunami WILL happen.

The only real problem with the study, is that all these towns are going to get hit by a quake with magnitude 8-9. It will probably collapse a lot of buildings and generate a lot of chaos. So it's not obvious that everyone will start walking, immediately after that quake hits the area.

Pete