From Seattle station KIRO:
Northwest region is currently in an ‘earthquake drought’
Everyone once in a while it’s good to check in on the health of tectonic plates, and see if we need to add a few more cans of beans to our emergency supplies.
“The tectonic plates are always in motion, but they move really slowly overall. We like to say that they move at about the same rate as your fingernails grow,” Harold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network told Seattle’s Morning News.
“So give it a year, see how long your fingernails would get — that’s how far the North American plate has moved out toward the Pacific. The problem is of course that they get stuck at the edges, and where they’re stuck together they build that strain up.”
While most earthquake news is all doom and gloom, local seismic activity is rather tepid of late. There’s nothing immediate to worry about, but there’s nothing to feel better about, either.
“We don’t have any short-term — short-term meaning weeks to months to years — precursors that we’re seeing. The general background rate of earthquakes globally is steady and even,” Tobin said. “In our region, we’re in something informally called the ‘earthquake drought,’ meaning there haven’t been so many earthquakes over the past decade or two.”
More at the site. I have been a prepper for the last 30 years or so - casual at the start and more serious and organised now. Working with emergency amateur radio communications and the search and rescue people have shown to me just how fragile our infrastructure really is. The best definition I have heard is this:
Disaster: an event that outstrips your ability to cope.
That says it in a nutshell. You do not have to do this all at once - next time you go grocery shopping, pick up an extra couple cans of beans or tuna fish. Keep doing this and make sure to rotate through the oldest first and you will be all set in six months. Be sure to include a favorite book or some games to keep yourself occupied.
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