"Cascades"-can meant to be dancing...
Big Earthquake Damns Columbia 1872
Central Washington has experienced several lively shakes, but the only ones of any importance were those of 1874, which H.H. Allen, B.E. Snipes
and other old-timers recall with some feeling of awe. Their effect in Yakima was not so severe as in the country to the north of us, where they
changed thr face of nature to a considerable extent. There were no less than sixty-four distinct shocks occurring at night in midsummer, and all along
the upper Columbia could be heard the falling of rocks as mountains were torn down and hurled upon plain or into the river. Not since Washington has
been known to white men has there been so great an earthquake within its confines. The indications of its destructiveness are still seen in great
crevices and broken trails. A great mountain at Chief Wapato John's ranch, near the mouth of the Chelan river, was rocked into the Columbia, damming
that huge stream, flooding the chief's ranch, carrying away his house, and forcing him to fly for his life. It was a number of days before the waters
washed away a portion of the rocks and receded to anywhere near their original level. Chief John was so thoroughly scared that he never returned to
his ranch.
My worry is in Northwest Washington State. Cascade mountain range.
We
used to have matter of fact documentaries or program airings about an inevitable huge catastrophe involving earthquakes here on the high end
of the scale.
Our dormant Mount Rainier *may* erupt. Maybe in this process? I normally think "south california"-but then the upbringing with the documentaries,
former science. Now it seems a non alarmist view is the order of the day. We don't "hear" any more about it's coming. We just read the signs....
Also-the amount of buget put into placing a large number of mountain escape routes tells me, someone has been thinking. Because my state is that
cheap. Plain and simple. They don't 'care' in advance. But with a 50,000 head casualty loss in the event the mountain goes, triggered by an
earthquake knocking out the port....ah, economy.
Using the 1980 Mt. St. Helens model (I watched that up close on a day trip) of mudslides and losses, escape routes have been put everywhere in the
Puyallup valley and the tideflats. But just in the past years. There is a nice big river running directly down and through populated areas to the
Industrial port.
I "hope" it's not here. But, I am reading the signs. The excape routes were a HUGE and welcome expentiture-in a region I am unaccoustumed to
forward thinking. I think they are hiding something. My risk is tsunami coming up the hillside on the west, and mudslides in the valley at the east.
.. 
