Oregon Practices For 9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami

Oregon Practices For 9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami

Statewide earthquake exercise planned over two April weekends

03/06/03


A statewide earthquake exercise is scheduled for April 2, 3 and April 8, 9.

The first two days will focus on response and the last two on recovery.

The earthquake exercise starts at 10 a.m. April 2, when the Pacific Northwest is shaken by a hypothetical 9.0 magnitude earthquake centered off the coast. The shaking will last 4 minutes.

The earthquake also produces a tsunami, which arrives at the coast in 15-30 minutes.

The earthquake and tsunami will cause many casualties, loss of life, and damage to buildings and lifelines (utilities, roads and bridges). The coast will be especially hard hit, because it will receive the strongest shaking as well as the tsunami.

There will also be large aftershocks for months after the main earthquake.

Many city, county and federal governments agencies, schools, businesses, utilities, and other organizations plan to participate in the exercise. Each participating local jurisdiction will establish an emergency operation center.

Oregon Emergency Management will set up an emergency coordination center and coordinate state response and recovery with state and federal agencies, based on feedback from the local jurisdictions.

If you do not plan to participate in the four-day exercise you could still take part by conducting the earthquake drop, cover and hold drill at 10 a.m. on April 2.

www.oregonlive.com...

Why in the hell would they do that ...

How the hell do you prepare for an earthquake of that magnitude?!!?! Wouldn't an earthquake that strong destroy everything? I mean seriously.

They do it for the same reason that Texas conducts BigWhoppinTornado Disaster exercises and California conducts earthquake exercises and Florida and coastal areas conduct Hurricane Disaster Exercises.

Not because one's going to strike in the next year.

They do it so that if and when one strikes, they will have a plan in place and folks know what to do and how to deal with it. If you checked, you'd find a lot of gripes over how these disasters are handled. Most of the time it's messed up chains of authority and mangled communications. Practicing for disasters lets them work out problems BEFORE there's a real emergency.

Same reason that the military does war games exercises all the time.

You'll notice that Oregon and California, etc, never conduct NastyTornado Exercises -- because that's not a logical disaster. Texas doesn't conduct earthquake drills, either... they're very rare here.

...and no, an earthquake of that magnitude would not destroy everything, though it would do a great deal of damage. Our modern buildings are pretty solid and engineered for surviving earthquakes. There'd still be a number intact, as well as intact roads and traffic routes.