The Pacific Northwest is a death trap.

You know a bunch of the west coast of the US is just chillin' by a couple calderas right?

By db Go To PostYou know a bunch of the west coast of the US is just chillin' by a couple calderas right?

You realize that there's a difference between living next to a relatively inactive volcano that went off 800,000 years ago and living on top of a very active fault that *periodically* (as in, every few hundred years) produces 9.0 earthquakes and is overdue? And keep in mind that for fault lines "overdue" isn't a fallacy, since the pressure builds up more and more over time.

Both calderas aren't truly inactive and overdue. They've got increasing seismic activity. Especially Long Valley.

By db Go To PostBoth calderas aren't truly inactive. They've got increasing seismic activity. Especially Long Valley.

"The declining volcanic activity and increasingly crystalline lava extruded over the last 650,000 years, as well as other trends, suggest that the magma reservoir under the caldera has now largely crystallized and is unlikely to produce large-scale eruptions in the future."

"Most, perhaps all, volcanic eruptions are preceded and accompanied by geophysical and geochemical changes in the volcanic system.["

These are really not equivalent situations, however much you wish them to be.

Who said truly equivalent? As some one who's lived in both places, "the big one" is always a looming thing. But what's going on elsewhere? Floods? Hurricanes? Snow storms? Heat waves? Tornados? Lightning?

By db Go To PostWho said truly equivalent? As some one who's lived in both places, "the big one" is always a looming thing. But what's going on elsewhere? Floods? Hurricanes? Snow storms? Heat waves? Tornados? Lightning?

The only two of those things that can be remotely as devastating as a 9.0 earthquake have plenty of advance warning in the days leading up to the event. Again: one of these things is not like the other.

And yet far more people died in the 20th century from hurricanes than did from earthquakes in the US.

By db Go To PostAnd yet far more people died in the 20th century from hurricanes than did from earthquakes in the US.

Hurricanes are far more frequent than large earthquakes in the US. That says nothing about the devastation of an individual earthquake (or an individual hurricane, for that matter). Without looking up the statistic, I'm positive cars have killed way more than either. I don't see your point. If you move away from the Pacific Northwest, your odds of getting killed by all those other things doesn't automatically go up, while your odds of being killed by a 9.0 earthquake drop to close to zero.

Calling the PNW a death trap when tornado alley and hurricane prone places exist is just weird to me.

By db Go To PostCalling the PNW a death trap when tornado alley and hurricane prone places exist is just weird to me.

I just bothered to actually look up the statistics: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/27/hurricane-fatalities-1900%E2%80%932010-context-in-these-stormy-times/

By The original articleAs for casualties: the figures I cited earlier—twenty-seven thousand injured, almost thirteen thousand dead—are based on the agency’s official planning scenario, which has the earthquake striking at 9:41 A.M. on February 6th. If, instead, it strikes in the summer, when the beaches are full, those numbers could be off by a horrifying margin.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but your entire argument seems to be "well, it's not worse than those other places." But yes. It really is.

Your source has "climategate" as a nav page.

By db Go To PostYour source has "climategate" as a nav page.

Fair enough. Here's another source: http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/disasters-by-type.aspx.

1970-2004: 19,959 total deaths. 13,000 estimated *all at once* from the earthquake that we, by the way, *know* is coming.

So they cut off right before Katrina because?

By db Go To PostSo they cut off right before Katrina because?

1,833 people died in Katrina. Just add that on to the numbers.

I can keep looking up numbers all day, if you like. I don't have an agenda, and you know they're going to show you essentially the same thing.

The numbers for something that hasn't even happened yet versus the sustained death toll that occurs every year? Okay.

By db Go To PostThe numbers for something that hasn't even happened yet versus the sustained death toll that occurs every year? Okay.

Suppose the earthquake doesn't happen for 50 years, starting now (even though part of the problem is that we won't really have advance warning), and disasters happen at a similar rate (702 deaths/year, including Katrina--which if anything skews things in the other direction, as well as the fact that deaths from natural disasters have been getting rarer as time goes on). That gets us to 35,100 deaths. You seem to be claiming that the Pacific Northwest is fine because the predicted estimate (BTW, why do you doubt the estimate, exactly? As the article explains in laborious detail, we pretty much know how it will happen) is lower. But that would only be true if all those disasters happened in the exact same place. In actuality, these disasters are distributed (unevenly) across the country. What *single* region is going to have more deaths than that in the next 50 years from natural disasters?

Now, maybe you can make an amortized argument that settling there 150 years ago was fine... I'll buy that. But that excuse doesn't hold any longer.

Let's be honest this article was copied and pasted from 1985.

It most likely will happen 1 day but if a 9 really does happen most of the west coast is going be hurt

Damn. West coast is going to get super fucked one of these days.