Airlift capacity has improved since the 19th century :-). Between 9.0M EQ effects and tsunamis and seiches, there's not alot of hope that the ports will be operable for a week or more, and if operable whether you can roll trucks or railroads anywhere near them to offload assistance. Haiti was a good example of a port damaged by an EQ, that took 2-3 weeks to resume some reduced capacity - and it generally takes cargo ships at least 2 weeks to get here from anywhere with needed supplies. Meantime we have I-5 and I-90 that will be crippled N miles from population centers, so trucks rolling with relief supplies and staging them for airlift into the damage area from there, modulo surviving and patched up runways at Portland, SeaTac, Paine, NAS Whidbey, Bremerton etc. Routes out to the coast may not survive tsunami and EQs. In the Puget Sound area our fabled floating bridges might be taken out by seiches, 8-16 foot waves that will rock Lake Washington like an unruly 5 year old in a bathtub. There are a zillion bridges and roads that could be taken out by landslides and shake activity. On the response side, there are Naval Stations on the Oly Peninsula and in Everett typically with aircraft carriers in port to deploy; helicopters and C-147s can be sortied from Spokane Fairchild and California as necessary to supply the area until roads and bridges can be recovered. The PNW's level 4 trauma center has an iffy chance of surviving a CSZ or other significant EQ. A CSZ event is probably a worst case scenario for the PNW, requiring not only a tsunami response along the coast but also severe damage and casualties across the interior. A CSZ EQ will require the type of national and international response we saw in Katrina. It will be a mess. Local county or state EMD are rich with HIVA analyses that are still being updated after drilling on this scenario in 2010, and taking into account new research and the outcome from the Japan EQ - http://www.kingcounty.gov/safety/prepare/EmergencyManagementProfessionals/Plans.aspx.

The reality is that while dire and lethal, the CSZ is a worst case disaster, and there will be many other less dire and lethal disasters before it occurs. Most of the EM budgets are going to an all hazards response, and to responding to the ever present reality of wind storms and ice storms and floods which happen ever year or few, and which tend to incapacitate most of the PNW almost as badly as a CSZ quake.

This almost goes without saying in this forum, but I encourage anyone alarmed by the potential of a CSZ quake to review these HIVA analyses and get prepared for the more common ones, because by doing that you are more prepared for the bigger ones. Also get involved - local responders and secondary responders like the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Southern Baptists etc need you in the event hundreds or thousands of people need food and shelter - but also between times when folks in your community need you, right now. CERT skills may be valuable, preserving the lives of family and neighborss. Folks with ham radios who are licensed and trained and not afraid to use them will also be in demand, and as hams know the better organized you are into groups the more effective you will be in coordinating responses. That sort of thing. My perspective, we all spend alot of time responding to the smaller disasters, and while we have plans for the bigger ones that may occur every 100-200 years, our ability to respond to larger disasters comes from repeatedly responding to the smaller ones. There is a helluva lot of coordination that has to happen for folks in King or even Kitsap county to help out folks out in Jefferson or Pacific County along the coast, but frankly in the early days we won't be able to help them, let alone access them. We're all on our own for a while in a CSZ event, just like after major wind or snow storms, so it makes sense to prepare accordingly.