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Seismac gaps in washington state5/30/2023 The Seattle Fault zone runs throught the city of Seattle and represents a major threat for its ihnabitants. “ What we know about this fault is that it’s ruptured may times in the past…it will happen again. “ The risk is complicated, but there are millions of people who live in the Seattle area,” said Forson. T hen consider that the Seattle Fault is a complex of faults with various branches that run at or just below the surface. That may not sound like much more than the magnitude 6.8 quake of 2001 based on the numbers, but that the Nisqually quake occurred some 30 miles underground. Moving inland, the Seattle Fault is capable of a magnitude 7. Resources on tsunami danger and preparedness in Westport, Grays Harbor County, Long Beach Peninsula, and Coastal evacuation maps. “ That’s why we’re pushing for a lot of vertical evacuation structures to be built – hotels or schools, because it’s not an easy problem to solve,” he said. “ You just need one person to crash or a power line to fall over the road, and the roads are unusable.” We’re working on pedestrian evacuation maps that show the best routes for pedestrians to take to evacuate,” said Forson. “ We do not encourage people to evacuate in vehicles. Westport currently is the only location with a vertical evacuation structure designed for a tsunami. There are also tsunami evacuation signs on the highways. But Forson says you also need to know what to do when the shaking happens. The coast is now the home of one of the state’s largest network of warning sirens called All Hazard Alert Broadcast (AHABs). There’s a reason the lands around the Pacific Ocean are called the “Ring of Fire.” The earthquakes, tsunamis, and the proximity of volcanos are all part of the same system. That place is the Ocosta School.īut the Cascadia Subduction Zone isn’t just a fault it’s an overlapping joint between tectonic plates, parts of the Earth’s crust that float on layers of molten rock. The Westport area is now the first in North America to have a community vertical evacuation structure, a building strong enough to resist earthquake and tsunami wave forces and give people a platform above the expected wave heights. Along the coast residents may have between 20 and 30 minutes to get to higher ground. In Washington, we do not have tsunami walls. Shaking map by Department of Natural Resources The Cascadia Subduction Zone poses a major earthquake threat for Seattle area. This part of the Japanese coast had not seen this type of seismic rupture in some 800 years, and what failed was that walls built to keep tsunami waves were not high enough. Tohoku killed nearly 16,000 people most died as a result of drowning or being crushed in the tsunami.īecause Japan was so well prepared, most retrofitted buildings outside of the tsunami zone survived. You saw its potential in the 9.1 magnitude Tohuku earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan in March 2011. past Oregon and Washington and doesn’t end until it’s north of Vancouver Island in Canada. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a giant fault running from Cape Mendocino, Calif. Now let’s visit the 3 most dangerous earthquake faults for Seattle one by one: 1. The most dangerous earthquake faults for Seattle: The Cascadia subduction Zone, the Seattle Fault and the South Whidbey Island Fault. The South Whidbey Island Fault running from northwest to southeast of the southern tip of the island. It ends up near the Cascade Mountains and west onto the Olympic Peninsula.
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