As someone who is looking for a home to actually keep long-term and eventually own, last week’s earthquake and resulting major tsunami in Japan was a brutal reminder of the kinds of risks that we face here in the Seattle area. Although we do not have the regular yearly threat of hurricanes or tornados, our region’s natural disasters have the potential to be extremely destructive.
Everyone thinks of earthquakes when they think of natural disasters around Seattle, but the risk of a major earthquake is basically equal no matter where around Seattle you buy a home, so that’s a fairly uninteresting topic to discuss here. However, there are other natural disasters that will eventually strike our area that can be mitigated by careful selection of your location.
Obviously on the top of my mind is the threat of a major tsunami. Most people imagine a tsunami as simply a massive wall of water slamming into the coast. Seattle is separated from the Pacific by the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas, so a 30-foot wave smashing into downtown seems fairly unlikely (note: I am not a geologist, nor do I play one on the internet). However, the iconic giant wave is not the only way a tsunami can do massive damage.
Picture this: water begins running through the streets, rising from an inch or two to over ten feet in a matter of minutes. An unfathomable amount of water continues rushing inland for what seems like an eternity, sweeping away cars, trucks, and even entire buildings.
That pretty much describes exactly what happened last week in Kesennuma, a Japanese city on a bay five miles in from the Pacific coast:
If a major tsunami hit between the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island or—even worse—actually within Puget Sound, a scenario like that seems like what we might see in Seattle. Not the kind of thing I’d want to risk happening to my family home, so I’ll probably never be in the market for a home right on the Sound or Lake Washington, or pretty much anywhere near either of those at an elevation less than thirty feet.
Of course, just staying away from the possible rising waters of the Sound and the lakes might not be enough, as the other often-forgotten risk we face here would hit from the other direction: Lahars. An eruption at Mount Rainier may be geologically less likely than a major earthquake and tsunami, but the resulting volcanic mud flows would be no less destructive.
Scratch any river-front property in the South Sound off my list, as well.
What about you? Do you consider our region’s natural disaster risks when shopping for your home, or does the rarity of events like this make buying at-risk property worth it to you?
On a related note, if you have bought or will be buying an at-risk house, when one of these major events does finally happen here, will you expect the government to ride in and save the day, or are you willing to take responsibility and deal with the consequences of your risky choice?