Oregon State University Professor Scott Ashford measures ground upheaval during a visit to Japan following a major earthquake there. (photo courtesy GEER)

“Our mission is to get word out to the scientific community about what’s happened on the ground,” he says. As a geotechnical engineer, he is particularly interested in soil changes following an earthquake. His findings raise questions about the adequacy of building standards in the United States and abroad.

In the past year, Ashford has inspected the aftermaths of quakes in Chile, New Zealand and Japan. The work demands humility. Out of respect for people who lived through terrifying events, he warns younger colleagues to avoid expressing excitement over significant findings. “We’re amongst people who have had their lives ruined and are in upheaval,” he says. “Even though it’s exciting to see the things we’ve been doing research on in action, you can’t show any of that. It’s an emotional rollercoaster.”

And it demands a keen eye. Careful measurements of structural damage, landslides, soil liquefaction and shifted fault lines can help engineers to design more resilient structures. The whole point is to save lives and reduce the damage that will occur when the next Big One hits, a goal shared by more than a dozen of Ashford’s colleagues in engineering and geophysical sciences at OSU.

Buildings on Quicksand

Ashford has seen buildings torn in half as if they were made of LEGOs®, bridges demolished or jackknifed on their foundations and utility pipes squeezed out of the ground. One his team’s most significant findings came from the March 11 subduction zone earthquake in Japan, which caused soil liquefaction — wet sands, gravels, silts and fill materials turned into soup as they shake, with all the load-bearing capacity of quicksand — that surprised researchers with its geographic extent and widespread severity.

In order to gather evidence of this phenomenon, Ashford and his team looked for sand boils (small sand volcanoes) and lateral spreads — that is, shallow landslides triggered by liquefaction. Although they arrived only two weeks after the initial quake, cleanup was already taking place, erasing evidence in some locations, which is why GEER teams are sent in quickly after a major event.

“The data are very perishable,” he says. But the more evidence they can gather about how soil has altered during an earthquake, the better engineers will be at predicting the outcomes of future quakes.

Collapsed bridge in Santiago, Chile, after the 2010 earthquake. (Photo courtesy of Scott Ashford)

“We’ve seen localized examples of soil liquefaction as extreme as this before, but the distance and extent of damage in Japan were unusually severe. Entire structures were tilted and sinking into the sediments, even while they remained intact. The shifts in soil destroyed water, sewer and gas pipelines, crippling the utilities and infrastructure these communities need to function. We saw some places that sank as much as four feet.”

Parts of the West Coast of the United States are vulnerable to the phenomenon. They include Portland, parts of the Willamette Valley and other areas of Oregon, Washington and California. Around San Francisco Bay, for example, the U.S. Geological Survey categorizes most of the low-lying lands as having moderate to very high susceptibility to liquefaction.

Some degree of soil liquefaction is common in almost any major earthquake. It can allow structures to shift or sink and significantly magnify the structural damage produced by the shaking itself.

New Construction Standards

But most earthquakes are much shorter than the event in Japan, Ashford adds. The length of the Japanese earthquake, as much as five minutes, may force researchers to reconsider the extent of liquefaction damage possible in situations such as this.

“With such a long-lasting earthquake, we saw how structures that might have been OK after 30 seconds just continued to sink and tilt as the shaking continued for several more minutes,” he says. “And it was clear that younger sediments, and especially areas built on recently filled ground, are much more vulnerable.”

The data provided by analyzing the Japanese earthquake should make it possible to improve the understanding of this soil phenomenon and better prepare for it in the future. Ashford says it was critical for the team to collect the information quickly, before damage was removed in the recovery efforts.

“There’s no doubt that we’ll learn things from what happened in Japan that will help us to mitigate risks in other similar events,” Ashford adds. “Future construction in some places may make more use of techniques known to reduce liquefaction, such as better compaction to make soils dense, or use of reinforcing stone columns.”

The massive subduction zone earthquakes capable of this type of shaking, which are the most powerful in the world, don’t happen everywhere, even in other regions such as Southern California that face seismic risks. But an event almost exactly like that is expected in the Pacific Northwest from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and the new findings make it clear that liquefaction will be a critical issue there.

West Coast on Edge

Many parts of that region, from northern California to British Columbia, have younger soils vulnerable to liquefaction — on the coast, near river deposits or in areas with filled ground. These “young” sediments, in geologic terms, may be those deposited within the past 10,000 years or more. In Oregon, for instance, that describes much of downtown Portland, the Portland International Airport, nearby industrial facilities and other cities and parts of the Willamette Valley.

Anything near a river and old flood plains is a suspect, and the Oregon Department of Transportation has already concluded that 1,100 bridges in the state are at risk from an earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Fewer than 15 percent of them have been retrofitted to prevent collapse.

Based on reports by the U.S. and California geological surveys, this San Francisco Bay Area map shows areas with water-saturated sandy and silty materials that are susceptible to liquefaction if shaken hard enough. (Map courtesy of the Association of Bay Area Governments)

“Buildings that are built on soils vulnerable to liquefaction not only tend to sink or tilt during an earthquake, but slide downhill if there’s any slope, like towards a nearby river,” Ashford says. “This is called lateral spreading. In Portland we might expect this sideways sliding of more than four feet in some cases, more than enough to tear apart buildings and buried pipelines.”

Some damage may be reduced or prevented by different construction techniques or retrofitting. But another reasonable goal is to at least anticipate the damage, to know what will probably be destroyed, make contingency plans for what will be needed to implement repairs and design ways to help protect and care for residents until services can be restored.

The survey in Japan identified areas as far away as Tokyo Bay that had liquefaction-induced ground failures. The magnitude of settlement and tilt was “larger than previously observed for such light structures,” the GEER researchers wrote in their report.

Impacts and deformation were erratic, often varying significantly from one street to the next. Port facilities along the coast faced major liquefaction damage. Strong Japanese construction standards helped prevent many buildings from collapse – even as they tilted and sank into the ground.

Collaboration Is Key

The GEER team always pairs up with researchers from the country where they’re working. This not only helps them with cultural and language issues, but allows them to be guided by the hosting country’s scientists as to where it’s appropriate, and safe, to conduct their research. It is also a great way to foster international collaboration.

“You can develop strong personal bonds with someone spending a week together in the car doing an earthquake reconnaissance,” Ashford says. And it is those personal relationships that make the follow-up research collaboration possible.

During his trip to Japan, Ashford had to balance his own emotional reactions to the devastation. A colleague there showed him a video that hadn’t been aired on television. It was a shot of the water level rising on the Japanese coast as witnesses gathered on the shore, unaware of the danger. In a flash, the tsunami waves hit the coast, obliterating everything, and everyone, standing on the shore.

“We both teared up,” Ashford says. “It was very emotional to see that.”

John Nabelek, OSU geophysicist, manages the Corvallis seismic station (Photo: Nick Houtman)

On a remote hilltop west of Corvallis, John Nabelek unlocks a door into an underground bunker covered with bushes and blackberry vines. Inside, cold air bathes a rack of electronic gear fed by power cables that lie like snakes along the concrete walls. Ignoring a “Do Not Enter” sign, he opens another door, crosses a narrow airspace and enters an inner chamber through a third door.

Quiet. Not a sound.

If your ears could listen with the sensitivity of the instruments in this room, you would hear the planet tremble as tectonic plates grind against each other, continents rise and fall imperceptibly in tidal cycles and ocean waves crash on distant beaches. All the resulting vibrations — short- and long-wave from all parts of the compass, the Himalayas, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Alaska, the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Oregon Coast — are picked up here as they pass through Western Oregon.

“Most of the noise we see in the data comes from ocean waves at the coast,” says Nabelek, a geophysicist in OSU’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. “We have to filter that out to detect seismic waves with the same or lower amplitude.” Other seismic monitoring stations have the same problem. West Coast surf is detectable in the middle of the country.

Moreover, the station itself is on the move. “Relative to North America, we are moving north at about two centimeters per year,” he adds. Data from the GPS receivers established here in 1996 conclusively showed that the Oregon Coast pivots around a point in northeastern Oregon.

Node on Global Network

The station near Corvallis is the Pacific Northwest’s primary international listening post for the tremors beneath our feet. Nabelek manages the facility, which was built in 1950 by the University of California. It is known as “COR” on the global seismographic network that is supported by the National Science Foundation, and in 1989, became one of a select group of stations managed by IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology), a non-profit scientific organization in Washington D.C.

The Corvallis seismic station is one of more than 150 stations in the Global Seismic Network managed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology.

Seismometers are exquisitely sensitive to local vibrations, even changes in atmospheric pressure, says Nabelek. So COR’s instruments are shielded in vacuum chambers that sit on concrete pillars extending deep into the soil beneath the bunker. To isolate the instruments from local traffic, a flexible membrane separates each pillar from the bunker’s concrete floor. The vacuum chambers sit loosely on each pillar, unattached. If the North American plate on which the station sits lurches, as it has done so many times in the past, “these instruments would go flying,” says Nabelek. A backup seismometer would continue to operate; it is bolted to its foundation.

Gone Broadband

COR is a study in contrasts. It contains the latest seismometer technology (purchased in 2010 with federal Stimulus Bill funds), but still sitting in the instrument room is one of the original devices that, says Nebelek, is too heavy to move. In 1950, seismic data were recorded on photographic paper, and the instrument chamber was essentially a darkroom. A technician had to renew the paper role daily. Black paint still covers the walls, but a bright fluorescent light has replaced the red bulb that originally hung from the ceiling.

Seismometers operate in sealed containers to eliminate interference from changes in atmospheric pressure.

At the heart of most seismometers in the past was a heavy stationary object. The instrument’s frame vibrated around the object, giving scientists a measure of seismic waves.

Like everything else, seismology has gone digital. Today’s instruments record vibrations by the electronic resistance they generate with an object that is light by contrast. Known as “broadband” technology, they are sensitive to the full range of seismic wave frequencies. “Broadband seismometers changed everything,” says Nabelek. Technicians visit the station only when problems arise. Data are sent in real-time to the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado, and automatically posted to the station’s website.

Despite its quiet surroundings, the station witnesses some of the most violent events on the planet. In the past few years, it has documented the planetary echoes of cataclysmic shaking in China, Indonesia, Haiti, Iran, Chile and New Zealand. Tremors show up just as clearly when faults closer to home slip, but one day soon, it will ring when the coiled spring of our own Cascadia Subduction Zone lets loose.

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Resources

OSU is a member of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington.

Read a story about what the Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquake means to the U.S. West Coast.

Robert Yeats has devoted his career to raising awareness about earthquake risks in the Pacific Northwest.

In Uncharted Waters, read about how OSU engineers work with coastal communities to prepare for earthquake-generated tsunamis and connect with Pat Corcoran’s tsunami page at Oregon Sea Grant.

Learn about the Earthscope program, funded by the National Science Foundation and headquartered at Oregon State University.

Oregon State University scientists and engineers responded to the 2010 earthquake in Chile and a resulting tsunami.

Bob Butler and Tammy Bravo at the University of Portland produce up-to-date Teachable Moment earthquake information through IRIS Education and Outreach.

The experiment is taking place at Oregon State University in a special laboratory equipped with huge wave machines. When a strong earthquake shakes the Earth beneath the ocean, it can cause a giant wave called a tsunami. These giant waves can travel for hundreds of miles across the ocean.

An undersea earthquake triggers a tsunami.

When a powerful tsunami reaches the shore, it can wash away anything in its path. Boats, cars, roads, bridges and buildings can get picked up and carried off.

To help people prepare for these destructive waves, scientists at OSU are studying their incredible strength. If scientists like Professor Harry Yeh can discover how much force the waves carry when they come ashore and crash into buildings, they can help builders, engineers and architects to design stronger offices, stores and houses.

“Strong buildings can stand up to a tsunami,” says Professor Yeh, who is one of the world’s top experts on tsunamis. “We have to figure out the best way to do it.”

The scientists conduct their experiments in OSU’s Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, one of the largest wave labs in the world. In the lab, there is a very long, narrow tank made out of cement. The tank, which holds 300,000 gallons of water, is kind of like a flume at a water park. Scientists can create waves in the tank and then calculate the strength of the waves.

Simulated tsunamis crash into scale model buildings at OSU's O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, the nation's largest tsunami test facility. Engineers have run tests with the Oregon coastal communities of Seaside and Cannon Beach (Photo: Frank Miller)

“Tsunamis are very difficult to measure in the real world because they don’t happen very often and when they do, they happen very fast,” says Alicia Lyman-Holt, who organizes tours of the wave lab for students and other visitors. “That’s why scientists use models to study them. Models are a substitute for direct observation.” These experiments will help make people safer the next time a tsunami happens.
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Arrange for school tours of the Hinsdale Wave Research Lab here.

See tsunami wave tests in action at OSU’s Hinsdale Wave Research Lab in a video produced by the National Science Foundation.

To evaluate buildings for seismic risk, Miller led a student team that followed guidelines from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA 154). He worked with Portland State and University of Oregon students and faculty as well. During their field survey, they looked for design features that create “falling hazards” or that predispose a building to major damage.

Funded by the state’s go-to agency for seismic safety, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), the study paved the way for additional engineering analysis and the state Legislature’s $30 million investment in renovations to schools, fire stations and hospitals in 2009. At OSU, Miller teaches courses in structural analysis and design.

“Professor Miller was a superstar in his significant contributions to the 2007 DOGAMI report,” says Yumei Wang, geohazards team leader for the agency. Miller received the 2010 Government Engineer of the Year Award from the Oregon section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Vulnerable Design Elements (see corresponding numbers on the illustration):

1. Falling hazards such as parapets, unreinforced masonry chimneys and ornamentation/wall panels that are not adequately anchored to the frame. One telltale sign for unreinforced masonry (URM) walls: repeated brick layers placed with the narrow ends facing the outside of the wall. Spaced vertically every sixth or seventh row, such layers connect interior and exterior bricks that can peel away from the structure onto streets and sidewalks in an earthquake

2. Building designs that do not follow a simple rectangular shape. Such irregularities include L-shaped, T-shaped, and U-shaped variations. In an earthquake, each part of the building can move independently, and areas where sections join tend to concentrate stresses. As a result, they can crack and separate.

3. Vertical irregularities where a building becomes narrower as it rises. Seismic shaking again produces concentrated stresses at the step in elevation.

4. Buildings with large openings such as glass storefronts or garage-door openings for trucks. This very flexible wall can cause the building to twist and threaten the integrity of the entire structure.

5. The full seismic survey report is available online at http://www.oregongeology.org/sub/projects/rvs/default.htm.

Simulated tsunamis crash into scale model buildings at OSU's O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, the nation's largest tsunami test facility. Engineers have run tests with the Oregon coastal communities of Seaside and Cannon Beach (Photo: Frank Miller)

It may come like it did the last time, in the middle of a cold and blustery January night. Suddenly the ground will begin to shake, windows will shatter, bridges collapse, the electricity will go out and parents will frantically try to find a flashlight and dig sleepy kids out of bed, ignore everything else and run – because they know they only have minutes before the water arrives.

Even worse, it may come on a warm and breezy summer afternoon in July, when tens of thousands of visitors fly kites, build sand castles and play fetch with their dogs on one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the world. The rumble and shaking on the crowded beaches will quickly be replaced by a receding shoreline as the water eerily slides away, and people will start to run, anywhere they can, to get to higher ground – because they know the water will soon be coming back.

It will be scary, it will be destructive, and it’s going to happen, reasonably soon. People will talk for generations to come about the great subduction zone earthquake and tsunami of ____. Fill in the blank with a date; science can provide some guidance, but no one knows for certain when it will be.

Pat Corcoran, a coastal hazards outreach specialist with Oregon Sea Grant, is mindful of these risks and calls the disaster that’s waiting to happen “arguably the greatest recurring natural hazard in the lowest 48 states.” That’s about right. Subduction zones – like the Cascadia Subduction Zone that lurks just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest – produce the most massive earthquakes in the world. And their “up and down” ground motion triggers tsunamis, one of the most deadly ocean wave events in the world.

Like Clockwork

The problem is, at least in the United States, these events don’t happen very often. In fact, until the mid-1980s, scientists didn’t think great earthquakes and tsunamis were caused by Pacific Northwest fault zones. Then some pioneering research by the U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon State University and others began to unravel some ancient mysteries. Scientists found that not only do they happen here, they occur pretty regularly, about every 300 to 500 years on one part or all of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which runs 700 miles from Cape Mendocino in California to Vancouver Island in Canada. The last event was pinpointed because the enormous tsunami it created raced all the way across the Pacific Ocean to Japan, where written records were kept. It occurred here about 9 p.m. on Jan. 26, 1700.

“The Native Americans at the time of the last subduction zone earthquake in 1700 had a rich oral history surrounding earthquakes and tsunamis,” Corcoran says. “One tradition encouraged people to weave long ropes. That way, the saying went, following the earthquake a person could tie one end of the long rope around a tree and the other onto their canoe in order to ride out the tsunami waves.”

It’s now 2010, more than three centuries later. The newest studies produced by Chris Goldfinger, an OSU marine geologist and one of the world’s leading experts on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, indicate that there’s a 37 percent chance of a partial rupture of the zone within the next 50 years, an event that could be similar in magnitude to the earthquake just experienced in Chile.

“Perhaps more striking than the probability numbers is that we have already gone longer without an earthquake than 75 percent of the known times between earthquakes in the last 10,000 years,” Goldfinger says. “And 50 years from now, that number will rise to 85 percent.”

So it’s coming soon, possibly tomorrow. Possibly in 10 years. A better than one in three chance within the next 50 years. But no one knows for sure, and that isn’t going to change. With existing science, earthquakes cannot be predicted with precision; we can only prepare.

But Are We Prepared?

A few years ago, local residents in Cannon Beach, Oregon, were pondering that question, as they followed the developing science on subduction zone earthquakes and worked with officials from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries on evacuation maps for the anticipated tsunami.

Preparation for a tsunami, in this context, would be defined as people knowing what to do, where to go, getting to high ground and having the time to do it. Jay Raskin, a longtime resident, community leader and local architect, didn’t like what he was hearing.

“Around then, the scientists were describing and updating the potential risks for an earthquake and tsunami caused by the Cascadia Subduction Zone,” Raskin says. “We talked about the distances we needed to go, how high the water might get, where high enough ground was, the bridges that probably would be destroyed.

“And then we’re thinking, oh darn, this strategy of getting to high ground might not work for everyone,” he says. “For some people there just might not be enough time. We needed another option.”

Then Hurricane Katrina struck, and another lesson was offered to the Cannon Beach residents. In the aftermath of the storm, not only had the devastation of coastal communities been enormous, but there was no functioning city government, no working facility to help rebuild.

A Sunny Day at the Beach

Cannon Beach is a small coastal community a little south of Seaside, Oregon. It’s butted up against coastal headlands and stretches for several lovely miles along the Pacific Ocean coast. Most of its 1,700 residents live within a few blocks of the beach, and about half of them, and 75 percent of the businesses, reside within a tsunami inundation zone. But it could be much worse. On a peak summer day, up to 12,000 people may crowd the beaches around Cannon Beach. The city presents a microcosm of an issue that affects a vulnerable shoreline about 900 miles long.

Tsunami Evacuation Building

In addition to a tsunami response plan, the city needed a new city hall. So Raskin and others had an idea. Why not build a structure that could survive a tsunami, stand above the incoming water, give local residents and visitors a safe place they could run to on short notice, save many lives, and also serve as a base of operations after the disaster to help the city recover and get back up and running?

It was the comparatively new concept of “vertical evacuation” to escape a tsunami, and it was a good idea. Two problems: No structure of that type had ever been built in the United States, and in the few places in the world where such structures had been built, such as Japan, none had yet experienced a tsunami. So as an engineering challenge, this was literally uncharted water. Also, it would cost more. A design has now been created for a new 10,000-square-foot structure, and it’s estimated to cost around $4 million, about double the cost for a more conventional building.

But the issues are real, and the Cannon Beach residents knew it. They had watched the devastation from the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami in 2004, where 230,000 people died, most of them not from the earthquake, but rather the tsunami. The geology of that region is nearly identical to the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

“After the Sumatra earthquake, I saw on television this scientist from Thailand, who had tried years before to convince local authorities to put in warning buoys, but no one did anything,” Raskin says. “He was in tears, he considered it a personal failure.”

“That struck me hard,” he says. “I was a city councilor at the time, I knew we faced the same issues, and I didn’t want that to happen here, to have to say years later that we knew all about this but didn’t do anything.”

For a nearby subduction zone earthquake like the one expected on Cascadia, warning buoys are not really the point. The earthquake itself will give any informed person all the warning they need, and only minutes will be available to get to high ground before the water starts rising and just keeps coming – an event Raskin likens to “a sneaker wave on steroids.”

The Real Enemies: Time and Transportation

So last May, at the Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory at OSU, a small model of the proposed new city hall building at Cannon Beach was being hit by simulated tsunamis repeatedly, to help address some of the questions. It’s not fancy, essentially a square structure on stilts, but very strong and with a sturdy foundation. But how strong is strong enough? What will be the effect of debris, such as floating cars, slamming into the pillars? OSU was helping Cannon Beach to answer those questions, in research supported by the National Science Foundation.

“We have to know just how strong this building has to be, so the community can build something that will work, but at the same time keep costs as low as possible,” says Dan Cox, an OSU professor of coastal and ocean engineering. “Some buildings may slow the force of the waves before they hit, for instance, and other debris may cause additional impacts.

“In engineering, this is new territory. We’re just scratching the surface of everything we need to know, but these studies should give us a higher degree of confidence in what we build, and in the process our students are learning how to build structures of this type for the future.”

Other work to aid Cannon Beach is also under way at OSU. Harry Yeh, the Edwards Professor of Coastal and Ocean Engineering, one of the world’s leading experts on tsunamis, has been involved with the community for years to help it address concerns, design the new structure. He is now working on an evacuation plan.

“We know we can build a structure that will survive an earthquake and tsunami, and could serve as an emergency shelter,” Yeh says. “Strong, reinforced concrete buildings can stand up to that, we saw that in Indonesia in 2004. And pretty much everyone agrees this structure would be good to have. But it will cost more, so to make this feasible, we have to figure out the best way to balance cost and function.”

The initiative in Cannon Beach is unique, and if implemented, will be the nation’s first structure designed specifically to survive an earthquake, resist the forces of a tsunami, and hopefully save lives. OSU has worked closely with state and federal agencies, as well as private companies, to make this happen. The result could form a model, both physically and inspirationally, for many other coastal communities that face similar concerns. And community support so far, Raskin says, has been reasonably strong. People have raised some fair and intelligent questions, but almost no one is advocating the status quo. Funding support may ultimately be sought from both local, state and federal levels and the private sector.

But Cannon Beach is one small town, on one short section of beach. The earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, when it happens, could be one of the great geologic events in world history, affecting three states, some of British Columbia, major cities and many millions of people. That’s a big problem, which goes well beyond the issue of the expected tsunami.

Living in the Quake Zone

Are we prepared?

OSU researchers are doing what they can. Earthquake and tsunami simulation modeling is being done in several Oregon sites. A course has been created and is being taught on “living with earthquakes.” OSU researchers have worked with the Oregon Department of Transportation to simulate tsunami loads on coastal bridges. Scientists have gone to Sumatra, to American Samoa, to Chile, to the sites of all the recent major subduction zone earthquakes and tsunamis in recent years to learn whatever might help.

To further explore these questions, Scott Ashford and Solomon Yim from OSU were part of a group supported by the National Science Foundation who went to Chile this past spring after the February 8.8 magnitude earthquake — also on a subduction zone similar to that of the Pacific Northwest. Yim, a professor of civil engineering, led a team of tsunami, structural and geotechnical engineers and surveyed damages to ports, coastal buildings and bridges. Ashford, professor and head of the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at OSU, said the group wanted to learn as much as possible about what had happened, what worked and what didn’t.

Chile, even more than the United States, has experience with subduction zone earthquakes. They happen with more frequency there, and a massive 9.5 event in 1960 was the largest earthquake ever recorded. Because of that, they have modern and aggressive building codes, as good or better than those in the Pacific Northwest, and much better than those used when many of the urban structures in Oregon and Washington were built 30 or more years ago.

“Part of what was striking about the Chile earthquake was the geographic extent of the damage. It was spread out over an area essentially from Seattle to Medford here in the U.S., and from I-5 to the coast,” Ashford says. “The damage itself, as you often see with earthquakes, was variable. Some areas were very hard hit, others much less.”

Chile, Japan and New Zealand – like the U.S., all situated on the notorious “ring of fire” around the Pacific Ocean – have some of the best seismic design standards in the world, Ashford adds. Engineers in Chile were able to observe certain types of architecture, often square, unimaginative buildings, that tended to resist damage much better than more innovative and irregular designs. But it still wasn’t good enough.

“In Concepcion, all the bridges from the south were collapsed or out of commission; people were cut off,” Ashford says. “You would see people living in tents, staring at the building they used to live in but afraid to enter it even for a few minutes to get their belongings, fearing it would collapse. And of course in the areas hit by the tsunami, the damage was just devastating; it was really heartbreaking.”

Engineer for Resilience

Oregon and Washington, Ashford says, face even greater devastation in the future. “We’re going to get hit worse than Chile did; I suspect much worse. We have many large buildings in our cities that were built in the 50s, 60s and 70s that will not do well in the earthquake.”

A prime lesson Ashford says he took away from the recent Chilean experience is to preserve the lifelines: electricity, gas, water, communication and transportation, as well as critical facilities like hospitals, fire stations and schools.

“What we need here is resiliency, to provide the infrastructure for rescue, relief, and recovery efforts that will enable Oregon to bounce back from such a disaster,” Ashford says. “Like the proposed city hall at Cannon Beach, that will save lives and give you something to build around.”

Ashford sees OSU as the logical institution to lead that effort. Working with the Oregon Department of Transportation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, utility companies, cities, and other agencies, OSU has the engineering and scientific and management expertise to help coordinate preparation for a major disaster, to build in that resilience that can literally mean the difference between life and death after a major disaster.

Fortunately, there may still be time to accomplish a great deal. Oregon Sea Grant’s Pat Corcoran noted that “we are the first modern generation to intellectually understand that we will experience great earthquakes and tsunamis.” The next event could happen tomorrow, but it also might not be for 30, 50 or 100 years. If so, that could offer a pretty good window of opportunity for public education and outreach for both local residents and tourists, community preparations, new and better building designs, sustained research programs, replacement of aging and dangerous structures. All of that is possible and many of these issues can be addressed if everyone involved — government, universities, agencies, people — work together to create a safer future.

But there’s a lot to do and only a limited time available to do it. Because a massive earthquake is coming that will destroy homes, buildings, roads, bridges and infrastructure across the Pacific Northwest. And a massive tsunami is coming with waters that will sweep ashore with deadly force. They are coming. We know that.

Are we prepared?

No.
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See a, April 2012 video about tsunami preparedness by Tom Bearden, National Public Radio.

Watch Risky Business in the Northwest on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

For information about supporting research and teaching through faculty endowments, contact the Oregon State University Foundation, 1-800-354-7281 or visit CampaignforOSU.org.

Oregon State professor Scott Ashford visited Chile after its February 2010 earthquake.

We’re overdue. If the Cascadia subduction zone behaves as it has in the past, an 8.0 to 8.5 earthquake and a resulting tsunami have a good chance of striking the Pacific Northwest in the next 50 years. That’s the take-home message from OSU marine geologist Chris Goldfinger’s studies of offshore debris flows. He has identified up to 38 such events in the last 10,000 years. At the April 2010 meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Portland, Voice of America correspondent Tom Banse talked with Goldfinger and University of Washington emeritus geophysicist Steve Malone about predicting the next Big One. Read Banse’s account here.

As science defines what’s at stake, what can we do? Oregon Sea Grant’s Pat Corcoran offers tsunami preparedness advice here. Meanwhile, engineers at OSU’s Hinsdale Wave Lab are testing a proposed tsunami evacuation structure for the City of Cannon Beach. Hinsdale engineers previously evaluated the consequences of a tsunami striking Cannon Beach’s neighbor, the City of Seaside. See a video of those tests here and an Oregon Sea Grant video about how research is improving disaster planning for coastal communities.

The New York Times featured a thoughtful op-ed on earthquake engineering on March 27 by Peter Yanev, author of Peace of Mind in Earthquake Country. And if you really want to delve into the faults under the Pacific Northwest, read OSU emeritus geologist Robert Yeats’ book Living with Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest. You can order it here.