What Would Happen If the Cascadia Megaquake Hit Tomorrow?

On January 26, 1700, a magnitude-9 earthquake ruptured about 1,000 km of the Pacific Northwest coast — and the only written record came from Japan. What would happen if the Cascadia megaquake hit tomorrow? We follow a full-length rupture second by second: ShakeAlert, minutes of shaking, the coast dropping up to 2 m, a tsunami in 15–30 minutes, Portland's fuel hub, bridges, and months without power and water — using real data from USGS, NOAA, FEMA, Oregon & Washington, and peer-reviewed research. Casualty and damage figures are planning scenarios, not predictions. Narration uses a synthetic (AI) voice. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 January 26, 1700 0:40 The real version 1:31 What is Cascadia? 3:15 Ghost forests & the orphan tsunami 5:17 Twist: it's a pattern 7:13 Second zero: ShakeAlert 8:53 Minute one: the shaking 10:47 Minute fifteen: the tsunami 12:48 Hour one: liquefaction, fuel & bridges 14:45 Day one: cut off 16:32 Weeks to months 18:29 5 myths 20:17 What is being done 22:01 Putting it together 📚 Sources Atwater, B.F. et al. (2005, 2nd ed. 2015). The Orphan Tsunami of 1700. USGS Professional Paper 1707: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/ Satake, K. et al. (1996). Time and size of a giant earthquake in Cascadia inferred from Japanese tsunami records of January 1700. Nature 379:246–249: https://doi.org/10.1038/379246a0 Yamaguchi, D.K. et al. (1997). Tree-ring dating the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. Nature 389:922–923: https://doi.org/10.1038/40048 Goldfinger, C. et al. (2012). Turbidite event history — Methods and implications for Holocene paleoseismicity of the Cascadia subduction zone. USGS Professional Paper 1661-F: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1661f/ Goldfinger, C. et al. (2025). Evidence for synchronization of the Cascadia subduction zone and northern San Andreas fault. Geosphere 21(6): https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02857.1 Frankel, A. et al. (2018). Broadband synthetic seismograms for M9 earthquakes on the Cascadia megathrust (M9 Project), part 1. BSSA 108(5A):2347–2369: https://doi.org/10.1785/0120180034 FEMA / Washington & Oregon (2015). Cascadia Rising 2016 Exercise Scenario Document: https://www.oregon.gov/oem/Documents/... Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (2013). The Oregon Resilience Plan: https://www.oregon.gov/oem/documents/... ECONorthwest et al. for Multnomah County & City of Portland (2022). Impacts of Fuel Releases from the CEI Hub due to a Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake: https://multco.us/info/cei-hub-seismi... Dura, T. et al. (2025). Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes could more than double the flood exposure of coastal communities. PNAS: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2424659122 USGS — M9.1 2011 Great Tōhoku earthquake, Japan: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak... Full list (31): see pinned comment. 🎞️ Credits Footage & photos: USGS, FEMA, NOAA, NPS, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Army / National Guard, and Wikimedia Commons contributors (public domain & CC licenses; CC BY / BY-SA authors listed below or in the pinned comment). No AI-generated visuals. Music: "Lightless Dawn", "Floating Cities", "Dreams Become Real", "Clean Soul" — Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Per-file credits (author + license for every clip/photo): see pinned comment. #Cascadia #Earthquake #Tsunami