The Cascadia Subduction Zone  is a 680-mile fault that runs 75 miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest -- from Cape Mendocino (Eureka) in California to the Northern tip of Vancouver Island in British Columbia

 

The last “big one,” ruptured along the fault’s entire length, struck on January 26, 1700.

Major earthquakes tend to strike more frequently along the southern half of the Cascadia Subduction Zone – every 240 years or so. This means that we are  

80 years overdue for a major earthquake.

 

A magnitude 8.0 earthquake is 10 times more powerful than a magnitude 7.

 

Computer modeling put the height of a tsunami at the Newport jetty at 26 feet.

Resulting tsunamis along the Oregon coast could reach a height of 72 feet.

All bridges along the I-5 corridor [and West] that were built after 1997 are not seismically resilient and will likely be damaged or destroyed.

 

According to Oregon’s Office of Emergency Management

 

• 15 million people live in the impact zone

  • No power for weeks/months

  • No fuel for weeks/months

  • No deliveries of food & water for weeks or months

  • No running water for months/years

  • No sewer system for months/years

 

Emergency supplies 

 

Eugene, Salem and Hillsboro airports have been designated as “Forward Staging Areas”. Emergency response personnel, food and medical supplies will be flown to the Forward Staging Areas. From there, General Aviation will play a major role in distributing those supplies to smaller community airports.

 

For example, a Cessna 182, minus the weight of pilot and fuel has a useful load of 528 pounds per mission. 528 pounds times 8 missions per day; is over 2 tons of disaster relief supplies in an eight hour period.