So
an earthquake didn't really happen at Seattle
and the west coast last week, but that non-quake
had a big impact on Boundary County, Idaho.In one of the biggest disaster drills ever undertaken, a four-day long scenario was enacted and drilled last week. The drill scenario was a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a huge tsunami, occurring in a zone along the west coast extending from northern California up into southern British Columbia. This (drill) earthquake and tsunami destroyed significant areas of Seattle and Portland, Oregon, and other coastal areas from California to British Columbia, covering an area with a population of over 8 million people who live in the zone.
A real earthquake and tsunami in that area, known seismologically as the Cascadia Zone, would mean the destruction of bridges, roads, communications, and other buildings and infrastructure. Whole towns could be damaged or destroyed, with accompanying casualties.
"A 9.0 magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and the resulting tsunami is the most complex disaster scenario that emergency management and public safety officials in the Pacific Northwest could face. [This] is an exercise to address that disaster," FEMA said in an information release.
The drill exercise, named Cascadia Rising 2016, which has been in planning stages for about seven years according to Governor Otter's office, began last Tuesday, June 7, when the drill earthquake hit the area. Immediately, upon the announcement that the "earthquake" had hit, government agencies, the National Guard, the military, and a multitude of other entities large and small went into emergency response mode to address the situation.
How did Boundary County become involved in all of this? The premise was that with all the destruction on the coast, hundreds of thousands or more of displaced people would tend to move inland, away from the destruction on the coast, seeking protection, shelter, and help. Eventually that wave of people would begin heading toward or would be directed to safer inland areas. And that is where Boundary County and other areas in Idaho and eastern Washington came into play.
When the drill earthquake hit the coast last Thursday, the drill responses began. It was estimated that 20,000 people were involved as part of the drill throughout the Pacific Northwest, including federal agencies, the U.S. military, and state and local emergency response managers from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, Native American tribes and emergency management officials in British Columbia.
Some examples: Sailors of the U.S. Navy built a temporary camp on an island in the Puget Sound to help with emergency response. Supplies were parachuted from Chinook helicopters, along with paratroopers, into the Shelton, Washington area, where they set up an operations center. Part of the logistics of the disaster drill was the assumption that the airfield at Shelton would be the airfield closest to the Washington coast to survive the earthquake.
In other emergency drills, the Washington National Guard practiced decontaminating vehicles and first responders. The U.S. Army sent a team to set up a petroleum distribution system. Also planned for the drill was deployment of the National Guard to check the integrity of area airfields, a military chemical company team to address hazardous materials dangers, and other organizations working to set up a water purifying system.
Add to all of this the massive search and rescue that would be required (a team from the Kentucky National Guard was scheduled to be deployed to help alongside Pacific Northwest teams, along with other out-of-area entities and agencies). Provision of emergency medical care was also planned, as it was assumed that no hospital would remain functional west of the I-5 freeway.
Twitter communications ongoing throughout the massive drill showed ham radio operators communicating and helping to coordinate activities, helicopters shipping medical supplies, Emergency Management Centers filled with staff, and notices from the National Weather Service.
Two days into the drill, on Thursday, June 9, the wave of impact from the disaster hit Idaho and Boundary County. The Panhandle Health District set up a medical needs shelter in Coeur d'Alene, and emergency response teams in Coeur d'Alene had to deal with the scenario of a plane carrying evacuees crash landing at the airport.
Here in Boundary County, an Emergency Response Center was activated and operated for the first time, that facility going up at the site of the Search and Rescue Building on Riverside Street. As this was the first time such a center had been activated, "Most of the participants involved in the operation were somewhat concerned as to how it would go, would we know what to do, and could we get it done in a timely fashion," said Michael Meier, Boundary County Public Information Officer.
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Once set up and established, the county's Emergency Response Center was confronted with a multitude of emergency issues to deal with resulting from the Cascadia Rising drill earthquake and tsunami, and its Boundary County aftermath and spillover.
"We had traffic backed up for miles on Highway 95 due to refugees from the devastated coast, including the Long Bridge in Sandpoint being closed," said Mr. Meier. "We also had gasoline, hotel accommodations, and food shortages to deal with. And to make it even more fun, the hospital received elderly patients from a Seattle nursing home, filling the hospital, which already had other emergencies already in progress," he said.
Other tasks the Emergency Response Center dealt with included setting up Red Cross shelters at the schools, the National Guard Armory, and the Fairgrounds for displaced people.
As Mr. Meier noted above, part of the drill for Boundary County included a busload full of displaced nursing home residents who had been directed to Boundary Community Hospital for evaluation and appropriate care and housing. A real bus filled with teen-aged actors playing the roles of the nursing home residents actually arrived at the hospital, where the hospital staff had to mobilize their resources to deal with the sudden influx of people who needed to be medically evaluated and to have proper dispositions determined. Calling in extra staff, nurses, and physicians, the hospital spent much of Thursday morning in drill and exercise mode, evaluating and dealing with this busload of evacuee patients.
Elsewhere in Boundary County, ham radio operators worked during the drill to keep emergency communications up and running, and providing assistance where needed during the emergency drill. Mr. Meier's Public Information Office issued emergency notices and directives along the way, advising the public on issues ongoing in Boundary County related to the Cascadia Rising "emergency" drill.
As
the huge, four-day emergency drill came to an
end on Friday, Boundary County was able to pack
up its emergency response teams and equipment."Thanks to all the staff in Emergency Management, those at Boundary Community Hospital, Law Enforcement, the Red Cross Representative, and Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Amateur Radio Operators who participated," said Mr. Meier.
"Also thank you to the Official Observer who judged our ability to perform our duties and made this event a learning opportunity, and a point from which to correct any mistakes and plan better any future catastrophe that may befall our beautiful North Idaho region.
"To our citizens of Boundary County we also thank you for supporting your Emergency Management Team and giving us to chance to learn and better prepare for protecting you in the future," he concluded.
Could such an event really happen? Scientists say there is a zone of tectonic plates lying offshore of the West Coast from northern California stretching up into British Columbia. [We are now talking real world—this is not a drill]. This zone is called the Cascadia Subduction Zone. It is a giant fault approximately 700 miles long. These plates move irregularly, sometimes get stuck, sometimes release. With this movement and release, sometimes the stress among the moving plates builds up until it has a sudden break which can cause huge earthquakes. The world's largest earthquakes occur along this type of zone, ranging in magnitude from 8.0 to 9.0 and above. The largest on record was a magnitude 9.5 earthquake that occurred on the Chilean coast in 1960.
Within the past 12 years, earthquakes from subduction zones of this type, and their accompanying tsunamis, occurred in Indonesia (2004), Chile (2010), and most recently in Japan (2011). Those disasters taken together caused nearly 250,000 fatalities.
The last big earthquake at the West Coast's Cascadia Subduction Zone occurred in 1700, which experts estimate caused an earthquake of magnitude 9.0.
That was 316 years ago. Experts have determined that big earthquakes like this happen in the Cascadia Zone on average once every 200 to 500 years. Though the next big quake can't be predicted, with the last one happening 316 years ago, the next one could come unpredictably at any time.
Because of that, one of the largest disaster drills ever was held just last week. And Boundary County's emergency response teams and facilities were called upon to play their part in the huge drill.
