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In Our View: Earthquake Prep Essential

Latest temblor a reminder of need for state-of-the-art warning system

The Columbian
Published: January 26, 2016, 6:01am

An earthquake Sunday near Alaskan population centers calls to mind a recent advancement in earthquake preparedness for the Pacific Northwest.

Tucked into the federal omnibus spending bill passed in December was $8.2 million to help fund an earthquake early-warning system along the West Coast. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, members of their chambers’ appropriations committees, helped push for the funding as this region becomes increasingly aware of the danger posed by temblors.

That awareness was enhanced last summer by an article in The New Yorker, which painted a dire portrait of what could happen when The Big One hits the Cascadia Subduction Zone — an area that lies off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and portions of California and British Columbia. The article quoted Kenneth Murphy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency as saying, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

Alarmist? Certainly. But the situation does call for increased attention to preparedness throughout the region. And Sunday’s Alaska quake — along with a smaller one last month off the coast of British Columbia — serves as a reminder that this part of the continent is prone to earthquakes. The 7.1-magnitude quake in Alaska was not tied to the Cascadia Subduction Zone, but the one in British Columbia was.

The money included in the federal spending bill will contribute to a burgeoning warning system being developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and researchers at a consortium of universities. Among the advancements is the use of Global Positioning System technology through a program at Central Washington University, and professor Tim Melbourne told the Yakima Herald-Republic: “If we had an earthquake here right now, the compressional waves, which move at 3 miles per second, would take 33 seconds to get to Seattle, but a computer can send a message in five seconds, so you’ve got 28 seconds of warning. That’s not a lot of time, but you can do something.”

Eventually, researchers hope to develop an alert system that can be delivered to cellphones. They also hope to refine a system that can quickly determine the size of an earthquake and the magnitude of any impending tsunami. Early-warning systems also can trigger automatic shutdowns of infrastructure such as transportation or energy facilities.

The $8.2 million provided by the federal government is not a panacea that can prevent the devastation of a large-scale earthquake. Operating and maintaining an early-warning system will cost about $16 million a year, and that expense can help mitigate the roughly $5 billion in annual damages caused by earthquakes in this country.

Many of the lessons contributing to earthquake preparedness these days were learned from a massive quake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. Among the findings is that seismology warnings were helpful, but that GPS monitors more accurately measured the impact of the event. Experts regard Japan as the global leader in earthquake preparedness, and U.S. officials would be wise to follow that nation’s lead.

In that regard, Sen. Murray, Rep. Kilmer, and other members of the Washington congressional delegation should maintain their push for funding and for the development of an early-warning system. Scientists say it only a matter of time before a major earthquake hits the Northwest. While such an event might be unavoidable, proper preparation can prove to be a wise investment in the long run.

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