Presented by: Implications for Pacific Northwest Earthquakes
Recent earthquakes have raised awareness and concerns about the potential for a very destructive earthquake in the Pacific Northwest.
Regardless of where you are in the debate, it’s really important for us to consider the potential for such an event and to do the kind of detailed and comprehensive scenario work that we’ve done in Southern California and that we recently did in the New Madrid earthquake zone. Laurie Johnson, Lexington Insurance Company
While the number and severity of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 are statistically consistent with the historical record, some seismologists over the past decade have raised some concerns about a potential “cluster” of large earthquakes worldwide. Other scientists have posited that large subduction zone events might trigger others, even some that are far away. Regardless of whether one subscribes to these theories, the subduction zone events in Japan and Chile have brought renewed attention to the issue of earthquake and tsunami risk in the Pacific Northwest. In the year 1700, an earthquake that has been estimated as a magnitude 9 rocked the Pacific Northwest and generated a tsunami that struck Japan. Recognizing that the risk of a similar event could happen, geology, engineering and disaster management experts should be working together – as they’ve done in Southern California and in the New Madrid earthquake zone – to develop detailed and comprehensive scenarios and reach consensus on appropriate risk management and disaster management responses for the Pacific Northwest.
Copyright © 2011 by A.M. Best Company, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means; electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise.
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