Tag Archives: earthquakes

Why you should help build out the Seattle Emergency Hub Network in your Capitol Hill or Central District neighborhood

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(Image: Seattle Emergency Hub Network)

Homer Harris Park was recently the center of an exercise to help fine tune the abilities of neighbors to help neighbors in the Central District and across Capitol Hill in the event of a major catastrophe as part of a network of neighborhood hubs covering an increasing number of neighborhoods in Seattle.

If you look at the map of Seattle hubs and don’t see one in your area, don’t wait for someone else to build your community.

“You can start one if there’s a gap,” said Cindi Barker, one of the volunteer coordinators for the Hub Network and a Hub Captain for Morgan Junction Hub in West Seattle.

The Pacific Northwest, situated along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, faces the risk of a powerful earthquake. Recognizing the potential devastation of such an event, volunteers with the Seattle Emergency Hub Network are working to prepare Seattle residents for this looming threat.

The Hub Network: A Community-Driven Approach to Disaster Preparedness
The Hub Network, modeled after successful disaster preparedness initiatives in New Zealand, operates on the principle of community resilience. It comprises over 140 designated meeting points or Hubs strategically located throughout Seattle. These Hubs are situated in geologically safe areas away from potential building collapses and in spaces where people naturally congregate, such as parks, grocery stores, or condominiums. Continue reading →

Seattle hit with ‘the little one’ as 4.3 quake shakes city

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Waveforms from Sunday’s earthquake

Later this month, the Washington Emergency Management Division will hold its annual ShakeOut Day of earthquake drills at workplaces, schools, and homes across the state. Sunday night, the earth provided a small preview.

Observers at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network said the region was struck by a 4.3 magnitude earthquake at 7:21 PM with an epicenter 35 miles below Marrowstone Island — about 55 miles from the city.

There were no reports of damage but plenty of reports of people who felt the ripples across the area, Seattle, and on Capitol Hill.

Sunday’s earthquake was the first in the state with a magnitude of 4 or higher since 2019. Continue reading →

MyShake early warning app ready for Seattle earthquake alerts

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California knows its earthquakes. An earthquake early warning system phone app funded by the state and created by seismologists at UC Berkeley is now available to provide alerts in Washington — now that it is juiced up to handle tsunamis.

MyShake can provide warnings in the seconds before earthquakes hit so you can seek cover and move away from dangers like windows. The system also organizes damage reports users can share.

Alerts based on information from the USGS ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system are already available to all mobile phones through the Wireless Emergency Alert system and through a built-in-earthquake alerting system on Android devices. Most phones are now set up to receive alerts from the system automatically. Apple devices use the federal Wireless Emergency Alert system which also delivers AMBER and tsunami alerts. You can double check the setup in your notification settings under “emergency alerts” and “public safety alerts.” For Android devices, check your location settings under “advanced” to turn on “earthquake alerts.”

MyShake now provides a third option that “may be a faster way for users to get an earthquake alert on their phones than the WEA system,” the announcement from the Washington Emergency Management Division said. Continue reading →

With 49 buildings at highest risk across Capitol Hill and Central District, Seattle pushes for 2022 progress on mandatory earthquake retrofits

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Seattle Public Schools spent $260,000 on a seismic overhaul of Lowell Elementary

This time around, something might actually happen in Seattle’s 40-year quest to shore up unreinforced masonry buildings. A City Council resolution approved in December could finally lead to some budgetary heft behind the idea of retrofitting the buildings to modern safety standards. The action is likely to one day lead to mandatory retrofits of such buildings. Though there is no defined timeline for when a mandate might happen, the earliest possibility is still years away.

The effort is critical for Capitol Hill and the Central District. CHS analysis shows some 211 area properties in the city’s “unreinforced masonry” database. Of those, 49 are considered either critical or high risk and only nine of those have either been substantially altered or retrofitted. 17 have been permitted for the expensive retrofitting construction. CHS has reported on work done to protect some of them including E Mercer’s Lowell Elementary School.

Among other plans, the resolution calls for Mayor Bruce Harrell to add spending to ramp up staff in the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections, which could finally get things moving.

“While I’m not excited about a future earthquake, I am excited to get this program going,” said Nathan Torgelson, director of the department during a meeting of the city council’s Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

The plans laid out by the resolution call for first defining and categorizing these buildings. Some of that work has been done, as the city has been tracking the buildings for years. It has identified more than 1,100 unreinforced masonry buildings across Seattle. Of these, 75 are a critical risk, according to a presentation given by Yolanda Ho of the city council staff at the Dec. 9 meeting. Another 184 are considered high risk, while the remainder are a medium risk.

Continue reading →

Drop, cover, and hold on — Today’s the day for your annual reminder of what to do when your get an earthquake alert in Seattle

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Washington’s annual moment of earthquake preparedness takes place Thursday morning, October 21st, at 10:21 AM.

The state is again marking the third Thursday of October’s International ShakeOut Day with drills and awareness efforts. With the ongoing pandemic’s changes to the workday, this year’s training emphasizes how to safely get through a quake at home.

“If you’re continuing to work from home, take this opportunity to examine your environment for hazards and talk to family about where everyone would gather if your home was damaged and you were separated,” a statement from the Washington Emergency Management Division reads. “If you’re at a workplace or have kids in school, ask about what plans are in place for when an earthquake happens.” Continue reading →

Washington will finally be part of a West Coast earthquake early warning system — Here’s how to be part of Thursday’s ShakeAlert test

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With seismic stations finally in place up and down the Pacific Northwest, Seattle and the state of Washington, along with Oregon can now join California in providing early warnings for earthquakes. The ShakeAlert system will go live here by May.

The state will mark the important step in completing a West Coast early warning network with a ShakeAlert test Thursday:

Residents in King, Pierce and Thurston counties have a chance to test out the state’s emerging ShakeAlert® Earthquake Early Warning system this Thursday by opting into a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) test.

The demonstration will be done at 11 a.m., Feb. 25. To receive the test message, you need to be physically located in King, Pierce or Thurston counties, have a WEA 2.0 or 3.0 capable device that is powered on and have OPTED IN to receive WEA test messages.

Here’s how to be part of the big test: Continue reading →

Pacific Northwest earthquake early warning system gets key federal funding

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(Image: University of Washington)

Federal funding awarded this week will allow the installation of dozens of new seismic stations in Washington and Oregon to help build up the region’s early warning system for earthquakes.

“This investment in the PNSN represents a major increase in federal support for earthquake monitoring in the Cascadia region,” Harold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and professor in UW’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences, said in a statement from the school on the funding. “At the end of the two years of funding we anticipate having essentially doubled the number of seismic stations across our whole region that contribute to real-time earthquake early warning. This would allow for full public alerts of any potentially damaging earthquakes, across our entire region of Washington and Oregon, by the end of the two-year period.”

The U.S. Geological Survey announced the $10.4 million in funding to the network based at University of Washington to support the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill slept through an early morning Seattle earthquake

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A 4.6 magnitude earthquake rumbled from near Monroe early Friday morning, shaking buildings to the southwest around Seattle while most of Capitol Hill slept through the ride.

There were no reports of significant damage or injuries from the 2:51 AM quake or smaller aftershocks that followed but it did rattle and roll enough for a few people to get out of bed — or, at least, roll over, grab their phones, and update social media.

USGS Community Internet Intensity Map

The US Geological Survey’s mapping of reports from around the area showed that the quake was felts as far away as Olympia.

KIRO reports the quake is the largest to hit the region since the 6.8 M 2001 Nisqually earthquake.

While Seattle is still largely unprepared for the “big one,” the city does know more about how much it would cost to retrofit its thousands of unreinforced masonry buildings. A new plan, meanwhile, will test a solar microgrid system at Capitol Hill’s Miller Community Center that is designed to give the facility greater resiliency in the event of natural disasters.

SCC Insight: How much will it cost to fix Seattle’s unreinforced masonry buildings?

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With reporting by SCCI Insight

According to SDCI, the City of Seattle contains 1,145 buildings with unreinforced masonry that could collapse in a major seismic event. While records are incomplete, the city estimates that about 11% of those have already retrofitted the building to address the issue. Another 68 of them are owned by various government entities. That leaves 944 buildings in private hands with unreinforced masonry: in total about 20,200,000 square feet, containing 10,400 residential housing units with 22,050 residents. Thirty seven of those buildings contain 1,559 designated affordable housing units. Continue reading →