Right now, that dog is still your best early warning sign. Credit: Kai Schwoerer / Getty Images
Right now, that dog is still your best early warning sign.
Right now, that dog is still your best early warning sign. Kai Schwoerer / Getty Images

Last Friday marked the anniversary of the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake of 1700, which violently shook the earth and caused a massive tsunami that created 12-foot waves as far out as Japan. The next one could happen at any time, and when it does, it will flatten whole cities and threaten the lives of 7 million people. Interest in this particular version of the endtimes greatly increased when Kathryn Schulz, writing for the New Yorker, described what would happen if the Big One struck again. I will never get this image out of my head:

The Pacific Northwest has no early-warning system. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, there will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest.

The dogs bark because the sound of the earth compressing beneath us is only audible to them and to a few other animals, which is another reason why dogs are good and right and true companions to man.

Washington State still doesn’t have a good early-warning system for public use, though a few private organizations use the ShakeAlert system, which is “a dense network of seismometers” shared between west coast states. The system would save lives, giving “as much as two or three minutes’ warning” before the quake hits, according to the Seattle Times.

But as my colleague Katie Herzog reminded us in September, only California and Oregon have contributed money to the project, which requires about $38 million to fund. Don’t worry! In the meantime, Governor Inslee has some instructional pamphlets coming out soon. We’ll be fine.

Anyway, read this cool and terrifying thread from Elizabeth Angell on Twitter about the last time the Pacific Northwest ripped in half. Inside, you’ll find notes from samurai about the tsunami, ghost forests, and this fucking thing:

Live footage from the future tsunami:

You should also spend some time with Viola Riebe, an elder in the Hoh tribe. She’ll tell you the story of The Thunder and the Whale, and also about that time her uncle told her the story of the great tidal wave.

Rich Smith is The Stranger's former News Editor. He writes about politics, books, and performance. You can read his poems at www.richsmithpoetry.com