> Perhaps no line in the entire six-thousand-word piece attracted as much attention as this declaration by Kenneth Murphy, head of the fema division responsible for Cascadia: “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” The first important thing to note about that remark is that, needless to say, Murphy really said it, and stood by it in the fact-checking process—so, clearly, fema is anticipating that the region will be in very grave shape.
> That said, “toast” is not what you would call a precise description, so let me be more specific. What Murphy did not mean is that everyone west of I-5 will be injured or killed; fema’s casualty figures, while horrifying, amount to under one-half of one per cent of the population of the region. Nor did he mean that every structure west of the interstate will fail
Correct. Operating assumptions help in planning disaster recovery operations. For instance, which are the areas that you have a very high degree of certainty will survive? These are the areas in which you want to muster your defenses so to speak.
I read that as, "we can use I-5 as a distribution backbone if we prioritize its repair because it is very unlikely to suffer too much damage." I also assume that simulations indicate it will not need much repair. Bonus points if we've already re-engineered the sections of I-5 most likely to need repair. It could save time later.
So now we can make a plan around what we're likely to have, and if we have more when the time comes it's gravy.
Basically, don't position all your recovery assets and facilities along the 101. Doesn't mean the 101 won't be there, it only means your plan has a smaller chance of falling apart if you position the facilities you'll need along I-5.
I really doubt it. A lot of the land West of I-5 is drumlins/drumlinoids like Fremont Ridge in Seattle. That's solid ground that has been around since the last glaciation and has come through many earthquakes just fine.
On the other hand...If somebody like Brian Atwater said it, that would really get my attention. He's one of the main geologists who tracked down the geological evidence to date the 1700 Earthquake. The force is strong in that one. [1]
It's a great soundbite, but it loses a lot of context when distilled down.
Most of the infill west of I5 in the Seattle area will probably liquefy, but there's mountain ranges to the west of I5 that would take a hell of a quake to toast.
Yes, I have assumed they meant something more specific, like "every building and road west of I5" (I live only a few miles east, so I doubt I'd be unscathed myself, somehow).
I'm more concerned about the homes that will go up in flames due to ruptured gas lines. With the fire department overwhelmed, the potential amount of toxic smoke/fumes post-quake scares me more than the quake. Assuming I survive, assuming my family/friends do, assuming we all even are happy about being survivors of something so colossal, at such scale...
There aren't many places with natural gas significantly west of I-5 in Washington. There's a main artery down WA-12 to Aberdeen and the harbor, and that's it.
There's no natural gas service anywhere else on the WA pacific coast, nor the northern coast of the olympic peninsula (Sequim, Port Angeles), or the west bank of the Hood canal. The entire Olympic Peninsula is without natural gas except for one metro area. They actually have to haul tanks full of the stuff to the paper mill in Port Townsend to use.
Yep, this is what always gets me about the original quote - the peninsula _does_ exist, and while the damage will be very significant, a lot of us will be just fine, and most assuredly not toast.
It's a weird statement to make, because the route of I5 is fairly arbitrary, geologically speaking. Lower parts of downtown Seattle may be at risk, but is upper Queen Anne hill? Ballard may be partially screwed, but Crown Hill is hundreds of feet higher in elevation. That assumes that Puget Sound even generates a large Tsunami based on an offshore quake.
If we're talking about Oregon it gets even weirder since the population centers have a coastal range in between them and seawater. I don't know enough about the various fields involved to know if the Columbia river's level would raise catastrophically in such a scenario.
> because the route of I5 is fairly arbitrary, geologically speaking
You sure about that? From Olympia to the Oregon border I-5 sits on the lowest, flattest stretch of land between the coastal range and the cascades. That's why it keeps getting flooded out by the Chehailis river.
To the north, through Whatcom County the route is anything but geologically arbitrary: it's the unique route that required the minimum amount of blasting into Chuckanut rock.
Parent post seems like a pretty city-centric view of the world. The dozen or so miles that pass through Seattle might be arbitrary to within a Seattle-diameter, but that's an irrelevantly small part of the freeway.
There is not a significant tsunami risk from a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake in Seattle, due to its topography and distance from the fault. The biggest risk in that regard is from the Seattle fault, a thrust fault, that runs through the middle of Elliott Bay, which can both generate large water displacements and can cause large subsidence of the land (i.e. it can literally sink a dozen feet during an earthquake). Seattle is geographically very vertical, and heavily shielded from the open ocean, which limits the tsunami effects.
The real risk is civil engineering in nature. While the fault is some distance away, it will shake hard and for a long time. Unreinforced masonry will probably be destroyed, and Seattle has a lot of old masonry in some neighborhoods. Some older structures not up to the current seismic code will likely fare poorly. Seattle has had enough local 7+ earthquakes that a distant offshore 8-9 won’t feel too much different, but the shaking time will be much longer. Landslides are undoubtedly a risk.
Portland will likely fare much worse than Seattle. A modern steel or wood-framed building constructed in the last 20 years will very likely survive almost anything, they are built for it. Older steel and wood buildings that are still standing have already been through some earthquakes; not as large but they won’t immediately collapse.
The real problem will be restoring infrastructure in the aftermath.
Not sure if this is what they're referring to, but in the downtown area I-5 traces the original shoreline. Everything to the west is fill from Seattle's many regrades. https://youtu.be/oSSxdogrv1s?t=519
The danger zone in Western Oregon is places like the Tualatin Basin (which is all West of I-5). This is the location of things like all of the Intel Fabrication plants in Oregon, Nike World Headquarters, etc. The entire basin will liquefy in the event of a giant earthquake.
I don't know if the statement is backed up by science, but its a falsifiable empirical prediction. It is entirely within the realm of science to make predictions that certain geographic regions will have significant structural and human damage in the event of some hypothetical natural disaster.
>It is entirely within the realm of science to make predictions that certain geographic regions will have significant structural and human damage in the event of some hypothetical natural disaster.
I agree. But that's not the same as saying it's "toast".
That's debatable. It can mean anything from doomed to in trouble.
IDIOMS FOR TOAST
be toast, Slang. to be doomed, ruined, or in trouble:
>Would you object if he said "utterly destroyed" instead?
Yes I would object.
Does it mean everything west of I5 is going to fall into the ocean? All human structures are going to be levelled? Only structures over 2 stories not made out of wood will be levelled? Or just that everything west of I5 will have more damage than everything east.
And I doubt that EVERYTHING east of I5 is going to share the same fate. The I5 is a human made road, not a geographic feature. It doesn't control earthquake outcomes.
In Oregon, the land to the west of I-5 is clay silt from the Missoula Floods that came down the Columbia Gorge 13,000 - 15,000 years ago. The clay silt is expected to completely liquefy in the event of a major earthquake.
Widespread death and destruction. Seriously, other than the houses on Cooper Mountain, I don't seriously expect anything to still be standing in the Tualatin Basin when the big one hits.
It's not a science paper. It's in the New Yorker. It's supposed to be interesting. It also features great lines such as:
"Oh, shit, Goldfinger thought, although not in dread, at first: in amazement. "
"As Goldfinger put it, “In the late eighties and early nineties, the paradigm shifted to ‘uh-oh.’ ”"
"...magnitude 5.0, magnitude 4.0, magnitude why are the neighbors moving their sofa at midnight"
I was actually making the point that the FEMA Director for the Pacific Northwest probably knows a lot more about the scenario in question, and that his statement may be grounded very deeply in fact such that it's not hyperbolic at all.
Ouch.