I'm taking a (very) short break from my impending earthquake prepping/paranoia to discuss how very inconvenient this is. You know, not just the paranoia, but also the 30% chance that sometime in the next 50 years, we will all die in the biggest natural disaster North America has ever seen. (Why meeeeeeeee?)
If you have somehow managed to live in blissful ignorance up until now, stop it immediately and read all about it here: in the New Yorker.
I find this information to be scary, fascinating, disturbing, and unhelpful. Also annoying. Because what is that guy at the New Yorker going to do when this all goes down? Sit back in his cubicle and be all like, I KNEW it.
Here is what would be helpful to me: Warning! Big earthquake coming. If you follow these 10 steps to prepare, you will probably make it. If you follow these 20 steps and purchase these survival items, you will be on the front lines of helping your region recover from the Big One. If you learn to sew pioneer dresses, cook over a fire, basic first aid, and stockpile 5 years worth of food, you will earn the Girl Scout earthquake badge. Better get started now! You will be elected the next mayor of Portland and when they rebuild the parks, you will have one named after you for sure!
With that kind of a helpful, friendly heads up, I could shop for the items, warn and help my friends, and start campaigning. But NO.
Instead, I get this: The biggest earthquake since the Northwest was populated is imminent. If you're unfortunate enough to find yourself on the coast, in the inundation zone, you will die. If you are at home, your home will likely be shaken off of its foundation and be uninhabitable. If you find yourself on the wrong side of a river from your family, you may not be able to get to them. If you find yourself in need of medical care, you can just FORGET ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW. If, and it is a very big IF you survive, it is almost certain that you will lose everything.
But on the bright side, if you take this too seriously and plan to move or pay to bolt your house to its foundation, your neighbors and friends will probably make fun of you. Do we have any good choices here??
A few of the thoughts swirling around in my head...
- Today we are 315 years into a 243 year major earthquake cycle. The scientists say there is a 30% chance of the Big One taking place in the next 50 years. As each year passes, do the chances go up? I am bad at math. But if someone could work out for me approximately when we go over a 50% likelihood, that would be great because I will then move to Maui. Can the tsunami get me there?
- Is earthquake insurance a thing? Like if it happens, we survive, and my house is basically totaled, will Safeco pay for my house to be rebuilt? Side note: do I still want to live here if I am waiting months to years for electricity, running water, sewer, and even longer for hospitals to be rebuilt?
- How do I communicate with the world once this occurs (again IF I survive. I feel like we need to establish that basic assumption.) I am thinking maybe like a flag waving system like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry had in Anne of Green Gables?
- If I take the warnings seriously and I TRY to prepare, am I setting myself up to be the laughing stock of my friends? OR, should I anticipate which items will be the most scarce on the obvious post-earthquake black market? I'm thinking stockpiling spam, condoms and triple antibiotic ointment might make me pretty popular with the neighbors, come the apocalypse. (Or, wait. Will we need to repopulate the earth? Maybe not condoms.)
I think the obvious thing here is that we're all going to die.
If you're still reading, what I mean is that even if we survive the big earthquake it doesn't mean that we won at life and now we're never gonna die. Everyone goes sometime. What if we all lived most of our days like they were pretty darn precious and the people around us were worth loving well? What would that look like? Just something to think about.
But you better believe that I'm stocking up on matches and children's Motrin. Just in case.
No comments:
Post a Comment