Spring Break lesson: Prepare now for Big One

When it comes to the anticipated magnitude 9.0 or greater subduction zone earthquake expected to claim thousands of lives and cause significant damage in Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, emergency response officials say residents swing one way or the other.

"They either deny it will ever happen and can't be bothered to prepare, or they believe it's going to destroy everything and anything, and they use that as an excuse not to prepare,” said Roger Stevenson, the city of Salem’s emergency manager.

Neither pretext, however, washes with members of the newly formed Mid-Willamette Emergency Communications Collaborative (MWECC).

The group, formed earlier this year, is a partnership of state, county, city, and public and private agencies or businesses working together to help residents and visitors prepare to survive the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and the anticipated chaos that might follow.

Perhaps no one is better prepared to dismiss cover-up theories than Kenneth Murphy, a former West Salem resident who headed Oregon’s office of emergency management for 11 years before being appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 as administrator of FEMA’s Region X (10).

As head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s regional operation out of Bothell, Washington,  Murphy oversees Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and 271 tribal nations. But he’s perhaps best known as the source of a now famous comment made in a New Yorker magazine article last July called “The Really Big One,” written by Kathryn Schulz.

In her story about how the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake will likely be the worst natural disaster in the history of North America, Schulz quotes Murphy, as he describes how much of Oregon and Washington will be left unrecognizable, as saying “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

His line, which he said he’s been saying more or less to anyone who will listen since the early ‘90s, immediately garnered a lot of attention, good and bad.

And gave earthquake deniers and avoiders license to do nothing.

“What I was saying, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, is that west of I-5 will have damage and much of it will not be functional,” Murphy said. “What we consider normal will not be normal. But I very much believe this big an earthquake is survivable, but only if we as individuals take some action now, take the steps to be prepared."

Which is why the MWECC is working hard to get residents of the Mid-Valley to face reality.

The intent of the collaborative is not to scare residents, but inform them. Give them information they can use; answer questions they might have.

Earthquakes frustrate because they don’t come with warnings like hurricanes and to a lesser extent, tornadoes, Murphy said.

“You just don’t know when they will happen, and the whole zone could go or just a piece of it,” Murphy said. “But we believe in planning for the whole thing. You don’t want to have to scale up on the spot. There will not be enough first responders to get to everyone in those first few hours, so knowing your neighbor, your neighbor knowing you and being prepared with a kit and a plan is key.”

Many residents in the valley have never experienced a quake, or have only lived through the Scotts Mills earthquake of 1993, also known as the Spring Break quake. With an epicenter about 3 miles east of Scotts Mills in Marion County, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed its magnitude as 5.6.

The crustal quake shook many awake at 5:34 a.m., and caused part of the roof of Molalla Union High School to collapse, the rotunda under the Golden Pioneer at the state Capitol building to crack, a bridge on Highway 18 in Dayton to buckle and drop, and crushed un-reinforced masonry facades in Newberg. Mt. Angel buildings were also damaged.

Salem Hospital, according to the Statesman Journal’s archives, treated several people for injuries due to broken glass, but there were no fatalities in the quake that was felt as far south as Roseburg, as far north as Puget Sound, and in Lincoln City and Bend.

While it was a wake-up call 23 years ago next Friday, the relatively minor damage and lack of fatalities has caused some residents and lawmakers to become complacent, which is a dangerous place for them to be, emergency management officials say.

For instance, Oregon does not have a seismic rating system for the expected performance of buildings subject to earthquake ground motion.

“Every day is earthquake season,” Murphy said. “What makes earthquakes frustrating is that we don’t know when they’ll happen."

Three types of earthquakes threaten Oregon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. There are crustal quakes such as the Scotts Mills temblor, intraplate quakes such as the one that hit Puget Sound in 2001, and subduction zone earthquakes, which produce magnitude 9 or greater megathrust quakes and tsunamis such as the ones that ravaged Tohoku, Japan in 2011 (which destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and killed 18,000; the 9.1 m Sumatra/Indonesia earthquake of 2004, which killed an estimated 228,000 people, and the 2010 Chilean 8.8 magnitude earthquake that took 500 lives.

Groups such as the MWECC, and agencies including FEMA, the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, the Marion County Emergency Management office, the city of Salem Emergency Management department and others are actively preparing for a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.

This collection of state officials, school districts, cities, counties, businesses, nonprofits, hospitals, churches, neighborhood associations, utilities, colleges and universities and others, after they ensure their own families and dwellings are safe, are planning for the business of recovery in Oregon.

They’re coming together to plan for immediate needs such as food, water, shelter, fuel, medical services, utilities, emergency services and communications. They’re also reaching out to ensure that vulnerable populations are not overlooked.

“We know there are at-risk groups that can easily become trauma victims in a disaster,” said Ed Flick, Marion County’s emergency manager. “Residents who are older, medically fragile or disabled, folks who live in isolation and those with financial concerns are disproportionately impacted. We want to teach the public that emergency preparedness is a civic responsibility for all.”

Many of the collaborative’ s members are also thinking about debris management, donations management, how to handle emergent volunteers, managing facilities for fatalities and marshaling reserve medical corps and amateur radio operators, to name just a few items on their to-do list.

But all acknowledge that self-reliance and preparedness can have the greatest impact on a community, and Flick, from Marion County, believes strongly that the Mid-Valley can become the apex in community preparedness.

“I know we can be No. 1,” Flick said.

The group includes Mike Gotterba, city of Salem; Flick; Elizabeth Peters, of SEDCOR; Dianne Mekkers, the Red Cross; Alan Bushong, CCTV; Michael Davis, Statesman Journal; Stevenson; Sherryll Hoar, Salem Health; Dave Hammock, KMUZ Radio; Jolene Kelley, Marion County; Bob Maca, Salem-Keizer School District; Melanie Zermer, KMUZ Radio; Sara Campos, Marion County; Bruce Anderson, NW Natural; Jay Remy, Salem-Keizer School District; Rachel Posnick, Marion County; Caitlin Esping, Marion County and Fabiola Ramos, KPCN-LP Radio Movimiento.

Stevenson and Flick’s goal is to see the number of residents with a 72-hour get-home kit and home survival kit large enough to support a family for at least two weeks increase from its current estimate of about 8 percent to at 18 percent or higher.

Most authorities suggest a two-week kit, but Murphy said he’d like to see the two-week minimum grow to 30 days.

“I’m a realist. If you and I do 30 days, we may be able to help others who did not prepare. It’s why knowing your neighbor and being prepared is also being a good citizen,” Murphy said.

The newly formed group, along with FEMA officials and state emergency authorities, are developing emergency management plans specifically for a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.

According to FEMA, scientific evidence indicates that a magnitude 8.0 to 9.0 earthquake occurs along the 800-mile long Cascadia Subduction Zone on average every 200 to 500 years. The last one along the Cascadia fault happened in 1700, 316 years ago, so some believe the area is overdue. Others think they’ve got 184 years to worry about it.

But the collaborative’ s members, FEMA and state officials aren’t taking an over/under on when it will hit.

Exercises to assess preparedness continue. The next drill is Cascadia Rising, which will test local, state, tribal nation, federal government, and public, private and nonprofit organizations’ ability to jointly respond to a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake of 9.0 and its resulting tsunami.

The four-day exercise will be held June 7-10 to train and test the collective community’s approach to complex disaster operations. Successes will be repeated, weaknesses will be remedied.

A successful response will rely on all levels of city, county, state agency, federal officials, the military, tribal nations as well as the private sector working together to find solutions.

This collaborative is hoping residents will do their part and pack a get-home and at-home preparedness kit, and discuss a family emergency plan with their loved ones.

As Stevenson is fond of saying, it's "Doing the greatest good for the greatest number."

ccurrie@statesmanjournal.com; (503) 399-6746 or follow on Twitter at @CATMCurrie