Books

This Political Earthquake Is Inevitable

When, as 'Cascadia's Fault' portends, a mega-thrust quake rips BC to California, politicians will fall through cracks.

By Crawford Kilian, 25 May 2011, TheTyee.ca

Cascadia Fault Line

Subduction of the oceanic Juan de Fuca plate beneath the continental crust of North America. Source of diagram: Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

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  • Cascadia's Fault
  • Jerry Thompson
  • Harpercollins (2011)

This is most important political book to appear in Canada for many years.

Jerry Thompson, a longtime journalist, doesn't say much if anything about politics in his new book. But the political implications of his book, for Canada and the United States, are inescapable.

Thompson tells the story of the Cascadia Fault in part as a journalist's autobiography: He's been dealing with geology stories since Mount St. Helens erupted three decades ago. And the professional geologists, we learn, aren't that far ahead of him.

Half a century ago, "continental drift" was still considered a crank theory. J. Tuzo Wilson and others demonstrated in the 1960s that plate tectonics really does drive the continents around the planet, but it took a couple of decades for scientists to absorb the implications. Thompson documents that slow process as geologists began to tie events together: the 1960 Chile earthquake, Mount St. Helens, the Sumatran quake and tsunami of 2004.

Plate tectonics predicts frequent and enormous "subduction quakes" as the sea floor gradually pushes under the edges of the continents, forming deep trenches. But no such quakes have occurred in the Pacific Northwest since Europeans arrived, and the Juan de Fuca plate didn't seem to have formed an undersea trench.

So geologists assumed that the long fault offshore was somehow locked from Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino. This region seemed to be a special case, exempt from disastrous "megathrust" earthquakes.

Evidence of old disasters

But as Thompson shows, evidence began to accumulate. Along the west coast, researchers found beds of sea grass buried under layers of sand so quickly the grass hadn't even rotted. A grove of ancient cedars stood dead, killed by salt water. The trench was there after all, blanketed in mud and sediments. Cores, taken all along the coast, showed that enormous mudslides had swept down undersea canyons almost twenty times -- simultaneously.

The only explanation was a series of mega-thrust quakes caused by Cascadia's fault. Far from being exempt, the Pacific Northwest suffers chronically from 9.0-level quakes. The clincher came from Japanese records of a tsunami without a local quake. The tsunami, we now realize, occurred on the Cascadia fault on the night of Jan. 26, 1700.

So we have begun to understand our situation only in the last 20 years or so. If a Cascadia mega-thrust quake had arrived in 1960, we literally would not have known what hit us.

Thompson's book is a clear, concise history of recent geological findings, complete with interviews with the scientists who have made that history. He doesn't speculate much. He prefers to set out the narrative, explain the concepts, and point out the need for personal preparation.

In effect, he says, the next Big One will paralyze most government services from Haida Gwaii to Cape Mendocino. Most of us will survive, but we will be on our own for days to weeks or even longer. It will be more like Haiti than Japan.

This is where Thompson's book becomes politically seismic. He has the evidence for an inevitable magnitude 9 mega-thrust quake somewhere off our coast. For up to five long minutes, it will shake Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and even Sacramento. Within a few minutes, tsunamis will race out up and down the coast and across the Pacific.

Then what?

Political aftershocks

Nothing in Canadian or U.S. history has prepared us for such an event -- not even the San Francisco quake of 1906. Even the March 11 disaster in Japan is no guideline, because the Japanese are used to quakes and have taken steps to reduce their impact. The whole population is used to quake and tsunami drills. Building codes ensure that high-rises may sway, but they won't fall.

Even so, Japan's government is staggering through the aftermath. Scores of thousands are still sleeping in high school gyms. Thousands more are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, unemployment, and a host of other sorrows. The failures of Tepco, the corporation that owns the Fukushima nuclear plant, have undercut the legitimacy of the Japanese social order. The quake has pitched the country into a worsening recession.

Now imagine B.C. after the next 9.0 quake. Old school buildings, not yet retrofitted, have collapsed on thousands of children. Blizzards of broken glass have fallen into the streets of the West End. High-rises and townhouses in Richmond have toppled into the liquefied soil of the Fraser Delta. Vancouver International Airport is a salt marsh. Fires are breaking out everywhere, but water is gone. So is electricity.

Several 10-metre tsunamis have swept into Victoria harbour, carrying yachts and tour buses up Government Street or into the legislature. Port Alberni has been hit, much worse than in 1964. It's no better south of the border, where Seattle and Portland are in ruins.

Almost no one can respond. The army's in Afghanistan, the fire halls and police stations are wrecked, and the paramedics can't get anywhere because the streets are full of rubble and corpses.

We Canadians are not a stoic people. If our kids are buried in rubble and we can't get to the hospital because the bridge is down and the hospital has collapsed anyway, we will make someone pay for our grief. We won't say it's Cascadia's fault; we will blame our politicians.

So it is very much in our politicians' interest to read Jerry Thompson's book as a Dummies' Guide to Disaster Survival. Usually they look no further ahead than the next election, if that. They assume the status quo will last forever. If they think about disasters, they prefer to bet that at worst, Cascadia will happen when the other guys are in power.

Thinking about the unthinkable

Voters don't like to think about future trouble either. Some of us base our retirement plans on winning the lottery, and the whole premise of "progressive" politics is that life should always get better. Tsunamis and earthquakes happen to other people far away.

But some parties, provincial and federal, might actually treat the voters like adults. They could build their platforms around planning for the inevitable catastrophe: tougher building codes, trained citizens, stronger emergency infrastructure, and financial reserves to cover the economic damage. When elected, they would carry out their platforms.

Economist Paul Krugman calls government "an insurance company with an army," chiefly concerned with supporting and protecting people. Politicians who understand that could save untold lives and wealth by consciously planning to minimize catastrophe.

We are preparing to spend hundreds of billions on jet planes that might some day fight the wicked Russians over the ice-free waters of the Arctic Ocean. Why? To protect Canadians from some undefined and unlikely disaster.

Instead of this halfwit science-fiction scenario, we could invest a fraction of those billions into making sure that we who live in Victoria and Vancouver survive a disaster that is demonstrably inevitable, not fiction.

Disaster preparation would be a policy for more than just coastal B.C. All over North America, climate change is triggering forest fires, floods, and droughts. We will live with that prospect for the foreseeable future.

As Jerry Thompson shows, even our scientists recently assumed that we were somehow exempt from such catastrophes. But when the evidence overthrew their assumptions, they changed their minds. We should be able to do the same. [Tyee]

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

20 Comments:

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  • seth

    1 year ago

    science

    You understand that fascists don't believe in science - it contradicts their religious beliefs?

    The country is run by a man who believes the earth was formed 6000 years ago in the Garden of Eden and man walked with dinosaurs.

    We voted for him in large quantities in BC giving him a majority government so he can do with us as he pleases. This after reelecting the fascist Canwest/Gordo government.

    We so richly deserve our fate!!!!

  • Art the Green

    1 year ago

    those fighter's arent for a

    those fighter's arent for a science fiction scenario, it's canada doing its part to help NATO antagonize russia. the other phases of the plan are outlined in this story: http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone11182010.html

    i think the politicians reaction to taking this book's message to heart can be seen in the movie Dr. Strangelove. See also Katrina, fukushima, 3 mile island, 9-11.. they'll protect corporate interests over human lives and cover up any evidence of their incompetence. i think there's some quote about how, in a democracy, the merchant class will have their needs "curiously attended to" that seems to explain the motive.

    it would take everyday people demanding this constantly to get somewhere near prepared.. give them no choice but to go along. also i heard about something called the aftershock action alliance... and there was the story of Common Ground in new orleans

  • doggone

    1 year ago

    Groundswell?

    Here is a good looking link:
    http://www.pnsn.org/HIST_CAT/SRL76-2Ludwin.pdf
    (I have to work today so I'll read it later)
    Steve Earl of the then Mallaspina College (Now VIU, I think) also has a good analysis of this event.
    My first reaction to the article was: Sort of stretching for connection.
    But on second thought: Yes!
    If we do not use what we have, like today's pictures of disasters and understandably slow response (Joplin, MO tornado for instance) to plan and prepare what exactly do we need this "Great Big Brain" for?
    (Hats off to Kurt)

  • doggone

    1 year ago

    Neutral Ground, New Orleans

    http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Patrap/comment.html?entrynum=293&tstamp=#commenttop

  • freebear

    1 year ago

    That is why I am not in a big city

    I think your chances are better if you are located where you can survive off the land and sea while the 'recovery' takes place.

  • Fish-counter

    1 year ago

    When the Big One hits, we will be almost as helpless as Haiti

    In the immediate vicinity and for the first week, that is. We have a personal responsibility to make our own preparations.

    In our house, that means keeping three 20-lb propane tanks full and stored away from the house, several five-gallon plastic jars of drinking water and basic foodstuffs in storage. We have umpteen LED flashlights and warm clothing etc.

    Any discussion of politicians is misdirection. It is simply not expedient for any generaton to actually plan for the Big One, because the probability of its occurrence in any given lifetime is remote; perhaps a 1:20 chance.

    The only thing we can and must do is to build schools to withstand the shaking, because we do not want our kids buried in rubble. Even that is a massive undertaking and in Nanaimo, a golden opportunity to build a new high school was lost recently, because the School District could not make a decision about merging NDSS and Woodlands. So you see, it is not the politicians who are at fault, but the School District, the teachers and the parents (in other words, us, individually and collectively). Both of the old high schools are disasters waiting to happen.

  • Grumpy

    1 year ago

    If a "9" mega-thrust earthquake happens..................

    1) The entire SkyTrain/Canada Line metro maybe badly damaged as the guide way was only designed to accommodate a "deep" earthquake and not a shallow one!

    The result, would be a failure on much of the guide way and collapse on portions of the Canada Line cut-and-cover tunnel. Bored tunnels survive earthquakes much better than C & C subways.

    If the quake happens during rush hours, then we may have over 20,000 casualties, with many suffering from fractures, who will later succumb to their injuries due to lack of medical care.

    2) the major bridge spans, except for the decrepit Pattullo and Fraser River Rail Bridge (which both would be severely damaged) would survive, but the approaches to the bridges would not, leaving the region in transportation chaos.

    3) Older brick schools would suffer major damage, if not collapse. If a quake happens during school hours, major casualties.

    4) Liquefaction would cause great damage in Richmond, Surrey and Delta.

    5) A tsunami would be the coup de gras to many survivors in low lying areas.

    Total casualties in a "9" Richter scale mega thrust earthquake 100,000 to 200,000.

  • cboo44

    1 year ago

    BINGO !! Fish-counter wins !

    "Disaster preparation would be a policy for more than just coastal B.C. All over North America, climate change is triggering forest fires, floods, and droughts. We will live with that prospect for the foreseeable future."

    Disaster preparation begins and ends with the individual, NOT "the government". "Government help" requires infrastructure and there won't be any.
    All levels of government are greedy, self-serving idiots. They pour millions and millions into "disaster services" in SW BC that immediately afterwards will be buried in rubble or burning brightly. Disaster services from OUTSIDE the the populated, urban corner of BC are minimal at best and would never have the capacity, equipment, resources or training to come in and begin to help. DUMB.
    The only bright side is that most governments(municipal, provincial and federal)who are responsible for the disaster planning, will be buried under the rubble, along with the rest of the population.

  • OwlRol

    1 year ago

    Given the geological

    Given the geological evidence, this mega thrust Cascadia earthquake will happen, not might happen, sometime between tonight and 200 years from now. As time goes on the odds increase.

    Two problems. Firstly, only a very few humans, and Harpo is not among them, can think with a broad vision, even 100 years into the future.

    Politicians, economists, CEOs and most Canadians rarely think beyond their own families and social circles more than on a multi year, short term basis, except perhaps when arranging wills, that in the grand scheme of things, is still very short term.

    Secondly, we have mostly neglected the Precautionary Principle in favour of Risk Assessment, mainly based on financial cost to benefit ratios.

    Had our ancestors thought this way, there would be no evidence of the Great Wall of China, pyramids in Egypt or Guatamala, christian churches in Europe or Ethiopia, etc.

    Our capitalist system prevents such thinking, rather the opposite, build as cheap as possible and "buyer beware". No problem with bridges, pipe lines, offshore oil wells or nuclear power plants, Risk Assessment says that if the standard safety rules are in place, then it must be safe, and we'll save or make money compared to using real precaution. In our system its mostly the biggest risk takers who float to the top and exercise power and control.

    Unfortunately, the planet and its various interlocking parts, be they tectonic, atmospheric or biological, don't work that way. In our arrogance to make the land, oceans, air or life forms bend to our blind will (often called faith and not necessarily religious), sometimes we experience catastrophic blowback, and only afterward, we wonder why.

    Stocking up on water, non perishable foods, first aid kits, etc. are somewhat precautionary and wise, but what if collapse does not allow access and recovery of those supplies?

    A worst scenario might be that this mega quake occurs during one of our sub zero, week long cold snaps or during a heavy Pacific wind and rain storm.

    As in Japan, the best solutions are well practiced emergency routines and well built and prepared, community oriented facilities and infrastructures, to minimize the worst effects of such catastrophes.

    Our financial system says that such precautionary preparations are too expensive. Only when a crises erupts, are scapegoat fingers pointed and somehow those truly responsible weasel out of it (note the Gulf oil spill).

    We need to demand better, and that needs to come from government legislation and improved regulation standards, no matter how much the business lobyists grumble about higher costs (lower, short term profits). Money or lives?

  • fishingemma

    1 year ago

    How easy

    How easy to blame somebody else for not being prepared. Are YOU prepared? Do you have extra propane tanks, tent, subzero sleeping bags? Maybe plastic cover for your tent to withstand weeks in rainy season? I was amazed to see co-workers 'rolling eyes' when I mentioned storing several 5 gallon water jars. Start preparing today, don't count on helicopters hovering over your house dropping water, if this disaster happens. Government is a perfect reflection of us - mostly just talking about what should be done.

  • OwlRol

    1 year ago

    Interesting comments

    Fish counter, you are correct in that "personal responsibility" for safety comes first. I too, have stocks of fresh water, non perishable foods, etc.

    But I'm very glad that people who live in apartments or condos don't keep "three 20-lb propane tanks full and stored away from" the home, or even in it.

    Clearly there are different needs and procedures between rural and urban residents.

    Cboo44, "Disaster preparation begins... with the individual", but it cannot end without government assistance, including hospitals, whatever may be left of them. If not, casualty and death rates will increase exponentially.

    Freebear, stay away from the ocean for a week or two to avoid aftershock effects. There is an oral history of coastal villages being wiped out just prior to George Vancouver showing up. Consider post quake Anchorage, Alaska or Port Alberni.

    Grumpy, you're right. Most of Queensborough, Richmond and Delta should have been placed into the ALR rather than removed to allow medium and high density urban development in these watery habitats (recall the rightly named term "Ditchmond"?) Ever heard of sediment volcanoes during liquefaction? Not to mention flooding and river tsunamis, smaller cousin to the ocean type.

  • OwlRol

    1 year ago

    Improved government

    Improved government foresight and regulation must be hard pressed for by the electorate.

    Consider the Manitoba flooding this year, only a few years after the Red river (sea) fiasco.

    After a hurricane that nearly wiped out Galveston, Texas just over 100 years ago, a massive sea wall was built, but more importantly, government regulation demanded that builders put homes up on solid stilts. Only car ports or other temporary facilities were allowed below. Few problems since.

    Had the Manitoba government implemented such regulations on builders in what is essentially a massive flood plain, surely such a precautionary regulation would have minimized property damage in this last of an ongoing and probably increasing snow and water runoff cycles. A root cellar and tornado shelter can easily be refurbished after flooding recedes.

    The same type of strict building regulations for both public (hospitals, schools, libraries, bridges, city hall, etc.) or private (apartments, malls, gas stations, etc.) would cost more to build up front, but considerably less in the long run, notably insurance and litigation costs, (although that does perversely improve GDP), especially when the big one hits, even in our grandkids time. They'll thank us for this.

    What's in place already is too late to change without expensive retrofits, but cut off the relatively lax building standards now or as soon as possible.

    Yeah, can't live with a great beach view, more taxes and higher costs to buy, but why should so many of us live on the edge, financially or tectonically, only to be wiped out at the onset of a crisis?

    Its easy to be cynical about the political system, but it is the only larger scale coordinating entity we have and we must somehow make it work for us first and then less so for the big Corps. (it seems to be reversed at the moment but that's our ongoing struggle).

    Meanwhile we'll make our own preparations, some more than others. Advise and help others in need to become more prepared.

    But don't quit your job, sell your home and property, if you have such, expecting the end of the world and the rapture, no matter what any radio preacher tells you.

  • Fish-counter

    1 year ago

    Hi Grumpy: I agree with you but....

    To us, all those disasters would be across the pond. They would make a great disaster movie. I especially like the liquefaction thing. The Big One would be like a nuclear bomb hitting, without the radiation. It has been said many times, but most of the big hospitals would be at Ground Zero and therefore useless or inaccessible.

    For us, the consequences of being on Vancouver Island are that we would be overlooked in favour of the Lower Mainland. We would probably be OK for a couple of weeks, if we are prepared. I can't even begin to imagine the consequences for the Great Vancouver area.

    Canadians seem to have completely lost the idea of individual responsibility and enterprise. The role of government is to create the proper building codes. Even with the proper codes in place, it will take 100 years to replace all the old, deficient buildings. Stocking up on water, food and fuel is easy.

    Storing propane in high-rise apartment blocks may not be wise but storing water is.

  • RickOshea

    1 year ago

    Shock Wave

    I watched the Shock Wave documentary (Doc Zone) a while back - the point was made that giant under-sea 'land slides' at the mouth of the Fraser river (Vancouver) will send huge waves westward towards Vancouver Island...

    These will nail places like Sidney. I was always under the impression that only the west ward coasts would have to fear tsunamis. Well, maybe not.

    Also - google Cumbre Vieja - there is the potential for a mega-tsunami nailing the east coast of North America if this volcanic cinder cone in the Canary Islands collapses into the sea - a real possibility it appears.

    Hubris, Nemesis... so many people believe modern man has made the planet its bitch - I think otherwise.

  • Art the Green

    1 year ago

    common ground and aftershock

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Ground_Collective

    http://www.coactivate.org/projects/aftershock-action-alliance/why-we-think-this-work-is-important-for-all-of-us

    i'm not entirely sure aftershock still exists, but in BC we might have to start getting used to decreasing quality of service. maybe the lower mainland and victoria at least could use a similiar themed activist group. it already has one for all i know.. also dont underestimate how we actually can and will help each other when chips are down. in the okanagan, where i am, there are a lot of fires.. and the government relief centers do things like put in ID requirements and proof of residence as precondition for aid. it seems a lot of trouble to prevent a hypothetical homeless or starving guy or guy who forgot his papers from getting a snack. so then only landed evacuees are allowed disaster relief food.. meanwhile the donation generosity of people all over the province can end up being more than is needed. dont have direct evidence of that though.

  • Fish-counter

    1 year ago

    Rick: A tsunami in the Georgia Basin wouldn't get me either

    This house is 82 metres above sea level. Of course, we often walk the beaches.

    It may just be me, but as I get older, my fear of natural disasters subsides, so to speak. The probability of being hit by one is remote, compared to that of being a victim of car theft (my car has been broken into six times), mugging or home invasion. To put it into persperctive, there are many of these crimes every year.

    Whilst it is worth planning for an earthquake, we should fear our fellow humans far more than the Planet Earth.

  • Kreditanstalt

    1 year ago

    Don't Count on it...

    Count on governments? Come on...! How very Canadian.

    Those governments have nothing of their own: whatever resources they do have have been forcibly extracted from us, the people.

    Do you really expect or want FEMA guardian angels, anyway? And I certainly don't want any more regulation - telling me how I must construct my house, no less - in my life.

    An individual's acceptance of, and correct preparation for, risk SHOULD bring rewards. If one chooses (or has no choice but) to live 15 floors up in a concrete condo-box in some nameless suburb, totally dependent on the state for water, power and transport, it strikes me as irresponsible to expect the taxpayers to come rushing...

    Sorry, but if one really wants to prepare for an earthquake, it is perhaps time to think like the hated Americans - at least the survivalists - and prepare individually.

    Own enough land so that you have sufficient space to store firewood (have a fireplace, a REAL one!), water, gasoline, tools, grow veggies and set up a tent. SAVE up money: you don't want to be paying debts and mortgages as well as rebuilding, likely for some weeks without a job. Have some actual CASH on hand, too.

  • freebear

    1 year ago

    The Stealth fighters Harper wants to buy

    will be of great assistance too recovering from the big shake eh!

    How about more DARTS!

  • zalm

    1 year ago

    Cboo

    "All levels of government are greedy, self-serving idiots. They pour millions and millions into "disaster services" in SW BC that immediately afterwards will be buried in rubble or burning brightly. Disaster services from OUTSIDE the the populated, urban corner of BC are minimal at best and would never have the capacity, equipment, resources or training to come in and begin to help. DUMB."

    OK. We're all moving our city to your house. And we're bringing our government with us.

  • snert

    52 weeks ago

    The Fraser Delta

    http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/marine/gbgi/proj_onshore_e.php

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