The Ninth Anniversary of the Nisqually Quake

February 28, 2001, at 10:54 a.m., a 6.8 "intraslab" earthquake shook the Puget Sound region for about 45 seconds. The Nisqually quake's focus was some 32 miles deep, in the Cascadia subduction zone. It might seem like things have been quiet since then, but as the graphic from the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network illustrates, we live with minor quakes almost daily.

It's the effects of major earthquakes that are on everyone's mind recently, though. Andrew Rivkin, writing for the New York Times' Dot Earth, emphasizes that the news from Chile should spur preparations in the Northwest. "The Pacific 'ring of fire' doesn't stop at the equator," he writes. In this or the next generation, the Northwest will likely experience a megathrust quake similar to Chile's, which tend to generate tsunamis.

We tend to consider the averages of megathrust quakes over the centuries as their periodicity, but Chile's last megathrust quake was only 50 years ago.

As much as we talk about the "Big One" on the way, there are still troubling lapses. King County's emergency preparedness page specifically mentions bioterrorism, floods, and flu...not earthquakes.

The Seattle Channel has earthquake safety videos, and the city offers ongoing training programs, but when you search on "earthquake kit," the first page with the elements of a disaster kit was last updated in 1999. The pdf on "How to Prepare for Earthquakes" has a total of four bullet points on things you can do beforehand, including one sentence about keeping supplies in the home. Another piece of advice is to stop driving in an earthquake.

Here's SFGate's extensive earthquake kit suggestions. Trust the Californians. UPDATE: Or, trust the Red Cross.