Experts Warn of Massive Quake and Tsunami Threat along Northwest
As California continues to battle wildfires in Los Angeles, experts are warning that the Pacific Northwest is at risk of a massive earthquake that could trigger a tsunami. The Cascadia subduction zone, a fault line that sits right on the Ring of Fire that rims the Pacific Ocean, is believed to be the epicenter of the quake.
"It'll spread from Canada to California over 800 miles," Oregon State University paleoseismologist Chris Goldfinger, a leading expert, told CBN News.
He noted that this fault line was largely unknown to the public and that construction all around the Pacific Northwest was made without taking giant earthquakes into account.
"The whole Pacific Northwest is very, very fragile. Essentially, our cities are turn-of-the-century cities built on a time bomb," he warned.
Meanwhile, Fema's regional planner warned of deadly consequences if a 9.0 magnitude earthquake from the Cascadia fault line or higher would strike Seattle.
"When the skyscrapers start swaying…well, a lot of them are designed to have their windows pop out," said Matt Caesar at the region's FEMA headquarters in Bothell, Washington.
"There'll be three feet of broken glass on the roads underneath those buildings in downtown Seattle — three feet of glass," he added. We don't even see three feet of snow."
Caesar, who typically works with disaster planning, said that the one fact of the broken glass startled him.
"That glass thing really stuck with me. When you think about all those glass panes falling," he said. "Many, many people will lose their lives, unfortunately."
Additional effects from such a monstrous quake include hillside homes tumbling down, flooding, fire, infrastructure collapse, as well as Tsunami waves 20-100 feet high that would destroy coastal structures.
Goldfinger, who was interviewed by CBN News in the middle of Newport, Oregon's Yaquina Bay, a few hundred yards from the Pacific, said that debris from the giant waves would cause additional destruction.
"Then suddenly you've got a bay full of fishing boats, refrigerators, cars, and everything else," Goldfinger explained. "And it's like a glacier of debris that's just kind of sloshing back and forth."
Planning manager Kevin Cupples shared that although the area's schools would be right in the tsunami zone, he was pleased after residents recently voted for funding to relocate the schools to higher ground.
"So now they're basically going to be outside the inundation zone and on stable ground," Cupples told CBN News.
Historically speaking, it's been 318 years since the last Cascadia quake hit, and that such quakes hit on average 243 to roughly 500 years apart. Southern Oregon is the area with the greater likelihood of getting hit next, with Seattle and northern Washington the least likely.
"Someday, it's going to happen. And that could be 15 minutes from now, or that could be years down the road," Seaside's Cupples explained.
"We could literally have it right now," Goldfinger added. "And we'd be looking around, saying, 'okay, I guess this is it.'"
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Originally published January 14, 2025.
