Portland, Oregon: Landslide Central
Tuesday January 6, 2009
Earth hazards never fail to surprise people who are determined to ignore them. Case in point: Portland, Oregon, where high rainfall and abundant sediment mean a landscape prone to mudflows, rockfalls, and the rest of the wide variety of landslides. In the community of Lake Oswego, landslides damaged several homes and injured five people last weekend. Only a decade before, geologists had painstakingly mapped the landslide hazard of Oregon, but the legislature declined to formally adopt the maps—they looked bad for business, reports the Associated Press. This kind of stuff drives scientists nuts, and it has always been so. Disaster denialists did the same in California after the 1906 earthquake and after the 1925 earthquake; only when the 1933 earthquake showed the danger that Los Angeles' schoolkids faced did the state finally enact antiquake requirements for public buildings in California—and only because geologists mobilized. Progress is a matter of misfortune and well-timed advocacy, and I hope Oregon moves forward, if only a little, given this taste of the price of willful ignorance.Landslide victim, Oakland, Calif. — Geology Guide photo
Comments
Thank you for some not-so-common sense, Andrew! I lived in Lake Oswego for almost 50 years and currently live in Portland. The disregard shown to the needs of the Earth and the danger that attitude poses is truly incomprehensbile, it’s denial at it’s worst. By the way, there was an even larger slide on October 8, 2008, when it was still dry. Several homes were destroyed and the homeowners, City of Portland and insurance companies are still trying to sort it out and the reasons why it occurred. However, nothing compares to the literally hundreds of slides of 1996 due to the torrential rainfall and resultant flooding. I’ve been a licensed real-estate agent and I’m sorry to say it, but I know from experience that money trumps everything, including public safety. Frankly, my inability to tolerate this was not good for my career and bottom-line and that’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs.