There’s a theory that has been passed around for quite some time that one day in the future, the West Coast of the United States will fall victim to a massive wall of water in a tsunami to end all tsunamis. The phenomenon in question will be caused by a huge earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Our nation would experience a disaster on a scale that has been unheard of in America’s history. And this is not some wild conspiracy nonsense either.
Scientists, folks who study real, testable data, have been warning us for a long, long while that it’s only a matter of time before this disaster strikes. So just how high are these scientists suggesting this wall of water will be? They believe it could reach heights of 100 feet in height. Buildings will be flattened, vehicles tossed about, and an insanely high death toll.
If you happen to be in the path of the tsunami, you won’t be making it out.
Why am I bringing this up?
Well, there’s been a lot of headlines published by media outlets lately concerning activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Here’s what NBC News hat do say about it:
A silent colossus lurks off the Pacific coast, threatening hundreds of miles of coastline with tsunamis and devastating earthquakes.
For decades, scientists have warned about the potential of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a megathrust fault that runs offshore along the coast from northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, California. When the fault — or even a portion of it — next snaps, it will reshape life in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
It has been more than 300 years since we have seen a megathrust earthquake happen along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and so for most of us it is difficult to imagine what that would look like.
Another report published by IFL Science stated that this kind of earthquake could end up creating multiple tsunami waves that would travel at rates of speed close to 500 miles an hour.
Megathrust earthquakes are the most powerful on Earth and they arise from subduction zones, where one of Earth’s plates is slipping over another. When rock on a convergent plate boundary gets compressed and bent, it builds up elastic energy. When this gets too much, there is an abrupt release as the overriding plate slides up the fault.
As the plate slips and releases, it generates enormous amounts of energy that goes out into the surrounding seawater. That energy displaces water as it rises to the sea surface, raising it above the normal surface level. It then comes crashing down thanks to gravity, sending the energy shooting out horizontally in the form of a tsunami.
The resulting waves can travel over 804 kilometers per hour (500 miles per hour).
Can you picture what a massive 100 foot wave of water traveling at 500 mph would even look like? I’m already not a big fan of water, especially the ocean. Picturing this scenario playing out is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Scientists who have been hard at work examining the Cascadia Subductioni Zone have just released findings and what they have reported is terrifying.
According to the data, the researchers found that the CSZ is made up of four different parts that make it an even bigger danger than previously thought.
Using underwater mapping techniques, scientists have mapped the Cascadia Subduction Zone – a 600-mile fault line extending from southern Canada to northern California – in never before seen detail.
It has revealed that the fault splits into four segments instead of being one continuous strip like most fault lines. The discovery could prove more catastrophic because the tectonic plates can slide under each other, creating more pressure and more severe earthquakes.
The researchers concluded the Cascadia Subduction Zone has the potential to unleash a nine-plus magnitude quake.
And that’s not all. The same group of scientists also warned that when the next megathrust earthquake takes place in the area it will end up causing more than $80 billion in damage.
If an earthquake of over 9 magnitude struck the West Coast US it could generate tsunamis reaching 100 feet high or more, kill more than 10,000 people and cause over $80 billion in damages in just Oregon and Washington alone.
Disaster emergency plans in Oregon and Washington warn that in the aftermath of a quake that big, they could face a wave of long-term deaths due to disease from exposure to dead bodies, animal carcasses, contaminated water and Hazmat spills from commercial, industrial and household sources.
That sounds horrible, right? Guess what? Some think the damage from such a quake could end up being far worse than that. The former head honcho of FEMA’s Region once warned that when a massive earthquake finally ends up striking the CSZ, “everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”
Well, that’s comforting, right? I think the guy might want to work on his bed side manner a bit.
If the entire zone gives way at once, an event that seismologists call a full-margin rupture, the magnitude will be somewhere between 8.7 and 9.2. That’s the very big one.
…By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”
In the Pacific Northwest, everything west of Interstate 5 covers some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people.
What makes this whole thing truly terrifying is that it isn’t conjecture. Some day, this will actually happen. It is only a matter of time before it occurs. Let’s hope folks take the warning seriously and begin to prepare now before it is too late.
"*" indicates required fields