The Cascadia Megaquake: Preparedness for America's West Coast Nightmare!

The Cascadia Megaquake: Preparedness for America's West Coast Nightmare! In this episode, Colonel Griffeth passionately explains the imminent risk of a catastrophic earthquake on the Cascadia fault line, emphasizing that it will happen, the importance of preparedness, knowledge, and resilience. With insights rooted in science, history, and native oral traditions, he guides listeners through the potential disaster's scope minute by minute and day by day and teaches practical steps for protection and preparation.

Key Topics Covered:

• The science behind the Cascadia subduction zone and its seismic history
• Evidence from geological records, Native American oral histories, and global parallels
• The likelihood and timing of a full margin rupture, with statistics and expert opinions
• The detailed worst-case scenario: from initial shake to post-disaster societal collapse
• Critical preparedness actions: knowing your zone, building supplies, evacuation plans, and community sharing
• The importance of spiritual resilience and ancient wisdom in modern disaster readiness
• Dispelling myths about government response timelines and warning systems
• How to implement a practical, step-by-step plan for personal and family safety

Timestamps:

00:00 - The seismic threat of Cascadia: a high-stakes geological overview
 02:30 - The pillars of freedom: understanding threat, preparedness, progress, & prosperity
 03:26 - The fault line’s massive scale & historical cycle of earthquakes
 04:20 - The recurrence of catastrophic quakes every 300-600 years
 05:13 - The power of the quake: magnitude, duration, and tsunami
 06:39 - How the quietness of the fault mask the building energy and danger
 08:03 - Past earthquakes and their evidence, including the 1700 Cascadia event
 09:31 - The geographic scope and at-risk cities on the Pacific Northwest coast
 10:56 - The recent scientific revelations overturning old assumptions about Cascadia's activity
 13:48 - Historic tsunami evidence & the 1700 event as a geological & oral tradition
 15:42 - Native American stories and their corroboration of the megaquakes
 19:42 - The statistical odds of quake scenarios in the next 50 years
 21:44 - The importance of early warnings and the warnings from experts
 23:03 - A detailed step-by-step timeline of the quake and subsequent tsunami
 28:44 - The catastrophic effects on infrastructure, buildings, and communities
 36:26 - The aftermath: water, food, sanitation, disease, and societal collapse
 39:49 - The timeless lesson: preparation, memory, & wisdom passed down through generations
 41:37 - The critical role of action, immediate response, and trusting knowledge
 42:24 - How to segment your preparedness: knowledge, supplies, evacuation, & community
 44:41 - The importance of continuous skills development and resilience
 45:34 - Financial resilience as part of long-term prosperity
 46:58 - Practical steps: zone awareness, water storage, evacuation planning, and sharing knowledge
 48:37 - The myths about government response and why immediate action is essential
 49:49 - The core message: preparedness as a spiritual and practical act rooted in ancient wisdom

Connect with Colonel Griffeth:

• Website
• Newsletter Signup
• Newsletter Beehiiv
• Facebook Group Arise 4 Freedoms
• YouTube Channel

Resources & Links:

• Book on Earthquake Preparedness and Resilience
• FEMA Earthquake and Tsunami Response Plans
• Native American Oral Histories and Geological Records
• Seismic Science by Dr. Brian Atwater & Kenji Sataki
• Emergency Preparedness Resources

SCHOLARLY CITATIONS & SOURCES

 [1]  Surviving Cascadia. (2025, January 26). 37% in 50 Years: survivingcascadia.com. https://survivingcascadia.com/37-in-50-years/

[2]  Oregon Department of Emergency Management. State of OR Official Website. https://www.oregon.gov/oem/hazardsprep/pages/cascadia-subduction-zone.aspx

[3]  U.S. Geological Survey. (2025, September). Earthquake Probabilities U.S. Pacific Northwest (Fact Sheet 2025-3050). U.S. Dep of the Interior. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20253050/full

[4]  Atwater (2005). The Orphan Tsunami of 1700. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1707. USGS / University of Washington Press.

[5]  National Assoc. of Counties. (2025, August 19). Pacific Northwest Counties Prepare for 'The Big One.' NACo.org. https://www.naco.org/news/pacific-northwest-counties-prepare-big-one

[6]  Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN). (n.d.). Cascadia Subduction Zone Megathrust. Univ.of Washington / Oregon. https://pnsn.org/education/pnw-earthquakes/sources/cascadia

[7]  Dura, T., Herdman, L., Melnick, D., Inbaren, I., Moreno, M., & Tobin, H. (2025, April). Permanent Land-Level Change & Coastal Flooding. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2025cascadia (summarized in NBC News, April 30, 2025)

[8]  Washington County, OR, Office of Emergency Management. (n.d.). Cascadia Subduction Zone. https://www.washingtoncountyor.gov/emergency/cascadia-subduction-zone

[9]  Goldfinger, et. al., A. T. (2012). Turbidite Event History — Cascadia Subduction Zone (USGS Professional Paper 1661-F). U.S. Geological Survey.

[10]  Clark County Today. (2022, April 11). What Is the Seismic Risk of the Cascadia Subduction Zone and Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest? https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/what-is-the-seismic-risk-of-the-cascadia-subduction-zone-and-earthquakes-in-the-pacific-northwest/

[11]  Oregon Dept. of Energy. (n.d.). The Cascadia Event: FEMA Projections. Oregon.gov. https://energyinfo.oregon.gov/cascadia-event

[12]  Surviving Cascadia. (n.d.). Estimated Impacts: Regional. survivingcascadia.com. https://survivingcascadia.com/estimated-impacts-regional/

[13]  KOIN 6 News. (2024, January 28). OR Earthquake: Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake Turns 324. Melgar, D., interview. https://www.koin.com/news/environment/earthquakes/cascadia-earthquake-turns-324-heres-what-scientists-know-about-the-ancient-quake/

[14]  Inlander. (2024, August 8). The Next Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake Will Be Devastating. https://www.inlander.com/news/the-next-cascadia-subduction-zone-earthquake-will-be-devastating-spokane-county-will-help-rally-resources-and-could-become-home-to-thousands-28417573

[15]  FEMA, Region 10. (2022). Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) Earthquake and Tsunami Response Plan. Washington Military Dept. https://mil.wa.gov/asset/68404ea51bc02/FEMA-Region-X-CSZ-Earthquake-and-Tsunami-Plan.pdf

[16]  FEMA Region 10. (2022). Cascadia Rising 2022: Rehearsal of Concept Exercise. Nat. Exercise 2022. FEMA.gov.

[17]  Wirthlin, J. B. (2005, Oct). Journey to Higher Ground. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints General Conference. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2005/10/journey-to-higher-ground

[18]  Ludwin, R. S. (2005). Cascadia Megathrust Earthquakes in Native American Oral Tradition. Letters, 76(4).

[19]  NBC News. (2025, April 30). Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake Could Be Even Worse Than Feared. Citing (2025) (Univ. of Washington Pacific Northwest Seismic Net.). https://www.nbcnews.com/science/earthquakes/cascadia-subduction-zone-earthquake-even-worse-feared-rcna203020

 [20] DIGITAL.CSIC.  Unravelling the dance of earthquakes: Evidence of partial synchronization of the northern San Andreas fault and Cascadia megathrust.  https://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/413134

[21] EurekAlert!  Twin threat: Cascadia and San Andreas faults may be seismically linked.  https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1100986

[22] ScienceDaily.  The “big one” might not come alone: Double... earthquake threat. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260502002153.htm

[23] The Holy Bible and Scriptures

Don't just survive, live for freedom, properly prepare, and thrive!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

It has not moved in 326 years. But right now, at this very moment, roughly about 70 miles off the coast of Oregon, Washington, and Northern California, a tectonic plate the size of the entire western United States is locked in place, pressing against the North American continent. With four centuries of stored energy building up pressure ready to explode, pressure like a spring wound past its breaking point. Scientists do not say if, they say when. And today, based on the best science available, they place the odds of full margin rupture at somewhere between ten and twenty two percent in the next fifty years. When it lets go, oh, and it will let go, the Cascadia subduction zone will deliver the worst natural disaster recorded in American history. The ground will shake violently, and then minutes later, a wall, a massive wall of water up to one hundred feet high, will erase the coastline from Northern California all the way to Canada. Today, we walk through that day, hour by hour, city by city, based on fact, not fiction. A full rupture of the Cascadia Megaquake, America's worst West Coast nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Oh freedom for all freedom for all. Oh freedom. Oh root!

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Welcome to Arise for Freedoms, where we learn about the things that threaten your freedoms, physical and spiritual, and transform our lives to be productive, prepared, and prosperous in a troubled world. We don't just survive. Together we thrive.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Welcome. I'm Colonel Griffith, retired. Not only am I a retired senior military officer, but I'm a former judge, attorney, entrepreneur, JROTC instructor, seminary graduate, youth pastor, and a successful father and husband. And together, we'll change the world. Friends of Freedom, in today's show, we are diving into what scientists and emergency planners call the most consequential natural disaster scenario in American history. A full rupture of the Cascadia subduction zone. This is not a Hollywood script. Every fact you will hear today is drawn from peer reviewed research, FEMA planning documents, and geological records that are written within the very Earth itself. In today's episode, we speak directly to the four pillars of a rise for freedoms, and those pillars are first freedoms, because the government dependent population cannot survive or thrive. Second, preparedness to properly plan. Third productivity, because to properly act and become, we must be productive. And finally, prosperity to enjoy the fruits of our labors and our freedom. In part one, what we call the thread, we'll walk through the worst case scenario that's fact based of a Cascadia megaquake. In part two of the show, we'll try to apply to improve and transform so we can equip you to be ready. Now let's get into it. First of all, just to help you understand the massiveness and how scary in some ways or how serious this megaquake will be. So, first of all, the full length of this fault line goes about 620 miles or 1,000 kilometers. It's distance off the shore from along the coast of southern Canada, all through Washington, all through Oregon, all the way into California. And it's about 70 to 100 miles off from the Pacific coast. And you'd think, oh, well, that means it's not under the land where the people are. Wrong answer. It's even more dangerous. The last full rupture is estimated to have been in January 26th of 1700. An estimated 9.0 magnitude rupture all along this vault. Earthquakes have happened nineteen times in the last 10,000 years. And they estimate that each one has a span between 200 and maybe if you're lucky, 600 years, with the average around in 300 plus years. And how long has it been since this gone off last? You got it. 326 years. As these two plates push against each other and create an ever greater stress. The known great earthquakes on 10 of those, they also set off days later the San Andreas. Now a full margin nine plus probability sits as 10 to 22% in the next 50 years. Put it this way, it's serious enough that every year FEMA practices for this event and brings in the state of Idaho to help them out. To put it into perspective on how powerful it will be, six point something that rocked San Francisco in the 1900s, it'll be 1,000 times more powerful than that. With a shaking duration of maybe up to six minutes. The tsunami that will arrive, depending on where you're at on the coast, will come at about 15 to 30 minutes after the shaking stops. And that how high will that tsunami be? If you're lucky, 30 feet. If you're unlucky, 100, depending on where you're at along the coast. The economic cost in this scenario that we're going to go through will be at least 70 billion. But some estimates are as high as 450 billion. And really, if you think of the loss of years and years of work and the rebuilding that will need to happen, I think the number will be way higher than even that. I think that's an optimistic number, but we'll let you decide for yourself. So let's talk a little bit about the science of the lock fault. To understand its coming, you first need to understand why it's been so quiet. For a long time, everybody believed that Washington, Oregon, and Northern California were just some of the safest earthquake areas. And for some reason there was this mountain range off the coast and volcanoes that occasionally were going off. They didn't realize that this was being caused by a plate that was going underneath the North American plate. And even though the North American plate isn't necessarily moving, it's bending. Think of it like a branch or a bring or something that the moment that you let go it flings up with tons of energy. Well, for 326 years, we now know that this energy has been building up. And as we discussed, the subduction zone runs about 620 miles off the Pacific coast, where the Juan de Fuca plate is being forced beneath the much larger North American plate. At a depth of about 30 kilometers, these two plates are locked together by friction and bending like a spring ready to snap. The strain builds slowly, invisibly, and as the subduction forces continue to act on the locked plates year after year, pushing the North American plate higher, building up incredible energy for hundreds and hundreds of years. But once the fault's frictional strength is finally exceeded, the rocks will slip violently past each other in what geologists now call a megathrust earthquake. It sounds pretty cool, but it's pretty deadly. When the rupture finally comes, that snap of the bow will happen instantaneously. And the coastline all along the coast of Washington, Oregon, California, will permanently drop. And it will drop rapidly. It will shoot out about forty to sixty feet, and it can drop by as much as two meters or six point five feet in places. We know this has happened before. Repeatedly, like I said, nineteen times. It's like a clock. And we know with remarkable precision, in the 1980s and 1990s, the way it was discovered is there was a geologist by the name of Dr. Brian Atwater. You can look him up, and another doctor, Kenji Sataki. They pieced together a stunning discovery, linking what was called a mysterious orphan tsunami that struck Japan back in January 1700 with a massive past rupture of the Cascadia Fault. That's right, it sent a tsunami from California all the way over to Japan. And the event was so large that its waves crossed the entire Pacific Ocean. To strike Japan, evidence is clear. Cascadia has done this before and it will do it again. This subduction zone is not nearly a Pacific Northwest problem. It's a worldwide problem, but it's especially an American West Coast problem. The fault stretches 620 miles all the way from Northern California and terminating near Vancouver Island. Major cities are all at risk to include Portland, Eugene, Oregon, Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma, Washington, and critically Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, one of Canada's most populous metropolitan cities. This is not only an American problem, it's an international problem. As the Wandafuca and two other plates, the Explorer and the Gorda, move eastward, roughly about four centimeters is all per year. They are forced beneath the much larger North American plate, steadily feeding stress and energy that occurs along these locked zones. Prior to the 1980s, most scientists believed that the Cascadia was what they call geologically quiet, an inactive zone incapable of producing any earthquake. Now they know that they were profoundly wrong. The discovery was remarkable, like one of those that you would watch on a murder case when they're finding the facts little by little. In the early nineteen eighties, this geologist that I was telling you about, Brian Atwater, had a question that really bothered him. Why was Cascadia incapable of creating great earthquakes, as the scientists at the time believed, when all along the rest of the western coast, from all the way down to Chile all the way up to Japan and Alaska, they had them regularly and big ones at that. But the geology looked the same. It just didn't make sense. The science seemed wrong. So in March of nineteen eighty six Atwater traveled the Washington coast and he began to dig. But what he uncovered beneath the surface stopped him cold. Under the sand he found aerograss, a marsh plant preserved in layers of soil that had clearly once been above the tideline. The soil and sand had sealed the plant's life so quickly that the vegetation was still in perfect condition. Preserved like a fossil beneath the ground. It was clear that the ground had dropped suddenly, dropping the large marsh and the plants that were on that level below sea level. Something had made the ground drop, something enormous. The following year Hotwater returned with a doctor David Yamaguchi, who had been studying volcanic eruptions like Mount St. Helens. The two men paddled a canoe up the Capalis River of the Washington coast, and what and what they found would change everything. They came upon a section of the forest where there was dozens of these dead gray western red cedars. There were stumps rising through the tidal muds. These were not trees that had died from disease or drought. Their roots were in salt water. In other words, at one point the ground beneath them had been fertile and not salt water, but something had made it drop violently into the tidal zone, killing them within hours. The core sample of the dead trees showed that they had all stopped growing around the exact same time when the tsunami had hit Japan in 1700. Other scientists began finding the same signatures all along the US West Coast. All along the West Coast, ghost forests, buried in marsh layers, some from a sudden sediment had been tossed over them. Sand. Sand from the ocean. From Canada all the way down to Northern California. In every location, the fingerprint was exactly identical. The land had dropped instantly and then was buried beneath by a layer of sand. Tsunami sand. A massive earthquake had definitely struck. In the early nineteen nineties, a Japanese geoscientist, Kenji Sataki, began searching the Edo period archives about the tsunami in the seventeen hundreds that hit Japan. The wave had arrived on a shore without any associated earthquake, so they called it an orphan tsunami. They didn't know where its parent had come from. The tsunami had crossed the ocean somehow somewhere in the early hours of january twenty seventh, seventeen hundred, destroying thirteen houses and sparking fires that consumed additional buildings. In some places, the tsunami surged a full kilometer inland. Village headmen recorded the event very carefully, and it's recorded to this very day in old government ledgers, and noted with evident puzzlement they had no idea why it had happened. In town after town the same baffling fact was written down in similar manners, destruction, death, no one understanding why there had been a tsunami that hit the coast of Japan. The samurai, the merchants, the villagers had no way of knowing that his parent earthquake had occurred nearly five thousand miles away, off the coast of a land the Europeans were still exploring called America. So using the tsunami travel time models, Sataki's team discovered that a tsunami departing from the Pacific Northwest Coast at approximately nine o'clock in the evening on january twenty sixth, seventeen hundred, would have crossed the Pacific in exactly the time needed to match the Japanese records. The tree rings confirmed the year, the Japanese tide records confirmed the hour. The 1700 Cascadia earthquake had been precisely dated through the combined work of US geologists, Japanese seismologists, and eighteenth century government ledgers from Japan. And then the scientists discovered something humbling. For hundreds of years the Indians had been telling about this mega quake through their stories to their children and grandchildren. The native people who had lived on the Cascadia Coast, which is now California, Oregon, Washington, Canada, were telling their children and grandchildren exactly what happened in that night in January in 1700. For over three hundred years, in 2005 there was a study from the University of Washington where they collected and analyzed Native American oral accounts from tribal records and groups spanning along the Cascadia subduction zone. And what they found from tribe after tribe after tribe all along the coast was that there was a library of memories and stories that had been encoded that most people had never paid any attention to. Among the collected accounts there were nine stories that were recorded between 1860 and 1864, which likely relate to the 1700 Cascadia event. Two of them describe grandparents who witnessed a survivor of the Great Flood. One describes a great grandparent who survived the flood personally. These are not remote mythology. They are memories, family memories, passed down from generation to generation. The stories differ by tribe and region, as you would expect eye witness accounts to do that are along a seven hundred mile coast, but the core events are always consistent, violent, superviolent shaking, the ocean retreating and then a great wave destroying the villages. And survival only for those who could reach the high ground. One account described a great nighttime earthquake and the report that the only survivors were those who immediately fled inland. Another account tells of a flood so powerful that the villagers in the area tied their canoes to the top of trees to try to survive. Oral history from southern Oregon describes waves that uprooted trees and swept away entire villages with people who were desperately trying to do whatever they could to survive. And then there was a count in the north end of the Cascadia subduction zone. The chief Robert Dennis had heard this story from the former chief what had happened to the villages that January night. He told a story about six hundred people in that village and only one survived. Researchers have concluded that this oral tradition that it all seemed so consistent but yet different. These people had no seismographs, no FEMA, no internet, but they had a system for encoding dangerous truths into the memories of their children and grandchildren and passing it on reliably for three centuries so that they could be prepared. In Proverbs 4 7, it tells us wisdom is the beginning of everything. Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. So, what are the odds? What are the odds of this earthquake hitting the United States? Well, from everything that I pulled from the U.S. Geology Records to the National Association of Counties to the Washington County to the Science Daily, here's some numbers for you. The southern segment rupturing, which would cause a 8.0 to 8.5 mega earthquake, is up to 43% likely of happening within the next 50 years. 43%. A full margin rupture that could produce up to a 9.2 megaquake is between 16 and 22% likely. And a full margin guaranteed at 9.0 and above is between 10 and 15%. Those are scary numbers. If I was to give you a lotto ticket and say, hey, you have a 22% chance of winning, I think you would probably buy it. These odds should terrify anybody who lives in California, Washington, Oregon, and they should all start getting prepared and ready in case it happens. And then here was the scary one that they have just recently started to discover. In addition to this Cascadia quake going all the way across Washington, Oregon, and into Northern California and southern Canada, also up on the north end, they now know that there's between a 40 and 60% chance that if there is this full margin quake or slip, megathrust slip, that there's a 40 to 60% chance it will cause a San Andreas earthquake within a short period of time because of the shift. A full margin, 9.0 rupture, is at 10 to 15%. To put that into something that makes some sense, that means if you rolled a six-sided dice, your odds would be roughly the same. There's a one in seven chance you would not board a plane. If the pilot suddenly told you, hey, you know, if we get up there and we start flying, there's a one in seven chance that we're not going to make it back down today. But unlike a single flight, the Cascadia clock has been clicking for 326 years. The Oregon State professor emeritus Chris Goldfinger, kind of sounds like it should be a James Bond character. Perhaps the world's leading expert on Cascadia's seismic zone made a chilling observation. He said, perhaps more striking than The probability is what we can now say we have already gone longer without an earthquake than 75% of the known times between the earthquakes in the last 10,000 years. So 75% of the earthquakes have gone off in shorter time periods than this 326-year period in which we've had. Now the reason why that's important and important to understand is because every extra year that it builds up energy, not only does it get more likely that it's going to happen, but the energy that it will release gets to be even more. And remember, at 9.2 is over a thousand times more powerful than the huge quake that hit San Francisco in the 1900s and love. So let's take it day by day, hour by hour, this worst case scenario. It's six o four AM on the Pacific coast, and most of the people are still asleep. It's a February morning. And in the small coastal town of Newport, Oregon, fishing boats are leaving the harbor in the dark. A mother in a Victorian house about ten blocks from the seawall is packing lunches in the morning for her children. Her children are still asleep upstairs. In the seaside, a retired couple is walking their dog in the early morning along the beach. In Portland, early commuters are merging onto I-5 in Seattle. The Pike Place Market will not open for about another three hours. Seventy miles to the west beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, something is about to happen. To end that 326 years of silence. At six oh seven the fault line slips. It begins not with a sound but with a sensation. A deep rolling wave passes beneath the ground. Not a sharp jolt of a small earthquake, but something heavier, longer, more profound, much more powerful. Then the shaking begins in honest. The Wandafuca plate has finally slipped. The rupture sends energy northward and southward along the fault line at the speed of a commercial jet, covering the entire six hundred twenty mile length of the subduction zone in a matter of just minutes. The amount of energy that is released is equivalent to thousands upon thousands of atomic bombs detonating at the exact same time beneath the floorbed. If it's a nine point two quake, you've got sixty thousand plus Hiroshima bombs that all went off at once. And all that is dumped into the crust of the ocean, driving, shaking. Tsunamis gather or begin. Energy pushes all the water along the coast. The shaking does not stop for ten seconds, like most earthquakes, or even twenty or thirty. But it goes on for six minutes. Continuous, violent. The ground is moving with motion. Few can stand or even do anything. It seems like an eternity of time for those who are in the middle of it. In Newport, that mother that was fixing the lunch for her children to go to school. The children wake up screaming. Her chimney collapses through the roof. In Portland, every car alarm in the city is activated at the exact same time. Bridges sway and old brick buildings and bridges begin to break and to shed their facades or outer shells. Some cars are tossed up like little toys into the air. In Seattle, the Space Needle is designed to survive this, but the hundreds upon hundreds of older structures are known. At 608, the infrastructure all begins to collapse. Within minutes of shaking, the modern infrastructure of the Pacific Northwest begins to systematically fell. Bridges collapsed. The I five bridge connecting Portland and Southwest Washington, a structure so old the horses were still common transportation when it was opened, buckles and drops into the Columbia River. More than one hundred and thirty thousand vehicles would cross that bridge normally on a normal day, but not this day. According to the FEMA, Region ten, the event directly affects more than one hundred forty thousand square miles across three of the states of the United States. With indirect impacts reaching all the way up to Alaska. The tsunami will affect some twenty-seven countries and seventeen tribal nations. The natural gas lines begin to rupture beneath the streets of Portland and Seattle and other cities. Without electrical power to operate the automatic shutoffs, gas begins flowing freely into the broken pipes, through basements, and into the soil. Within hours, many fires were erupt throughout the various metro areas, dozens at the same time, with no functioning road or fire trucks that can do anything about it. In the coastal river basin, the exact area where humans have historically built their ports down towns and neighborhoods, the ground begins to do something terrifying. It's a process called liquefaction. The saturated soil down along the coast loses its structural integrity during this intense shaking, and it becomes like a thick liquid. Buildings tilt and sink, roads collapse into mud. Entire neighborhoods that were once on solid ground moments before begin to get swallowed up in the earth. Portland's old town district, much of it built on that historic tidal flat, is particularly vulnerable. Blocks of historic brick buildings simply sink as the ground beneath them turns to a muddy soup. So this coastline drop, this is what just blows my mind. For years and years the energy has been pushing it up, but this is what's going to happen. While the interior cities are still shaking, something stranger is happening at the coast. The same geological forces that have been bowing the North American plate for over three hundred and twenty six years now releases instantaneously. In minutes, long stretches all along the Pacific Northwest coastline drop by one or two meters, sometimes more. Former dry land now sinks permanently below the sea level. Coastal meadows now become tidal mud flats in a matter of seconds. The mother's house that was in Newport, that was making the sandwiches or the lunches for her children, built on a bluff near the seawall has just dropped. The neighborhood below her, the waterfront shops, the charter boat offices, the seafood restaurants, they are all now below sea level. The sea wall itself is cracked and the water is already beginning to pool on the streets, and then the ocean does something that no one who sees it for the first time will ever forget. It literally disappears. All the water in the ocean seems to retreat. Hundreds of meters of the seafloor suddenly expose themselves, wet sand, stranded fish, overturned boats resting on mud flats now. People at the beach just sit and stare in amazement. Some reach for their phones to take pictures. Some walk towards the strange exposed and look at the flopping fish, seashells, and things that were left behind. And some those who know what to do begin to run. Run for high ground. At six hundred twenty two AM the tsunami begins to arrive. Fifteen to thirty minutes after the rupture, depending on your coastline location, the first waves begin to arrive. The first wave does not look like a Hollywood tidal wave. Not at first anyway. It looks like a tide coming in very, very fast, then faster until it's a wall. Wave heights along the outer coast ranging from thirty to one hundred feet, depending on the local geography and angle of the seafloor, will begin smashing against the coastline. The waves do not just arrive at once. Additional tsunami surges will continue for the next twelve to twenty four hours, each capable of death and destruction. The coastal town of Seaside, Oregon, population seven thousand. The elevation is near sea level and only one way out. They received a wave at estimated fifty feet. The town now has ceased to exist from its current form in approximately four minutes. The retired couple on the beach were walking their dog. They had six minutes from the time the ocean retreated to reach high ground on foot. The husband, slowed by a bad knee, did not make it. The primary tsunami is caused by a sudden uplift of the seafloor. Then like water in a bathtub, there will be multiple waves over the next hours. And here's the thing, the first is not always the largest. Some people who are foolish and want to get a closer look after the first wave will go down, along where the first wave ended, and later get washed away. In city after city, from Cannon Beach to Lincoln City to Crescent City, California, the ocean shore to ocean shores, Washington, the story repeats with slight variations all along the 700 mile coastline. According to the 2022 FEMA Region Response Plan, approximately 36% of Oregon coastal county population and 42% of Washington's are all within the tsunami inundation zone. The first 24 hours, the states of Washington, Oregon, and California will really almost be a nation within our nation because they will literally be cut off from any help to be able to come. By noon on day one, the Pacific Northwest has effectively been severed from the rest of the United States. Then the nightmare increases as the transfer of tension energy sets off another megaquake, the San Andreas Fault, somewhere at the range of seven point five to eight point oh. Scientists now say there's a fifty five percent chance of this happening. But no one really thought it would happen. Not two nightmares, surely not two linked together. Then suddenly hundreds of thousands displaced, some five thousand more people die, and eighteen thousand more sit seriously injured. The electrical grid across Washington, Oregon and Northern California, in fact, parts of Southern California are all now down. Who knows for how long? Some estimates are months, others are years. The cell towers only have four to eight hours of battery backup life, and that's if they're still standing after these quakes. Every major bridge along the I-5 corridor is either destroyed or structurally compromised. In a report not too terribly long ago, one of the experts got quoted saying everything along the I five corridor to the west will be toast. In other words, destroyed, wiped out. All commercial airports in the coastal impact zone are closed or damaged. No help can be given. Fuel pipelines and refineries that supply the entire region are offline or worse, leaking and causing their own disasters. Fifty-four percent of emergency shelters are severely damaged. From Cascadia alone, they expect some twenty five thousand fatalities. Millions will need shelter. The economic losses at a minimum they estimate as thirty billion in the state of Oregon alone, another seventy billion across the state of Washington, and if this combined nightmare happens, some estimates are as high as four hundred fifty billion dollars. But this doesn't calculate the economic loss that will happen for years and years to come. Hospitals that are still standing are now overwhelmed and many of them without power within hours. Operating rooms function by generator light if they are able to function at all. Surgical teams triage patients out in the parking lots. Doctors must make decisions about who can be saved and who should be saved. The mother in Newport, who survived, has gathered her children in the backyard. They have no water. The tap stopped working shortly after the earthquake. The water treatment plants, they're offline and the pipes are broken. She has two gallons of bottled water in the garage. Her family of four will need one gallon of water per day at a minimum to be able to survive. She only has two days. The first week is the secondary disaster. A disaster of this magnitude does not end, it compounds. It gets worse and worse. The clean water is the immediate crisis. The municipal water system is down across the region. Wells are contaminated with surface water and sediment. Streams running through damaged areas carry human waste, fuel, agriculture, chemicals, and industrial pollutants. The food system has collapsed. With no power, no refrigeration and no roads to supply the trucks, grocery stores are emptied within the first few days. I should say the grocery stores that are left. The coastal communities are cut off entirely. Now the sanitation fails, and with sanitation failure comes diseases, sickness. Man's waste accumulates in the various temporary camps and damaged homes on the street. This is now the third round of mortality begins, not from the shaking water, but from disease and sickness. Stomach illnesses and cramps throughout the displaced populations begin sharing their limited water sources. Wound infections from these injuries that are sustained during the earthquakes now become life threatening without antibiotics to fight against it. And in the cooler months of California, hypothermia takes many of the elderly and very young. In the coastal communities still cut off for many weeks after the disaster, conditions begin to resemble what some international aid workers have seen in developing third world countries after such catastrophic events. And most likely there'll also be several 6.0 to 7.0 aftershock earthquakes. These are ones that once upon a time would have been looked at as a nightmare by themselves, but now they're just the friendly little side effect. Tina Dura, a lead researcher on that study, put it plainly. There's the flood itself, and then there's basically the permanent change to the land. Models now showed that the number of structures exposed to frequent flooding land simply does not return to the same elevation. Years and years, perhaps decades for a full regional restoration. We know how California responded just to some fires. Can you imagine this? So for Cascadia alone, you're basically looking at around ten to fifteen million people in an area of long shaking or tsunami risk, and fifteen to twenty million when you include the wider corridor that will experience major infrastructure and economic impacts. If it's a dual quake, you can add eight to twenty million more people into that equation. Now the takeaway sentence. What can you take away from this? Well, disasters do not create chaos. Disasters alone. They reveal preparation or the absence of it. The real question is never whether the ground or history will remember what happened. Real question is will you? If you love freedom and want to see the world prosper, like and subscribe, receive our free newsletter, and join our community as we promote freedom, preparedness, and prosperity across the world. Now let's get back to the show. The ancient lesson of running to higher ground has been taught by many societies that live along these tsunami danger areas. The ancient world knew about Cascadia not by the name and not by the seismographs. They knew about it through story and teachings of their ancestors. The natives of the Pacific Northwest told oral traditions of a great battle between that thunderbird and well, a catastrophic shaking of the earth, a salt water flood that swallowed the land. These oral histories were geologically consistent with the major Cascadia rupture event. Perhaps the most powerful lesson about a tsunami comes from clear over on the other side of the Pacific. A religious leader by the name of Elder Joseph B. Worthlin, in his 2005 General Conference Address called Journey to Higher Ground, told a story of the Mokan people. In 2004 there was a great tsunami in the Indian Ocean. When the ocean suddenly retreated that December morning, other tourists and villagers stood on the beach and stared in wonder, but the Mokan people who had learned from their ancestors ran and ran uphill to higher ground. Their ancestors had taught them for generations that when the sea pulls back a deadly wave is coming. They called it Habum, the wave that eats people, their entire village survived. Why? Because they possessed three things that we must also possess. Number one, they remembered truth, they acted immediately, and they trusted wisdom passed down to them. The scriptures tell us if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. And in Proverbs twenty two, three, the prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it. Now let's relate it to the four pillars. Let's do it pillar by pillar. Number one, freedom. The first act of a free, resilient citizen is to be informed. You are now informed of these things that can happen, their mathematical reality and the danger that can affect the region. Don't expect the government to be able to immediately come and help you out. It just won't happen. Knowledge is the first freedom. Know your risk, know your zone, know your time window, know what to expect, and how to react if this nightmare happens and you're in the middle of it. Number two, preparedness. In this worst case Cascadia scenario, you learn that you have very little warning time. You have maybe fifteen minutes between the earthquake and the wave. Your response must be automatic. Your family should be able to execute an evacuation plan without the need to think about it or talk about it. Because under the stress of real disaster, the thinking brain partially shuts down into fight or flight. Ideally, you should be prepared for months of hardship. If you survive and can be on higher ground, you will need a sheltered source like a tent, water at least one gallon a day per person, and you will need some food. Here's a family preparedness tip. In the tsunami zone, the warning signs are the earthquake itself, no formal sirens are going to save you. Long shaking or strong shaking means go. The ocean retreating means go. You should not wait for an official announcement. You should not stop to gather belongings. You should go. After the first wave hits, know that there will be a second that may even be higher, and others to follow over the next twelve to six. 24 hours. Take the high ground. Always take the high ground in real life and in your spiritual life with your actions and choices. Productivity. True preparedness is not a purchase, it's a practice. Everything you do to prepare is a deposit in your survival bank. You need to look at your spiritual life, which matters more in the same way. First aid certification, ham radio licensing, water prefication skills, garden and food storage knowledge, these are not fringe activities for some wacky extremists. They are skills that every generation before ours consider basic to household competence and survival. Why has it changed in our day? Commit to one new preparedness skill, minor purchase or practice per month. By the end of a year, your family will have twelve capabilities or various need them up to help them survive that you did not have before, or can be used in other emergencies within your life. Finally, prosperity. True prosperity is not fragile. It can survive disruption. True preparation is love and action and eternal. The most resilient families in any disaster are those with community bonds, financial reserves, and a faith foundation that does not depend just upon worldly things or circumstances. Here's a prosperity tip. Calculate a 30-day financial disruption and ask yourself, what would this mean for me and my household if we were to lose just about everything as far as my income goes, and that was going to stay that way for at least 30 days? Loss of supply chains, loss of banking access, what would change and what would you need to cover? The answer really reveals exactly where your preparedness investments need to go. Some of the most basic steps must include water, food, fire, and shelter, like a tent, tarp system. Although I suggest, where possible, to have at least a year's worth of food storage and preparedness. I don't want you to start with extremes. And know that even a 30-day supply of long shelf life food that you eat regularly will be more than enough for most of your common disasters. So here's your action steps. Your assignment this week. Number one, know your zone. Know where you fall within that coastal hazard zone, and then seek high ground immediately after the shaking and always stand on the moral and spiritual high ground. Number two, build a two weeks water supply minimum. Store one gallon of water per person per day for at least 14 days. But I would tell you, this is the bare bones minimum. A family of four needs a minimum 56 gallons. Add a water purification method, filter iodine tablets, or quality purifier as backup, but don't count on this as your primary source. People who do that will be sorry. Number three, create and practice your evacuation plan. Identify meeting spots, things that you need to do. Walk the route, time it on foot, know what you're doing. Number four, build a 72-hour kit that you can easily carry, quickly grab and go. Usually that means it needs to be 10 to the most 25% of your body weight. Number five, teach and share. The best form of community preparedness is a prepare neighbor. Share this episode with one family member this week or another family this week. Preparedness multiplies when it spreads. This knowledge can save lives and impact many and can be felt by the economy nationwide and perhaps worldwide. So there's a few preparedness myths. FEMA will be there in a day or two. That's very, very wrong. In fact, FEMA themselves says that there'll be at least two weeks minimum. It's just too big of an area, too much damage to roads and other things. Myth number two. I'll hear of warning sirens and have time to evacuate. On the outer coast, the tsunami rise arrives within fifteen to thirty minutes. The earthquake is your warning. If you feel long or strong shaking, do not wait for a siren. Go immediately. So in closing, today we learned the Cascadia subduction zone is not a hypothetical threat. It's the real deal. Scientists place the full margin slip at somewhere between ten to twenty two percent in the next fifty years. Similar odds of throwing a one on a single sided six sided dice. We walked through the worst case scenario, not to frighten you, but to equip you. We saw the slip fault, the ground shake for five minutes, the coastline drop, the ocean vanished, and the monstrous, monstrous tsunami and the time it took to arrive. We learned that the difference between survival and tragedy is often not money, not government, not luck, is preparation, it's memory, it's ancient wisdom to run to higher ground, to live a higher way when the ocean retreats, when temptation arrives. What? Like the Mokan people who taught their children the name of the tidal wave that eats people, we must teach our families the names of dangers that threaten them and give them knowledge and habits to survive. From freedom to preparedness to productivity and prosperity, your next steps are one, know your zone and your plan, two, store your water and get some food. Number three, have your 72-hour kit ready to go and share this message. The scriptures tell us, fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous hand. Isaiah 41 10. Now arise for freedoms, make the world a better place. Don't just survive, but properly prepare, prosper, and thrive. Good day. Join us as we promote freedom, preparedness, and prosperity across the world. Share this episode. Make the world a better place. Good day.