“If and when Cascadia happens, the whole West Coast is going to experience upset conditions. Things are going to be upside down.”-Erik Petersen, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Portland District-Willamette Valley Operations

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland and Seattle Districts, are concerned about the 30 dams in Oregon and Washington, and the coming 9.2 magnitude megathrust earthquake known as the Cascadia Event.

During FEMA’s (Federal Emergency Management Agency) 14-16JUN2022 Cascadia Rising training days, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inspected those 30 dams, saying “It’s the Super Bowl of disasters for emergencies, and you’ve got to have a team, you’ve got to practice, you’ve got to have some scrimmages, you’ve got to play some games, and you’ve got to go the playoffs before you get to the Super Bowl.”-Mark McKay, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Portland District Catastrophic Disaster Response Program

After Japan’s 11MAR2011 quake and tsunami, geologists and seismologist working for the U.S. government ‘got woke’ to the fact that old stories about an even bigger event hitting the Pacific Northwest of North America might be true, and a review of historical data, and new research, showed there really is a Super Bowl of disasters waiting to strike.  The last estimated magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami to hit the Pacific Northwest coastline was on  26JAN1700.  The geologic data shows the Cascadia Event is relatively cyclic, meaning you can somewhat expect such a disaster every so many hundreds of years, and some Earth science ‘experts’ say it is overdue.

The inspection of the dams a week ago is not the first time, Army Corps of Engineers have spent several year now prepping the dam sites they are responsible for.  One of those preparations is regular seismic studies and risk assessments of the dams. Another is to install briefcase sized battery powered satellite communications systems on at least a dozen remote dam sites. The age of electronic communications/social media has an Achilles Heel; electric power and communication links.  The megathrust quake is expected to destroy any old fashioned communication transmission lines (both buried and telephone poles), as well electrical power transmission, cell phone service will also go down.  People will need battery operated radios and/or phones that directly connect to satellites (Amateur Radio Emergency Services-Cascadia June 2022).

During this year’s Cascadia Rising event, the Corps of Engineers also realized they needed to stockpile food and water for the personnel who would be working on the remote dams after such a disaster.

The Corps of Engineers revealed another problem; all the dam reservoirs are the fullest they’ve been in the past few years, due to heavy late Spring rains. If the megathrust was to pop now, then all that extra water will exacerbate efforts to prevent rivers from flooding downstream.

Yet another problem, pointed out during this year’s exercise, is that there might not be anywhere for helicopters to land: “If the earthquake hits, this parking lot might not even be here.”-Helicopter pilot who flew Local Damage Assessment Team (LDAT) to the top of Cougar Dam, in Oregon, during Cascadia Rising 2022

FEMA’s worst case scenario is a tsunami up to 80 feet high, more than a million buildings damaged, thousands of people dead, even more injured and homeless, and that is if the epicenter was near the city of Florence, Oregon.  The epicenter could actually be anywhere along the 7-hundred mile Cascadia Subduction Zone, which stretches from Northern California to British Columbia.

King County, Washington, tries to show you what the Cascadia Megathrust Event will look like:

Washington Emergency Management Division: Cascadia Rising 2022 (CR22) Exercise Series

Lincoln County, Oregon: Community Participation Cascadia Rising

Disaster, May 2022: CASCADIA RISING, F-E-M-A PREPARATIONS, CANADA ONBOARD!