- Home
- Fire & Life Safety
- Emergency Preparedness
- Earthquakes & Volcanoes
Earthquakes & Volcanoes
Preparing for Earthquakes
How earthquake-savvy are you?
Will we be ready for the megaquake in Oregon? Check out OPB's Unprepared series
Washington County's October 2015 Quake-Up! (video of presentation on Oregon's Cascadia threat)
Recorded webinar with downloadable presentations: Communicating Cascadia's Earthquake Risk
See how vulnerable your home/office is via the free Temblor website and app.
Play Beat The Quake
Why buy earthquake insurance?
Are you Totally Unprepared? (Videos)
Let OPB show you what a Cascadia Subduction Zone quake would be like where you live
Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC)
Oregon Resilience Plan
>Five-year Oregon resilience status report
How do you protect yourself during an earthquake? Drop, Cover, and Hold on! (PDF)
What if there's nothing to get under? Videos and additional details on protecting yourself during an earthquake
Why Drop, Cover, and Hold On is far preferable to "triangle of life" (PDF)
It's the law: conduct an earthquake drill at your workplace
Earthquake drills are the law for all Oregon schools, too
Conduct a Home Hazard Hunt (PDF) and make a few simple changes to keep your home contents from killing you during an earthquake (PDF) (also known as "non-structural mitigation")
- Check out a series of videos to take you through the process (Courtesy Washington State Emergency Management Division)
- See how earthquakes can affect your home (animation courtesy of Simpson Strong-Tie)
- Video: How Portland's Emergency Management Director did a significant structural seismic upgrade on her home
- Video: Portland's Emergency Management Director explains simple non-structural seismic mitigation in her home
Learn how (and whether) to shut off your utilities (PDF)
- Video: shutting off electricity at the breaker box
- Video: shutting off natural gas service
- Video: are you considering seismic cutoffs on your gas service?
- Video: turning off propane (LPG) service
- Video: shutting off residential water
- Video: draining your water heater (potential water source in disaster)
- Video: accessing water from your water heater in an emergency
Additional Earthquake Links
- Living on Shaky Ground (PDF) (surviving earthquakes and tsunamis in Oregon; 5.5MB PDF)
- DisasterSafety.org (Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety)
- Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup (CREW) (earthquake mitigation resources for businesses and others)
- Interactive hazard maps for Oregon (courtesy of DOGAMI and Portland State University)
- FEMA resources for policy-makers, builders, teachers, and general public
- Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) provides excellent information on hazards like earthquakes and tsunamis, including special issues of Cascadia magazine on Oregon's seismic hazards (Winter 2010) and the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami
- Fact-sheets, videos, educational resources on earthquakes from IRIS
- Western States Seismic Policy Council
- Smithsonian article (March 2005) on earthquake hazards in the Pacific Northwest
- Landslide information from DOGAMI and USGS
Tsunamis
Volcanoes
USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO)
Mt. Hood Regional Coordination Plan (updated June 2013)
- Learn whether you're at risk from volcanic activity and how to protect yourself
- USGS volcanic activity alert-notification system
- USGS volcano hazards information
- USGS: Volcanic ash: what it can do and how to prevent damage
- NOAA: volcanic ash plume simulation
- CDC: health hazards related to volcanic activity
- DOGAMI information on OR volcanic hazards
- Oregon Office of Emergency Management info on volcanoes
- Washington Emergency Management Division tips on volcanoes
- International Volcanic Health Hazard Network downloadable and streaming information