VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS ARE JUST ONE OF THE HAZARDS FACING PEOPLE who live in the Pacific Northwest. Since 1980, geologists have learned that the tectonic processes occurring off the coast of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia are much more violent than they thought. The subduction of oceanic crust beneath the North American plate regularly generates huge earthquakes like the ones that devastated the Indian Ocean region in 2004 and Japan in 2011. These earthquakes have an average recurrence interval of about five hundred years, and the last one occurred on January 26, 1700, triggering a tsunami that destroyed villages all the way across the Pacific, in Japan. That earthquake was sixty times more powerful than the 1906 earthquake that reduced San Francisco to rubble. Computer simulations of a large earthquake beneath Seattle put the death toll at 1,600, with 24,000 more people injured and nearly 10,000 buildings destroyed. The tsunami likely to be generated by a subduction zone earthquake would kill hundreds or thousands. When that earthquake hits, it will eclipse the eruption of Mount St. Helens as the most powerful natural disaster in U.S. history.
People elsewhere may congratulate themselves for living in less dangerous parts of the country, but such complacency would be misguided. According to a 2006 study, 91 percent of Americans live in places with a moderate to high risk of earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, high-wind damage, or terrorism. Meanwhile, everyone on earth faces the certainty of higher temperatures, more intense storms, degraded ecosystems, and higher sea levels as we continue to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In many ways, we are all like the people camping northwest of Mount St. Helens in the weeks and days before the volcano’s eruption, blissfully unaware of the risks we face.
Emergency planners have gotten better since 1980 at preparing communities in the Northwest for disaster. Pole-mounted sirens in the floodplains beneath Mount Rainier and along the coast can warn people of mudflows or tsunamis. Signs on beachside roads direct evacuees toward higher ground. People here know that they should stockpile food and water in case an earthquake cuts off supplies.
But much more needs to be done. Old masonry buildings need to be reinforced so they won’t collapse on their occupants. Structures need to be built in coastal areas so that people can get above oncoming tsunamis. Annual preparedness drills—maybe on May 18—could help cities, towns, and rural areas prepare for the inevitable megaquake. Residents of the Northwest need to replace complacency and fatalism with a well-informed respect for the hazards that lurk beneath our feet.
From the southern rim of Mount St. Helens’ new crater, the entire tableau is laid out for the breathless climber. There is Spirit Lake with its ghostly log raft. There is the ridge where Dave Johnston was standing, ridiculously close to the torn-open volcano. There is the jagged and steaming lava dome, incongruously encircled by a rock-covered glacier. In retrospect, the story seems preordained, as if the people around the mountain on May 18 were playing out designated roles.
But that’s a misconception, the product of retrospective fatalism. Things could have gone differently in 1980, just as unexpected events have continued to occur since then. Washington State, for example, is a much different place than it was in 1980. It is more prosperous, with a diversified economy that can weather economic downturns much better than the boom-and-bust businesses of logging, farming, and fishing. Much more land has been protected from development, through proposals to set aside additional land inevitably generates controversy. Many more people get outside to enjoy the natural beauty of the region, so popular trails are more crowded now than they were when I was a kid. Washington State has become simultaneously more high-tech and more outdoors-oriented—a good combination, given the way things are going. Perhaps that combination of forward-thinking and environmental awareness can help us prepare for the next disaster.
The world is impermanent—the eruption of Mount St. Helens showed how quickly and drastically things can change. Yet we still can be good stewards of the things we love.