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News / Opinion / Letters to the Editor

Letter: Rebuild bridge before earthquake

The Columbian
Published: September 21, 2013, 5:00pm

Perhaps Earth can lead us through this quagmire of building a new Interstate-5 bridge. We, as humans, have been discussing, planning, and bickering for the last 14 years about building a new bridge across the Columbia River. Now future plans have ended.

I took a community education course about the geology of our area. We discussed the probability of the next subduction zone earthquake/tsunami off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. The professor told us of the pattern of one approximately every 300 years, 300 years, then 600 years, then again we have 300 years, 300 years, and 600 years. The last one happened Jan. 26, 1700. That one is the first of the two 300-year cycles, according to him.

I have two friends who have had dreams seeing the I-5 bridge crumbling with cars falling into the river. Are they precognitive dreams? The newer Interstate-205 bridge has been built to survive earthquakes. The quagmire no longer exists if the I-5 bridge comes down.

Time to rebuild with no more arguing about if and how we should do it. Earth has her way.

Dixie Caris

Vancouver

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