This is the most riveting article I have read to-date on the Pacific Northwest's vulnerability to catastrophic damage from a Cascade Subduction Zone earthquake. If this doesn't inspire residents to strap their water heater to the wall, bolt their house to the foundation and do all the other preps the situation calls for, I don't know what will -- except perhaps a full-length feature film.

Wouldn't have to be exaggerated, the scientific evidence is sufficiently horrifying to thrill moviegoers.

The article is from the July 20, 2015, New Yorker magazine.


http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

"...By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”



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