Thursday, September 15, 2005

Whole lotta shakin'

Looks like we have a couple of nervous weeks ahead in Washington, as there will be about 30 times as much chance of an earthquake and tsunami in the Puget Sound area.
An important seismic event imperceptible to humans has begun in the Pacific Northwest as predicted, according to the government agency Geological Survey of Canada...

The event is called episodic tremor and slip (ETS). It involves a slow movement of the Juan de Fuca and North America tectonic plates along the Cascadia margin of southern British Columbia. Faults associated with the plates have been the sites of major earthquakes – akin to the colossal tsumani-causing quake last December in Indonesia – every 500 years or so, the geologic record shows. The last such temblor in the area struck on Jan. 26 in the year 1700.

More here and here.

It's a good thing they replaced the Kingdome a few years back, with one that would make a more comfortable shelter. Seriously, I hope if such a disaster happened, the Washington authorities would do a better job then they did in Louisiana. Fortunately, the underpopulated half of the state is on high ground, so we'll have plenty of space to house Coastie refugees. Even the ones that voted for Christine Gregoire.

And if Mark Shea and his family need a place to stay, we'd be happy to have them. He might even be so grateful as to speak at our parish, as I've been hoping he would for years.

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