Kind: captions
Language: en
the Pacific Northwest is due for a major
earthquake these really dramatic events
have happened in our past and they will
happen again Tony Johnson is Chairman of
the Chinook Indian Nation one of the
indigenous communities already preparing
for the next big one you know we spent a
lot of time worrying about what's that
going to look like it's a really Brave
concern for us we really need to be
prepared for that eventuality because
it's not a matter of if it's just a
matter of when
these days it may seem like earthquakes
are not all that uncommon due to
frequent media reports listen to CNN a
very strong earthquake just minutes and
lots of cell phone videos posted online
but it's actually been centuries since
the contiguous U.S last experienced a
truly big one an earthquake with a
magnitude greater than eight the last
one on record was the earthquake of 1700
with an estimated magnitude of nine
so what caused this earthquake the
biggest earthquakes in the world are
along subduction zone boundaries and
those are places where one tectonic
plate is diving down underneath another
tectonic plate the largest earthquake
that's happened in the US that we're
aware of was along the Cascadia
subduction zone where the Juan de Fuca
plate is diving down underneath the
North American Plate and we can get
really big earthquakes there because the
plate that's going down is usually
oceanic crust which is cold and dense
that means it can break so if you think
about baking chocolate chip cookies when
you pull the cookies right out of the
oven they Bend and they're nice and
gooey but once they've gotten to be cold
they break so that cold dense crust
that's going down can break for a much
longer time so we get bigger earthquakes
in those particular places the same
tectonic activity that caused the
earthquakes resulted in another
destructive event a tsunami you have one
plate diving down beneath another this
section gets locked and it pushes this
part up when the fault ruptures when the
amount of stress overcomes the friction
it bounces back which lifts up the water
above it and causes that water to flow
out in all directions and that water
flowing out in all directions is the
tsunami clues about the earthquake and
tsunami of 1700 can be found in these
eerie looking ghost forests and we have
evidence of these submerged trees or the
ghost forests in numerous places around
our area including at our traditional
Village these ghost forests formed when
the area became submerged after being
hit by the tsunami even after the
tsunami receded the entire landscape had
actually dropped several feet a result
of the plate tectonic motion
oral histories of the event suggest that
many died in the tsunami and Heritage
and cultural director of the Shoalwater
Bay tribe Earl Davis explains how
additional clues about life after this
earthquake and tsunami were pieced
together the archaeological record
basically suggests that tsunami came
laid down a bunch of sand and then
people went back to kind of normal life
you can see it right in the soil there's
a layer of just sterile sand and then
there's an occupation layer immediately
after it doesn't appear like there was a
huge rebuilding time for us back then
for communities along the coast at sea
level an earthquake and tsunami events
could have a much bigger impact today
than it did in 1700 our lifestyle now is
largely predicated on the modern Western
colonialized type lifestyle of putting
in a cement foundation and running all
these utilities and building a big
expensive infrastructure that is
supposed to be there for two 300 years
whereas traditi additionally speaking we
put some poles in the ground covered
them in planks lived there for half the
year then packed up all the planks and
went to where we had another house maybe
up to 100 miles away to better fishing
grounds or better grounds for avoiding
harsher weather and the threat of
another event like this is very real the
geologic record tells
Birch earthquakes along that boundary
about every 300 to 500 years which means
we could be getting close to another big
one
the Shoalwater Bay tribe applied for and
received Federal funding to construct a
tsunami evacuation tower on their
reservation a structure that could
protect the most vulnerable populations
by providing quick access to Higher
Ground the driving force behind the
tsunami Tower is giving a place down
there a fighting chance of getting up
above that wave when completed the
tsunami Tower will be only the second in
the country however other indigenous
communities that the US government has
failed to recognize don't have access to
the same Federal resources like the
Chinook Indian Nation the Tony Johnson's
a member of we
have the great benefit of continuing to
reside on our Aboriginal lands and we
have the
horrible reality of not being truly
federally recognized as an Indian
Community
and with that
Federal recognition comes so much of the
support that we need you know we have a
goal or at least an initial thought of
building two tsunami evacuation Towers
but don't have access to the resources
that are federally recognized neighbors
have
I don't think it is very likely that
anybody will leave the village after a
nine-point earthquake there's a bridge
to the landform that most folks live on
and I can't imagine that bridge
surviving that earthquake
so it really will be that folks on the
island itself are going to either be
high enough
or not
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