ResilienceU.S. Northwest prepares for the Big One

Seismologists believe the Pacific Northwest is overdue for an earthquake that could register at over 8.0 on the Richter scale, leading many emergency management professionals in the region to anticipate and prepare for the devastating impact such an event would have on the local economy and quality of life. Last month, engineers, emergency managers, and public officials from across the region met at Centralia College as part of the Construction and Best Practices Summit hosted by the college and the Pacific Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy. The second day of the summit focused on how best to prepare for and recover from an earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a 1,000-kilometer fault stretching from Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, California.

The Chronicle reports thatthat Matt Cutts, critical infrastructure program manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District, discussed what he termed as the Triple 3 Resilience Target — a goal of managing the aftermath of an earthquake to have emergency services running within three days, level of services to sustain the economy within three weeks, and a target of three years to stabilize the economy and prepare for future disasters.

“We have such an interdependent nature to our infrastructure,” Cutts said. “After an earthquake, roads are going to be down — but we need fuel and electricity as well. Those things are so tightly wrapped together, it’s like a Gordian knot.”

In the aftermath of an earthquake, aging buildings are likely to collapse, causing hundreds of deaths. Many roads would become impassable, and many businesses throughout the Pacific Northwest would cease to offer services for some time. “If we had this happen tomorrow, we’d be looking at thousands of people dead. You’re also talking about months of recovery,” Cutts said. “We really need to increase the public awareness of the possibilities. Emergency managers are always thinking about what could happen, but Joe Taxpayer doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.”

Oregon Emergency Management director David Stuckey used the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami to signify the importance of educating the public. “Right after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, I got a call from a commissioner on one of the coastal counties,” Stuckey said. “There were people running to the beach with surfboards.… We have to create a broader perspective on how to educate people.”

Efforts to retrofit buildings and critical infrastructure across the region have been made but emergency managers insist that the major focus now is how to restore critical infrastructure and the economy after a large earthquake. “If we can achieve the Triple 3 Resilience Target, we end up with a manageable disaster instead of a catastrophe that would take us months or even years to recover from,” Cutts said.