Alaska Quake Raises Concern For When Portland Gets 'The Big One'

PORTLAND, OR – The images were startling, disconcerting. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Anchorage and the area for hundreds of miles. While miraculously no one was injured, the scenes of devastation to the infrastructure left people very concerned, unnerved.

Especially in Portland and the Willamette Valley.

"While earthquakes are decidedly science, predicting when they will is most definitely not. This much is known: major, catastrophic quakes have struck the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which runs through Oregon, on a fairly regular basis.

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And based on those numbers, a quake is overdue.

Because of this, every year the state holds the Great Oregon Shakeout drill to keep people on their toes. Survival tips are given dealing with issues from how to prepare to what to do next.

The state's Office of Emergency Management says that 672,623 Oregonians registered for the drill this year, the most ever.

At 10:18 a.m. on a Thursday in October, organizations, businesses, schools, and other organizations practiced what to do if "The Big One" does happen.

"As we build a culture of preparedness within our youth it's going to benefit Oregonians for decades to come," Oregon Office of Emergency Management Director Andrew Phelps said.

Phelps and other officials say that it's always good to prepare.

A report last year by the City Club of Portland said that the city isn't really. And it's not clear the city ever will be.

"A 9.0 megathrust earthquake at the Cascadia subduction zone will shake the Pacific Northwest to its foundations," the report said. "Minimizing damage and maximizing community capacities to respond will speed Portland's recovery."

The report focused on five areas it called the "linchpins of resilience" and the steps the city can take to help make sure the city can bounce back from such a disaster.

The five areas are: fuel, buildings, lifelines, people, and coordinated planning and investment in resilience. In each area, the report found problems and offered ideas to fix them.

"Liquid fuel will power both rescue and recovery," they write. Yet... "Almost 90 percent of the state's liquid fuel is funneled through fuel tanks" on a six-mile stretch on the west bank of the Willamette that were built on a soils likely to liquify in a quake.

"That would cause the tanks to tilt and rupture, triggering a massive environmental disaster and creating a fuel shortage that would hobble both short-term rescue and long-term rebuilding."
Then there's buildings.

"In a resilient city, most people would remain in their homes and return to their workplaces after a disaster," the report says. "But few Portland structures – new construction as well as old – would be functional after a Cascadia earthquake."

By lifelines, the report was referring to the city's many bridges that connect Portland to the rest of the world.

"A Cascadia earthquake could devastate Portland's brittle transportation network," says the report, not building anyone's confidence by reminding people the network is already 'brittle.'

"Roads, runways, marine terminals, rail tracks, bridges and approaches to bridges are at high risk from soil liquefaction, landslides and debris from damaged buildings

"Immediately after a major quake, our rivers will become barriers to recovery."

The report points out that while the newly built Tilikum Crossing would likely survive, the approaches to it would not.

"The complexity of impacts resulting from a major earthquake is difficult to imagine," the report found. "A multitude of physical, financial, business, education and social networks will be damaged."

The City Club has many recommendations including:

• Multnomah County should begin upgrading or replacing the Burnside Bridge within three years;
• The Legislature should allow cities and counties to grant property tax exemptions to offset retrofitting costs;
• School districts in the Portland metro area should provide students and their parents with comprehensive information about earthquake risks and preparedness strategies;
• Portland and other local governments should appoint a resilience officer or designate an existing high-level position to be responsible for resilience efforts; and
• The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries should commission a geotechnical study of the soils in the Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) Hub and alternatives for soil hardening. If grant funding is unavailable, the Legislature should appropriate funds for the study.

You can read the whole report here.

If you want more information about the Shakeout or what to do in an earthquake including tips on preparing, the has set up a website.

Photo by Dan Douthit, OEM, shows students at Rigler Elementary School in Portland taking part in the drill.