Sullivan and some of his readers on Seattle’s coming Big One.

Money quote:

Another headline you won’t see: “Millions saved in Seattle by good engineering and government building codes”.

I’d never seen the special Push in Case of Earthquake Elevator buttons. Fuck.

Full apologies for stealing Sully-linking from Dan.

18 replies on “Seattle’s Looming Disaster”

  3. I grew up in an area generally void of natural disasters (southern NM) and now there’s rumblings (heh, pun) of the likelihood of a major earthquakin’ in the area my mom won’t stop with the emails linking me to “earthquake preparedness measures”.

    What’s kind of funny is that the other day on the phone she said “Well, honey, you know that Seattle architecture just ins’t ready to handle something like this.” Lolz.

  6. a significant earthquake on this fault could cause widespread devastation and at least 1,000 deaths in the city

    That’s it? This is what people are panicking about? For fuck’s sake. I’m more worried about my good china.

  7. I was looking at a map of the Ring of Fire yesterday, and it dawned on me: In the last 6 years we’ve see major earthquakes in: Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Chile. Each of those represent 4 of the 5 ‘corners’ of the Ring of Fire. The only one not represented since 1989 is the West Coast.

    On the other hand, a glance at the Cascadia Earthquake Timeline give totally inconclusive suggestion as to when the next 8- or 9-magnitude quake might happen. Tomorrow? 100 years from now?

  9. Other headlines you won’t see:
    “Cubs Win World Series”
    “Chicago Deemed America’s Healthiest City”
    “Michael Jordan Donates Millions to Charity”

  10. child.. i was finishing off that last slice of key lime half annoyed that the laundry room is out of commission until, maybe, thursday. and i have errands to run and it’s prolly gonna rain on me and my raincoat doesn’t cover my legs , so i’ll be be wet and cold from the thighs down. i got the tv on waiting for the weather report. and i hear some talking head toss off something like’ while there’s no reason to fear radiation in our neck of the woods, we should be concerned about the possibility of quakes in our area for the next 72 hours’.
    ..excuse me ? the NEXT THREE DAYS ?…
    ..y’all… did i hear this right ?

  13. We wouldn’t need building codes if all the high density scam artists hadn’t built a “real city” on top of a mud hill.

  14. Ummm… what do those “Earthquake” buttons on elevators do? Return to ground? Go to top floor? Stop the elevator at the nearest floor? What? Curious New Yorkers want to know.

  15. There’s no “push in case of an earthquake” button, there’s a light that says “earthquake” on it to indicate the elevator has stopped moving because of seismic activity.

  17. These sorts of content-free fearmongering articles drive me crazy. So our older buildings aren’t well-equipped for a 300-500 year event? Big shocker – no one knew how to design for a 9.0 earthquake 100 years ago. What’s the solution? Preemptively tear down all the seismically-vulnerable buildings? Like the Western Building? Good luck with that. The truth is that no one would accept the cost to upgrade or replace unfit buildings, and would rather just wring their hands for a few months after each event elsewhere reminds us of our vulnerability.

    As for new buildings, to suggest that our building codes are “probably pretty good” is pretty lazy journalism.

  18. When I think back to the third floor apartment I had in an unreinforced brick building on 65th and Phinney…well, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be there in a 9.0 quake. Nor would I want to be anywhere on fill. Fuck the china, man.

Comments are closed.