Rehearsing “The Big One” on a room-sized chessboard

Nearly 200 federal, state, and tribal emergency preparedness planners gathered around a giant map of the Pacific Northwest this week to rehearse and criticize the federal response plan for “The Big One.” The three-day Cascadia earthquake discussion exercise partially replaced a much larger planned rehearsal that was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In both cases, the scenario was the same: a complete rupture of magnitude 9.0 from the Cascadia offshore fault zone followed by a tsunami. The exercise assumed “lots and lots of destruction” in western Oregon and Washington, including obstructions on Interstate 5 and twisting highways to the east.

The disaster response exercise at Camp Murray, Washington National Guard, near Tacoma, is like something out of a war game or giant risk game. Planners moved trusses representing resources such as search and rescue, security and air support across a basketball court-sized map of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

From tables arranged around the perimeter of the map, state emergency management leaders raised questions about the capacity of proposed staging areas, typically east of the Cascade Range. FEMA and military officials have offered possible solutions such as deploying Army logistics battalions.

“We have the experts out there right now talking about what’s real, how long it will take, what methods might be available, and what isn’t,” FEMA regional director Willie Nunn said, looking at the exercise from a rooftop terrace. .

Nunn said the detailed walk-through of the earthquake and tsunami response, known technically as a “concept rehearsal,” should result in learning that will be incorporated into the updated Cascadia Federal Subduction Zone Plan.

“What we’re doing now is critical,” Nan said. “Our priority is to save lives and sustain lives, as always. But we also have to enable recovery. Therefore, we will have to make difficult decisions.”

The exercise, Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, boosted how long it might take for earthquake relief to reach people in disaster-stricken areas of Oregon and Washington. He said residents should prepare to be self-sufficient for at least a week, if not two or three weeks.

“Knowing we won’t have water, knowing we won’t have sanitation, we won’t have communications or energy, and what are the things that you and your family need to be disaster survivors and not disaster victims,” Phelps said. “That’s a really important piece of the puzzle. .”

Nunn said the coronavirus pandemic has forced the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to dismantle large-scale exercises for the 2022 Cascadia Rising earthquake, originally scheduled for June 13-16. The event would have had more than 22,000 participants, the majority from the military, practicing things like amphibious landings, parachute reduction, mass casualty care, and air earthquake relief delivery.

The 2022 edition of Cascadia Rising was to build on lessons learned from the initial comprehensive Cascadia Rising exercise conducted in 2016. This exercise exposed critical gaps in communications interoperability and sustainability in the absence of fuel and electricity supply and transmission and logistics problems. .

“It has become abundantly clear that much of the Cascadia response will be a significant logistical challenge,” Robert Ezell, director of the Washington Division of Emergency Management, said at a briefing Wednesday. “How do we move vital supplies from the rest of the country to the affected area?”

“That’s a lot of what we’re working on,” Ezel said. State emergency management agencies and interested nonprofits are planning their own exercises next month rather than large-scale, district-wide exercises.

Ezel said the pandemic response to COVID-19 has given emergency managers another type of stress test that can enhance the response to a catastrophic earthquake. He specifically mentioned improving coordination between state and federal agencies and doing more than anyone could want to use virtual meeting software, such as Microsoft Teams.

Geologists and emergency planners consider the Cascadia subduction zone fault to be among the most significant disaster threats in the United States. The sea fault was last ruptured in January 1700, creating a tsunami that reached Japan all the way across the Pacific Ocean.

Researchers digging in coastal swamps and offshore valley bottoms have also found evidence of previous major earthquakes and tsunamis. The radiocarbon dating of these events makes it possible to estimate the frequency interval of the Cascadia mega-earthquakes between 250 and 800 years. This puts the present well into the back window.

Copyright 2022 Northwest News Network. To learn more, visit the Northwest News Network.

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