07-16-2015, 02:38 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Wao nahele kane
Seattle and Mount Rainier/Baker on its, as I recall, once every 250,000 year eruption cycle? An eruption that won't reach Seattle but its ash fall might if the prevailing winds just happen to be coming from an odd East or South East direction respectively? I doubt Seattle would be harmed much from a Mount Rainier/Baker eruption but maybe a lahar in the rivers could cause a bit of havoc and Tacoma might get some bad lahars rushing through some of its local rivers from Raindog, maybe.
Remember, it isn't Seattle or Tacoma that has property insurance problems due to volcanic activity, that is exclusive to the Big Islands LZ 1 - 2 and a great deal of that is in Puna. That alone does indeed impede development in Puna.
I did a lot of trainings in urban disaster planning and Seattle was the the poster child for major disaster waiting to happen. Rainier and Hood both are in the same state that Mount St. Helens was before blowing up, but there are extensive "rural" suburban development in the pathways of the pyroclastic mud flows that will follow quickly on the heals of the eruption. Most of those communities have only one way in or out for evacuation. The fatal mudslide that happened in Washington last year or the year before was similar to what will happen, just on a much, much smaller scale.
But you are missing my point, Seattle was just an example. There are many cities all over the world located in close proximity to natural disasters, humans build where they want to live or where they can do business, disaster assessment doesn't seem to be a huge part of the equation.
Kilauea is slow and fairly predictable compared to the natural disaster risks facing other cities, there may be a lot of reasons why Hilo will not ever rival Honolulu in size, but Kilauea is not the top factor.