What We Can Learn from the Taiwan Earthquake
The first news I heard of the 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Taiwan on April 2nd included a video of drivers stuck on a shaking bridge, specifically the views of scooter drivers digging in and holding on tight. That video is basically the nightmare that runs through my mind whenever I’m stuck in traffic on any number of the bridges in Portland. Except my nightmare involves the bridge breaking a part and me and my car plunging into the Willamette River below.
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What was striking about this video is that the bridge seemed to be designed just for this scenario. If the bridge were a human, it took it in stride. I can only imagine that the motorists were scared out of their minds. But the structure held. As did many of the structures in Taiwan. After seeing that video, followed by another video of a leaning building looking like it would just collapse, I was sure we’d hear more about a rising death toll. And while many people are still missing, as of this writing (several days after the quake), the official death toll stands at 13 people. In 1999 when this size of earthquake last hit Taiwan, nearly 2,000 people died.
So the question is: What did Taiwan do that prevented such widespread death and what could have been a catastrophic disaster? And can we replicate that?
Naturally, the answer to the former question was what many news outlets wanted to know in the aftermath of Taiwan’s earthquake. Emily Feng from NPR reported that the answer was that Taiwan investigated what caused the wide scale damage in the first place and then worked to correct it over the last 25 years by retrofitting old buildings, updating building codes, and upgrading disaster response mechanisms. This resulted in fewer than 100 buildings being damaged or destroyed compared to more than 100,000 in 1999. Even that building listing to its side saw no casualties–rescue workers saved 24 people from that building–and none of the buildings around it were compromised.
“At that moment, Taiwan reorganized its disaster response and began a number of attempts at bottom-up and top-down responses to shocks," Daniel Aldrich, a disaster researcher from Northwestern University, was quoted in the story. "What we're seeing in 2024 is a direct outcome of the previous response and governmental criticism."
Of course many of us in the Cascadia Subduction Zone wonder how we’d fare in such a situation. It turns out, not so well. Portland still has around 1,600 unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings–basically buildings made out of brick hundreds of years ago that would almost certainly crumble to the ground the moment the earth started shaking (fun!). What’s even more alarming is that school buildings are among the most vulnerable buildings (double fun for parents having to think about that and any active shooter scenarios–yay America!). While Portland has made some headway in retrofitting about 20% of buildings since the 1990s, we have a long way to go. Bridges are also not in good shape to face a 9.0 magnitude earthquake (which is what is predicted). And for a city that is dubbed “Bridgetown” because of its many bridges that connect the East and West sides of the city, there are an inordinate number of vulnerable bridges. Of the 12 that cross the river, two are new enough to fare well against the earthquake (the Tilikum Bridge and the Sellwood Bridge). In 2026, construction is slated to begin to replace the well-traveled Burnside Bridge that goes right into Downtown.
It’s clear that it takes decades to make the kind of changes that Taiwan did, but this last week’s earthquake shows the time, effort, and coordination to make those changes was worth it. I just wish our communities here in the U.S. received the type of funding and attention to create resilient infrastructure as Taiwan. In researching this story, I found out the alarming fact that in February, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that Portland Bureau of Emergency Management’s (PBEM)’s only position for earthquake preparedness may not be filled after the one and only person to hold the position retired recently. I mean, what?!
There is hope, though, as in 2020, Portland voters passed a bond that is funding seismic retrofits of school buildings around the city which is underway. PBEM does have a great emergency preparedness network called NETs (neighborhood emergency teams) that are an active group of volunteers trained in community response. This kind of local response is essential in a disaster–and one that Daniel Aldrich, quoted above, has repeated to me a few times before when we’ve talked about stories I’ve written. But I do not feel like we’re in the best position over here in Portland to withstand the Big One. Blurgh is all I can say at the moment.
In the KOIN story noted above, they end with this warning from Oregon’s Office of Emergency Management: “with the current preparedness levels of Oregon, we can anticipate being without services and assistance for at least two weeks, if not longer, when the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake occurs.”
Greeaaat! Well, it’s a good thing @Brekke and I are working on the prep series, because all of this earthquake talk has made me really want to get my butt in gear with this.
While we’re still woefully unprepared for an earthquake, I can at least say a lot is about to be done about climate resilience. Last year, Oregon passed one of the most comprehensive climate legislative packages with the Climate Resilience Package. This is a huge win to target building up our systems to withstand and prevent future climate disasters. Perhaps there can be a link between that work and earthquake resilience.
One big thing, though, is I think we can look to Taiwan for what we can and should do to prepare!
I also know that some of you East Coast readers are feeling this earthquake fear now as well after the 4.8 magnitude earthquake centered in New Jersey shook the ground underneath a lot of the U.S. So, with the lack of preparedness on the infrastructure front, what do we have in our power to do?
Three things, specifically: 1) Get prepared yourself, 2) Get involved in the neighborhood preparedness group near you, and 3) Advocate your local, regional, and state governments to invest in earthquake resilient infrastructure.
For number 1, we’ve got you covered if you want to join us for the 10 Weeks to Preparedness journey. For number 2, find the CERT (community emergency response team) near you (we’ll be covering this a bit more in Week 4 of the 10 Weeks to Preparedness), and for 3, find out what your local emergency management bureau is doing to create resilient communities (both on the infrastructure side and connectedness side); and from there, see what organizations might be doing locally to help advance preparedness.
