[HN Gopher] The Oregon Resilience Plan (2013) [pdf]
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       The Oregon Resilience Plan (2013) [pdf]
        
       Author : wallflower
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2023-08-10 15:41 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.oregon.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.oregon.gov)
        
       | Stratoscope wrote:
       | Related: _The Really Big One_
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9878160
       | 
       | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
       | 
       | https://archive.is/S0GcL
        
       | almost_usual wrote:
       | Months to years to restore infrastructure, Oregon will look very
       | different afterwards.
        
       | noodlesUK wrote:
       | This whole document is a harrowing read. I'm curious what
       | progress has been made in the decade since it was published.
        
         | nosmokewhereiam wrote:
         | A retired firefighter said every Portland, OR bridge would cut
         | off each part of the city. This report doesn't cover this
         | explicitly, but it's pretty clear that is a major complications
         | to overcome anecdotally.
        
           | ianburrell wrote:
           | There are new bridges that should stay up and offer way
           | across the river after quake.
           | 
           | Lots of smaller bridges are going to come down. I don't know
           | why there isn't more focus on them. They should be easier to
           | retrofit. And at least have one in each area that will stay
           | up to keep city connected. For example, I live near hospital
           | but it is on other side of freeway and have no idea if will
           | be reachable.
        
           | sonofhans wrote:
           | I live in PDX. There are about a dozen bridges. If even one
           | were left standing over the Willamette it wouldn't be too bad
           | -- at least families could reunite. There are a lot of boats
           | on the river too, and it's not wide or strong, so people
           | could get ferried across.
           | 
           | Regular commute and business traffic would disappear, of
           | course.
           | 
           | None of those things are true for the Columbia River
           | separating Oregon and Washington. There aren't many bridges
           | and they're very long. The river is non-trivial to cross.
           | That would be a big mess.
        
             | finnh wrote:
             | oooof I'm imagining having to drive east on 90 to cross the
             | Columbia at Vantage just to drive from Seattle to
             | Portland...
             | 
             | (many bridges would have to go down for this to be the only
             | way, of course)
        
               | cossatot wrote:
               | Earthquake-induced landsliding is common enough that
               | neither 90 or 14 may be open after an M 9 event,
               | especially during the rainy season.
        
             | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
             | Yeah, we'd need to borrow ferries from somewhere. But if
             | it's the big one, Puget sound is also probably a mess so
             | there goes the obvious option.
        
               | lotsofpulp wrote:
               | What would happen to the sound in the event of an
               | earthquake?
               | 
               | I figure equipment to unload boats might be damaged, but
               | the boats themselves should be able to come and go as
               | before, no?
        
             | briffle wrote:
             | There are way more bridges than that. Those are just the
             | major ones. Marion county will essentially be 17 islands
             | because so many small bridges will buckle
        
         | whartung wrote:
         | It is harrowing. And I'd like to hope that folks that live in
         | Oregon are familiar with it.
         | 
         | Living in California, we get public service announcements and
         | outreach about preparedness. The FEMA guidelines of 3 days
         | supplies are a fine rule of thumb for a lot of disruptive
         | scenarios. I personally feel a 2 week ability to "shelter in
         | place" is about the best one can hope for. But all of those
         | rely on the underlying detail that should some great disaster
         | hit an area like Southern California, that there is a large
         | amount of infrastructure and support outside of the area that
         | can be marshaled and rallied to support those impacted by the
         | event.
         | 
         | Simply put, within 2 weeks, not only has the cavalry arrived,
         | you're likely already on your way out to a safe area.
         | 
         | Mind, I live in a earthquake zone. My singular true risk is
         | uncontrolled fire. Modern, wood stick frame housing is very
         | resilient and resistant in collapse in case of a large quake.
         | It can condemn the house, but the house will not likely crush
         | the occupants.
         | 
         | But fire, well fire is fire. We, unfortunately, know far too
         | much about the disaster potential for fire. So, my hope is that
         | at worse the house gets broken, doesn't catch on fire, and
         | someone will show up within 2 weeks helping me get to someplace
         | else. Other than that, just gotta wing it.
         | 
         | 2 weeks of random soup and beans from a can is not a hard thing
         | to stock up. Water is a trick if you're not doing it
         | consciously, but it's not up to the rafters with supplies if
         | you do.
         | 
         | Oregon, however, is just not so lucky. If they get their
         | planned for monster earthquake, it's very likely help will not
         | be able to arrive within 2 weeks. You're likely looking at a
         | much more apocalyptic scenario rated at several months. If
         | anything, you should prepare to start hiking out.
         | 
         | The infrastructure impact seems to be very high in Oregon. Even
         | nearby help may not be able to get to you, with the roads being
         | in utter ruin.
         | 
         | So all I can hope is that there is effective outreach to the
         | folks in Oregon and some solid advice shared on how to
         | potentially cope with these events should they happen. Because
         | Oregon has different issues and the generic guidelines likely
         | will not be successful in this case.
        
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