Waiting for a monster earthquake in the Pacific Northwest

November 12, 2015

It has been more than 300 years since a magnitude 9 earthquake hit the Cascadia subduction zone

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Waiting for a monster earthquake in the Pacific Northwest

Walking down almost any street in Seattle’s historic downtown, Eric Holdeman sees danger. He ran the King County Office of Emergency Management in Washington for 11 years. He doesn’t think the older area would do well in a powerful earthquake. For him, geologists and emergency planners, it’s not a question of if a major earthquake will strike the Pacific Northwest but when. In this America Tonight excerpt, Sheila MacVicar reports on the threat facing communities and meets some of the people trying to prepare for the worst.


 

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