Megaquake preparedness will cost Oregon billions

A task force is recommending Oregon spend at least $100 million each year for decades preparing for a possible earthquake and tsunami similar to the one that struck Japan in 2011.

"The scope of the disaster that the Pacific Northwest faces is daunting," said Scott Ashford, chairman of the Governor's Task Force on Resilience Plan Implementation. "We won't be able to accomplish everything we need to do in one or two years, but hopefully we won't have to. What's important is to get started, and the time for that is now."

State geologists estimate there is a 30 percent chance of a major Cascadia subduction zone earthquake and tsunami happening within the next 50 years. Oregon seriously lags behind Washington and California in preparing infrastructure and emergency response for such an event.

In 2011, the legislature commissioned the Oregon Resilience Plan, which makes more than 140 recommendations on preparing for the megaquake. The plan was completed last year, and a new task force has been working on how to begin implementing the most critical elements.

It released a two-page list of recommendations Tuesday. They include:

• Establishing a Resilience Policy Advisor to the Governor. Planning efforts to-date have been led by volunteers.

• Establishing biennial funding of at least $200 million for a seismic rehabilitation grant program that could be used to improve seismic safety at schools and other public buildings.

• Allocating $20 million next biennium to the state Department of Geology and Mineral Industries to update an inventory of critical facilities.

• Allocating $5 million in new state funding for resilience planning by coastal communities most at risk.

• Allocating $500,000 next biennium to the Oregon Department of Education to develop standardized educational content for public schools.

• Allocating $500,000 next biennium to the Office of Emergency Management to develop and disseminate educational materials.

Some recommendations will have a nominal cost.

For example, the task force is recommending that informational materials be changed to advise Oregonians be prepared to survive on their own for two weeks – up from the current 72 hours.

But most will be expensive.

"All of the infrastructure that we have – our roads, our buildings, our sewers, our electric utilities – all of those things were built before we knew there was this magnitude 9.0 earthquake lurking off our shore," said Ashford, dean of the College of Engineering at Oregon State University.

"In the end, it is probably billions of dollars," he said. "It's going to be a lot of money."

tloew@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6779 or follow at Twitter.com/SJWatchdog