....The big worry around here isn't Mt. Rainier, it's the 9.1 magnatude earthquake that is 50 years overdue. And if that ever happens, not only will most roads be impassible and power infrastructure knocked out, but most underground gasoline tanks will be ruptured as well. It will be a disaster unmatched in the developed world, and will almost certainly happen within the next 50 years. THIS is why I'm interested in moving further inland and becoming more self-sufficient (solar panels and all that). The Elio is part of that equation
IT is such a mind twister to consider these various natural calamities, like earthquakes, Catrina sized weather and others. They occur over large areas, or pinpoint with-in the same and to sort periods within a wide spread of time. The northwest is nearly covered in 30 to 90ft of pyroclastic material. How is that? Well, every 200 years or so something 'large' happens in the northwest. That would place about 50 events inside of 10,000 years. Imagine 50 events as big or bigger than Mt St. Helens.
With those events a small segment of the population suffers greatly. But the larger part is relatively unscathed. It's a tuff proposition to figure out how much you should do to secure your self. In hind sight, those 70 people that didn't leave the Mt ST. Helens really should have. The mud-flows afterward had a bigger effect on the population in general.
I think comparing that to what happened in Mexico city killing 25k people, and the tsunami that killed 200,000 shows it's very worth while to be aware and prepared. On the other hand these casualties are less than a drop in the bucket compared to a world of over 5billion.
