And here is what I will be doing when I get back home

Really good article from The Seattle Times:

20,000 to practice readiness for Northwest megaquake, tsunami
Imagine a devastating earthquake and tsunami have cut off Pacific Northwest coastal communities. Phone and internet service have collapsed. Ham-radio operators living on the stricken coast fire up their radios, contact emergency managers and report on the magnitude of the disaster so that no time is wasted in saving lives.

This is the kind of scenario that will be rehearsed during the second week of June in a massive earthquake and tsunami readiness drill that has been developed by the U.S. government, the military, and state and local emergency managers over the past few years to test their readiness for what — when it strikes — will likely be the nation’s worst natural calamity.

The June 7-10 exercise is called Cascadia Rising. It is named after the Cascadia Subduction Zone — a 600-mile-long fault just off the coast that runs from Northern California to British Columbia.

Just what we are looking at:

Awareness of the seismic threat looming just off the Pacific Northwest dates back to the 1980s, when researchers concluded that coastal lands long ago had been inundated by a tsunami. Research also indicated that a tsunami that was documented in Japan in January 1700 originated from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, also known as the CSZ.

Research suggests that the CSZ on average produces magnitude 9.0 quakes every 500 years, but big quakes have been separated by as few as 200 years and as many as 1,000. So it is impossible to predict when the next monster quake occurs. However, tectonic stresses have been accumulating in the CSZ for more than 300 years and seismologists say it could rupture at any time.

More than 8 million people live in the area that is vulnerable to the Cascadia Subduction Zone. It contains the most heavily populated areas of the Pacific Northwest, including Seattle and Portland, as well as Interstate 5, one of the nation’s busiest roads.

More at the site. This is a groundbreaking ('ar 'ar 'ar) project. The whole idea of the Incident Command Structure that FEMA and CERT uses today was developed as a result of the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Before then, every agency had their own methods and organization. The results of Cascadia Rising will be analysed and will help bring ICS into the 22nd century.