Tsunami Threat Could Catch Northwest Off Guard

[Purveyor]

CANNON BEACH, Ore. (AP) -- When the big one hits the Pacific Northwest, the best place to escape the wall of water moving at jetliner speed from 50 miles off the coast may be a City Hall on stilts.

Once the ground finishes two to four minutes of lurching and shaking, residents and tourists in Cannon Beach would flock to the refuge on concrete columns 14 feet above the waves racing beneath.

They would ... if the refuge gets built. There's nothing like it from Northern California to British Columbia and, so far, no money for anything like it.

--CLIP

Scientists say it's inevitable that an offshore seismic menace called the Cascadia Subduction Zone will one day unleash a megaquake. The last time it happened was 300 years ago when a magnitude-9 shaker spawned enormous ocean waves that slammed into the West Coast and damaged Japanese fishing villages.

MORE...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WEST_COAST_TSUNAMI?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-26-11-04-56

[Angry Dragon]

1. Go up into the mountains

14' will not save them

[grasswire]

7. there are not many roads into the mountains there

As far as I know, there is only one road out of Cannon Beach to the north where there are hills several miles away, and one road out of town to the south which runs along the coast itself without much elevation. Cannon Beach is a delightful, delightful little town. But it's pretty damned flat.

[DavidDvorkin]

9. The roads that head east from the coast tend to be narrow and winding

That struck me, the last time I was in that area. There were signs along the coast warning people to head for high ground in case of a tsunami, but I thought that it wouldn't take much traffic to make those roads very slow going.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. How much warning would coastal residents have?

I couldn't see that in the article.

[lonestarnot]

4. Undoubtedly not enough.

[uppityperson]

5. It depends on where the quake is, which fault line

There is one off the coast and another inside Puget Sound.

[jemelanson]

6. Not much if any since the GOP Lead House wants to cut the

funding for NOAA and for programs that run and maintain the Warning systems for this. It will also cut down on the Tornado warnings and Hurricane warning. You know those programs do not work very well and do not aid the Masters of the GOP. They only help the people. Corporations have nothing to fear from those pesky natural disasters.

[howaboutme]

8. Can we trust the government to warn or protect the minions?

Here is an uplifting video I picked up in another DU thread, related somewhat. Thought provoking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCxBDDk4Y-M&feature=player_embedded

[howaboutme]

3. There is no money

There is no money for this kind of infrastructure or security in the USA.

We've spent it on wars that had nothing to do with US interests, enriching Wall street bankers/CEOs, outsourcing our capital to Asia and giving aid to nations that are better off fiscally than the USA. The bankers, financiers and CEOs have it all and use it for themselves, and to buy off a government that writes laws to contain the rights of the people, and to cut the taxes for the rich. You can be sure that these mega million and billionaires have their safe houses and private aircraft and helicopters at their beck and call.