The massive undersea earthquake on Tuesday near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula propelled tsunami waves across the Pacific Rim, including toward the Pacific Northwest.
Though the West Coast, including Washington, emerged relatively unscathed, let’s not only breathe a collective sigh of relief. Instead, view the quake as a renewed call to prepare this region for the possibility of things to come.
The Northwest is itself overdue for a megaquake. The Cascadia Subduction Zone, where the Juan de Fuca Plate is sliding underneath the North American plate, last endured a megathrust quake in 1700. Oral histories from coastal tribes confirm the subsequent tsunami washed entire villages out to sea. Another such quake is likely to occur in the coming decades, seismologists say.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Fault, running beneath the Cascade Foothills to the Kitsap Peninsula, last let rip in 900 A.D. and produced an estimated 16-foot high tsunami. It, too, is due for another round.
Unlike Kamchatka’s 8.8 magnitude quake on the other side of the Pacific, a Cascadia or Seattle fault quake could generate a tsunami that leaves little time to evacuate from sea level. Picture giant saltwater waves within Puget Sound’s many inlets, sloshing back and forth like a giant bathtub.
In short, we are nowhere near as ready as we need to be.
On a personal level: Making a plan for how to rapidly move to higher ground is essential. Hazard maps, created by the state’s Department of Natural Resources, can help people find the best ways to quickly move out of harm’s way to a higher elevation at a predetermined evacuation site.
Aim for something 100 feet above sea level or 1 mile from a coastline. Find out if your city, or area, has an evacuation plan.
Disappointingly, the Trump administration is kneecapping the most critical federal investments for safeguarding at-risk communities. A program known as Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities earmarked $182 million for 27 projects across Washington, and billions more across the country. Instead of proceeding with necessary protections, including a tsunami evacuation structure in Westport, part of coastal Grays Harbor County, the funding has been axed.
Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown has sued the administration to overturn the cuts.
Previous investments in earthquake and tsunami preparedness should reinforce the need for greater spending — not less — by Congress and the president. The Kamchatka quake is a case in point in how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration quickly warned local residents of the potential danger. Data gathering buoys that bob throughout the Pacific gave scientists real-time information to ready coastal populations for the conditions ahead.
“We have this capability because of investments we’ve made in infrastructure,” said Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, ranking member of the committee that oversees NOAA and the National Weather Service.
For its part, the state Legislature also allocated $151.5 million mainly to relocate three schools out of tsunami zones on Washington’s coast, in Ocean Shores, Taholah and Cape Flattery, respectively, according to the Washington State Standard. But the state’s efforts to tackle the problem lag behind its neighbors, including British Columbia, which invested more than $1.9 billion in a seismic mitigation program more than two decades ago.
The mammoth quake this past week should remind this region, as elsewhere, that earthquakes and tsunamis are a very real threat. At times, lawmakers, from Congress to the local city council, may be inclined to think of such risks as out-of-sight, out-of-mind and focus on other pressing priorities.
They cannot afford to do so.
