‘Catastrophic’ quake and tsunami brewing off west coast

Very, very slow news day.

Maybe, but it is extremely worrisome. If an offshore displacement happens along the B.C. coast, Vancouver airport will be put out of commission in a major way (It's behind dykes, for gawd sakes). How the hell do you get aid to the area from the East when the only big airport is gone? The Island might be in worse shape and the Fraser Delta could be an impenetrable killing zone. The entire relief operation may have to be run from Comox and it could take weeks to reach all of the devastated little communities all along the BC coast and islands with basic food, medicine and shelter. This will be a major disaster whether it happens next weekend or two hundred years from now.

They'd be able to run it out of Abbotsford airport, which sits high and dry on the Sumas prairie, and is far from the ocean and Fraser River.

I think that there are some things you can't prepare for... you just hope that it won't be too bad.

Fear mongering and sensationalism to sell papers.



Fair enough but, given the last one happened in 1700 that gives us till around Jan 26, 2200 before the next one is expected a fact which allows us a little time to prepare for it. So, the big one may be brewing off the west coast but it's imminence is somewhat different than what the title implies.

Was watching a recently produced program the other day and they were saying that megaquakes on the west coast occur regularly about every 250 years, with the least one being in 1700.

Was watching a recently produced program the other day and they were saying that megaquakes on the west coast occur regularly about every 250 years, with the least one being in 1700.

Then we're 300 years overdue. So, until they perfect the science my guess is that none of the alarmists are going to be able to predict within centuries of when the event is going to happen.

Besides, people don't react to the future nearly as well as the present so, these types can always generate more fear by saying a catastrophe is "overdue" rather than saying it's coming in another 200 years.

Read Harry Turtledove's Supervolcano. It's about Yellowstone going boom. It's a pretty good read. Another good disaster novel is Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's about a major asteroid strike, and the aftermath, as society tries to rebuild. Two journalists are travelling around North America recording the various stories of those who survived.

It blows itself into space every 600,000 years or so. The last one was about 600,000 years ago.

Kiss Calgary goodbye. The rest of us might slowly starve because of the "nuclear winter' but Calgary, Lethbridge et.al. will be buried like Pompey.

Then we're 300 years overdue. So, until they perfect the science my guess is that none of the alarmists are going to be able to predict within centuries of when the event is going to happen.

It's only 65 years overdue.

I enjoyed it, but I thought that it didn't do justice to the actual event. I thought of it as an apocalypse without a real apocalypse.

People in California really only have to deal with high gas prices and rainy weather and whine about having to ride their bike instead of driving their car. Sure a few million in the area perished, but for the most part, the USA seemed to make it relatively easily through such a catastrophic event.

I read the whole series recently and while the writing is up to par with Turtledove's other works (his alternate history stuff is amazing) and the characters interesting (although most of the female ones are entirely unsympathetic), it needed more disaster IMHO.

What can I say, I'm a morbid bastard and want lots of death and destruction in a TEOTWAWKI novel!




I loved it when I was young, but nowadays I read it and see it as a dated right-wing fear-mongering tale of white suburbanites from the 70s being scared of 'dangerous' black people.

Overall, the event itself is excellently written, as are its effects on the planet as a whole (most novels usually focus too much on local events and not on global ones), but the idea of white people in the hills fighting off evil black cannibals is a bit too much IMHO.




Actually, that is the plot of , which occurs after World War 3, not a natural disaster.

That story was engrossing despite its leftwing slant and had lots of great different stories. I loved the scene where the journalists bumped into the Canadian banker and he bitched at them about Canada getting caught up in the crossfire.

http://www.amazon.ca/Warday-Journey-Onw ... er+kunetka




The best TEOTWAWKI novel I've read recently was Cannibal Reign by Thomas Koloniar.

http://www.amazon.ca/Cannibal-Reign-Tho ... 0062025821

Lots of death and destruction and even a tiny Canadian angle tossed in.

You're right. i got the two a bit confused.

That Niven/Pournelle partnership produced at least four classics with Lucifer's Hammer, Footfall, The Legacy of Heorot, and The Mote in God's Eye. Did multiple readings of all of them. Wanted a movie treatment of at least one of them too at least until The Hobbit films came along and made me decide that I don't want anything I love being made into a big-budget no-sense-of-proportion movie anymore.

S'truth. The Hobbit films are a let down. The LOTR films, although not being particularly true to the books, did capture the essence of Middle Earth quite well ... or so I thought, anyway.