Thursday, February 04, 2010

Quake-Up Call


Quake-Up Call Willamette Week Online h/t: jason
There’s a massive earthquake in Portland’s future—and a government “prophet of doom” will tell you all about it.
In the reasonably near future, perhaps within our lifetimes and quite possibly as soon as tomorrow, an earthquake will strike Portland with roughly the same force felt this month in Port-au-Prince.

But while the Jan. 12 Haitian quake lasted less than 40 seconds, the shaking in Portland will continue for at least four minutes. Portland will feel a quake with a strength, duration and destruction never before experienced in the developed Western world.

Our cataclysm will begin 75 miles off the Oregon coastline. The ocean floor will split, sending shock waves racing under the water as fast as 17,000 mph. Those shock waves, felt first as a rumble, will slam into Portland in 30 seconds. The rattling will grow into a pulsing undulation that will repeatedly shove the ground up and down as much as 6 feet.

Landslides will ensue in the West Hills, sending mansions crashing on top of each other. Several of the 10 bridges across the Willamette River will collapse—the Steel Bridge, Sellwood Bridge and Marquam Bridge, most likely—and the rest will be impassible. Big Pink and other office towers will sway so violently their granite and glass façades will shear off and crash into the street, piling rubble up 4 feet deep. The Multnomah County Courthouse will tumble. Underground gas, power and water lines will be pulverized. The soil beneath the Portland International Airport will temporarily turn to soup.

About half an hour later, a 30-foot wall of water will crash into the Oregon coastline, with the tsunami flooding as high as 100 feet above sea level, sweeping in and out for hours.

This is not a pitch for the next Hollywood disaster movie. It is the scientific consensus on what will happen here sooner or later. And the latest data suggest it may in fact be sooner.

6 comments:

  1. Is that Ken?

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  2. Sometime in the future, our beautiful sun will supernova. Yes, it will explode and send a pulsar of pressure strong enough to destroy the EARTH! This could happen in a hundred years, ten, or even tomorrow, but probably not for another billion or so years. But fear now, because the inevitable will inevitably happen!!!11!

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  3. Now I know why Thomm Hartmann does his radio show on the road so often.
    The studios are on the Willamette and so is his house boat.

    Exciting story though Rose.

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  4. YEAH baby!!!! I HOPE it takes out all of those friggin "progressive liberal regressives" with it when it "takes" Portland!!!!

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  5. Rose, It also harkens back to not enough bamboo for the panda bears (now underwear is made with it), not enough cork trees left (now flooring is made from it, that alternative energy forms are needed (but not wind power, wave power or nuclear power because those hurt a mollusk or a bird), and infill is the only way to allow development (but you can't build sky-scrapers, tear down "historic" shacks or have fewer parking spaces or shade your neighbor's south-facing wall on Dec. 31st by more than 10% between 10:30 and 2 p.m.)green building is the only way to build (even though it is 3+ times more expensive than meeting the normal building codes and not affordable to anyone)and we must take care of the low and very low income people (even though most of them slovenly lazy, are criminals and completely dependent on our favorite money whores peddling our tax dollars) etc. ad nauseum.

    Fer' cris-sakes enviro whack jobs - PICK ONE

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