Notes from behind the news: Hello people; we live in the Ring of Fire!

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

County officials really, really want citizens to listen up.

On Friday, Lewis County Emergency Management sent out a news release reminding folks the Pacific Northwest is vulnerable to same type of massive earthquake which hit Japan last month.

2011.0407.dropcoverhold

Drop, cover and hold

Their message was accompanied by a call for the public to take part in a statewide “Drop, cover and hold” earthquake drill the morning of April 20.

“More than 90 percent of the world’s total earthquakes and 80 percent of the world’s destructive earthquakes happen in the ‘Ring of Fire’ (a horseshoe-shaped zone of volcanic and seismic activity that coincides roughly with the Pacific Ocean borders),” a news release from Emergency Management stated. “Both Japan and our area area included in the Ring of Fire.”

On Monday, county commissioners proclaimed April disaster preparedness month, noting among other things that members of the public should prepare themselves to be self-sufficient for at least three days following a natural or man-made disaster.

And yesterday, Sgt. Ross McDowell, deputy director of Lewis County Emergency Management, arranged for a 3.4 magnitude earthquake to strike in East Lewis County near Mount Rainier.

The 10:45 a.m. trembler was 17 miles east of Ashford – according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network – and it was felt in places such as Morton, Randle, Packwood and even Yakima Portland and Edmonds, according to McDowell.

It was relatively shallow, at four and a half miles deep, but it was one of the largest in the zone on the past 10 to 15 years, McDowell noted.

“It is advisable to take the recent Japan earthquake seriously and improve emergency preparedness at home and at work,” McDowell wrote in a news release today.

Okay, of course McDowell didn’t really cause the earth to move, but I think he’s making some good points. And his tone is quite serious.

That Ring of Fire information got my attention.

Other passages from the four-plus pages of information distributed by Emergency Management between Friday and today: “Sooner or later … A massive quake will hit the Pacific Northwest.” and “The region has been relatively lucky in the last several decades …”

I think McDowell would like people to review this page, about “Drop, cover and hold”.

Some of the other advice McDowell passes along can be found at www.ready.gov – Get a kit. Make a plan. Be informed.

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