What happens when ‘The Big One’ hits the west coast?
Posted September 23, 2024 3:54 am.
For decades, we’ve known that one day, a massive earthquake would hit the fault off Canada’s west coast—and new research published this summer from last year has revealed so much more.
What we can now determine is what that quake will look like.
John Cassidy is a senior research scientist at Natural Resources Canada and a professor at the University of Victoria.
“These subduction earthquakes, because they’re so huge, impact every single community along the coast over that 1,100-kilometre length,” said Cassidy.
“So Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, communities in Northern California would all be impacted simultaneously and would all see damage.”
How much shaking will there be, and for how long? How high will the tsunami be? How far inland will it go? Where will the quake strike first, and how much force will it contain? All of this information will help us prepare our infrastructure and our citizens for when the day comes—but we still don’t know when that day will be.
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