RESILIENCE FOR NEXT EARTHQUAKE: Video Game promoting preparedness

By Nancy Aird

Lewis & Clark students and professors created a video game called Cascadia 9.0 (https://www.cascadia9game.org) to promote preparedness incorporating technology. The players navigate through an earthquake devastated city looking for their corgi dog that escaped during the earthquake. The game teaches what you should do in case the infrastructure is disrupted by the player making correct survival choices. For example, should you drink unpurified water? What happens during aftershocks and gas leaks?

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is our nation’s largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency. Can they predict earthquakes? No. Neither the USGA nor any other scientists have ever predicted a major earthquake. We see the publicity on the Cascadia megathrust rupture off the coast of the coast, but we should also consider shallow, surface-rupturing local faults in the Puget Sound region that can cause damage, tsunamis, and landslides.

Current estimates give a 15% chance of a 6.5 magnitude in the Seattle/Tacoma faults over the next 50 years. These faults could be as damaging as the Cascadia rupture. Remember the 6.8 Nisqually earthquake in 2001?

View this map to Washington State geologic information: WA Department of Natural Resources has a detailed Faults and Earthquakes in Washington State. https://www.dnr.wa.gov/publications/ger_ofr2014-05_fault_earthquake_map.pdf