Living in the Ring of Fire - The New York Times - 0 views
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The Pacific Northwest is so beautiful because of the still-active tectonic forces that have shaped it. But this summer, The New Yorker published a piece that wrapped old news in new terror. And what had been buried in the recesses of Northwestern minds suddenly flared. The collective anxiety has not gone away.
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The larger question, from Seattle to Sagamore Hill, is how we fit disaster into our daily lives — a pact with the known unknown. There is no such thing as a safe place on this earth.
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More than 90 percent of Americans live in an area with at least a moderate risk of tornadoes, or wildfires, or hurricanes, or floods, or earthquakes
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You gauge the odds; that’s really the crux of choosing where to live. And you hope your political leaders have the foresight to spend money on things that may not have an immediate benefit.
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In the Northwest, these are the odds: There is a 10 to 15 percent chance of a magnitude 9 earthquake happening over the next 50 years, and a 30 percent chance of a smaller, though still enormous, collision of plates