It can't be a mere coincidence that the moment Seattle is growing like never before that reports of its impending doom are also on the rise. Yes, Seattle is threatened by a bigger fault than the one that threatens San Francisco. But there is also a supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park. In my lifetime, there has been a natural disaster that claimed nearly 250,000 lives. Bad shit really happens. Also, when have we not known about the dangers of Seattle? Riz Rollins wrote about them in this paper so long ago that the story is not online.

Our growing obsession with our doom must have something to do with the problematic status of all the rubble we see around us. The rubble mounting on construction sites is in a zone of uncertainty. Is it rubble from buildings destroyed by construction workers or the rubble of buildings felled by a mega-earthquake? It's as if we are building a city—big, dense, and soon to have a real subway—just for the disaster.