NEWS
March 24, 2011
On On Campus Campus
Disaster preparedness at UP? Rosemary Peters Editor-in-Chief peters12@up.edu Portland is due to have a massive earthquake. According to scientists, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which lies about 75 miles off the Oregon coast, has a fault which produces a major quake about every 250 to 500 years. Currently, we are about 311 years out from when the last one occurred. According to Public Safety’s Environmental Health and Safety Officer Jeff Rook, the shaker that will send the ground under Portland quaking is expected to be on par with the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Japan earlier this month. “Disaster is going to be inevitable,” Rook said. “With the one that strikes here, and not if but when, survival is optional.” In order to make sure the UP community is prepared for earthquakes, Rook started working with CCERT, the Community Campus Emergency Response Team. CCERT trains students, faculty and staff not only from UP but Portland Community
Saturday, Hawaii Club is hosting its 35th annual Lu’au, “Ke Ea o Hawaii,” in the Chiles Center. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and dinner is at 6 p.m. Pre-sale tickets are the following: first 200 students are free, faculty and staff are $10, general admission is $20, senior citizens (55+) are $15, children (5-12) and groups of 10 or more are $12 per person and children under four are free. Tickets can be purchased Friday at The Bauccio Commons from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the Pilot House from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. or in the UP Bookstore with a sales associate. Ticket prices will increase at the door. CORRECTION In the March 10 issue, the photo for “No strings (or ropes) attached” on page 16 was submitted by Sebastian Berisford. The photo at the top of page 14 was submitted by Victoria Clark. The Beacon regrets the errors. Accuracy in The Beacon
Q: What causes earthquakes? A: The two-word answer is plate tectonics, which is motion between lithospheric plates. On their boundaries, forces build up and get released. This particular plate boundary that released its stored energy on March 11 was the boundary where the Pacific Plate dives beneath Japan. The plates are converging, moving towards each other, and the Pacific Plate bends down and dives down into the Japan trench. That’s a line of deep ocean floor, off the east coast of Japan, and the Pacific plate is a slab which is about 100 kilometers thick, and it dives down into the deeper mantle below Japan. Q: What causes tsunamis? A: To produce a tsunami, an earthquake has to move ocean water. Most tsunamis are produced by great, shallow earthquakes. And when we mean shallow, we mean 10 kilometers. This particular earthquake
•
•
A new fire erupts at the Fukushima plant and radiation levels increase at the plant’s entrance. A 6.0-magnitude aftershock hits Japan causing buildings in Tokyo to sway.
The Beacon strives to be fair and accurate. The newspaper corrects any significant errors of fact brought to the attention of the editors. If you think an error has been made, contact us at beacon@up.edu. Corrections will be printed above.
Q & A
Environmental science Professor Robert Butler discusses earthquakes and tsunamis actually initiated at about 24 kilometers depth, and then it ruptured a big patch of the plate boundary. It changed the shape of the ocean floor, and produced a big mound of ocean water. Q: What does “9.0” mean? A: There a bunch of different magnitude scales for earthquakes. The most effective scale to use is a moment magnitude scale. That actually uses information such as the displacement, the opposite sides of the fault – how far did one side of the fault move with respect to the other side of the fault – and it also uses the area of the fault that got moved. Q: Explain the risk and what possible scenarios could occur in the Portland area and at UP. A: The Pacific Northwest has three kinds of earthquakes. One kind is what would be considered to be a deep earthquake. Another kind is crustal earthquakes. These are on faults, where the North American crust is broken. There is large crustal
fault called the Portland Hills Fault. It’s immediately across the Willamette River from UP. We know the fault is capable of certainly having magnitude 6.0 earthquakes, maybe even magnitude 7.0 earthquakes. But we don’t know very well, at least, when the last earthquake occurred on that fault. That means it makes it difficult to assess the risk which is posed by that crustal fault. There is another fault called the East Bank Fault which is basically mapped to go along parallel to the East Bank of the Willamette River, and it runs under the UP campus. That fault is really hard to evaluate. We know it’s there, but we don’t have a very good idea about what risk it does or does not pose. The third kind of earthquake is what people around here in the Pacific Northwest region call “The Big One.” This is a great earthquake occurring on the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
We know the last one of these great Cascadia earthquakes, which was probably a magnitude 9, occurred on Feb. 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m. That one is parallel to this great earthquake that just occurred in Japan. It’s the same kind of plate boundary. The 1700 earthquake produced a tsunami which kind of did the mirror image of what the Japan earthquake did – that is, the Cascadia 1700 earthquake created a tsunami that arrived in Japan and caused damage. - Butler will present “March 11, 2011 Magnitude 9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami in Northern Japan: Comparisons with Past and Future Earthquakes and Tsunamis in Cascadia” today at 4:30 p.m. in Buckley Center, room 163. -Hannah Gray Engineers check the cooling and other systems at reactor number two at the Fukushima plant.
HAWAII CLUB LU’AU
•
Friday night, the Bluffoons are having an Improvisational Comedy Show at the Mago Hunt Recital Hall at 7:30. Tickets are $2 per person, or $3 for two people.
•
BLUFFOONS IMPROV SHOW
gallon of water per person per day,” Rook said. He said the kits should also include at least a week’s worth of food that doesn’t take much effort to prepare, such as Power Bars. A full list of supplies to include in a kit can be found on Public Safety’s website at http:// www.up.edu/showimage/show. aspx?file=7037. “How many more times before it actually happens do we need to see examples before we get prepared?” Rook said. The next CCERT class is coming up this summer. Students can contact Rook at rook@ up.edu if they want to take the class.
Engineers connect an electricity cable to a reactor at the Fukushima complex. Abnormal levels of radiation are detected in milk and spinach from areas near the plant. Radioactive iodine is reportedly found in tap water in Tokyo.
Friday and Saturday night, “Country Strong” will play in the Buckley Center Auditorium at 10 p.m.
Jeff Rook
•
‘COUNTRY STRONG’
•
Tonight, Mr. Corrado will be held in the Buckley Center Auditorium from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Mr. Corrado is a man pageant fundraiser for Holy Cross Charities. The event is free.
•
MR. CORRADO
the water bottle ban that was implemented last year. The Bauccio Commons has three days worth of food that could sustain up to 3,000 people. “We have at least that much product on campus during the academic calendar,” Kirk Mustain, the general manager of Bon Appétit, said in an email. “Obviously we would amend the style of service and offerings but I feel confident that we would be able to take care of the university community.” Back-up generators are in Franz Hall, Shiley Hall and Public Safety that can run for a week or two at full capacity. “In an emergency situation we wouldn’t be running them at full capacity,” Rook said. According to Rook, secondary items would not be powered up to make the generators last longer. The school also has an agreement with Belfor Property Restoration so UP could receive a back-up generator for the Chiles Center within 24 to 48 hours of an emergency. Finally, Rook encourages everyone to make a 72-hour kit for his or her place of residence. “Each kit should have one
Engineers get a power line to the Fukushima plant. Fire trucks bring overheating reactors and fuel storage tanks under control. The crisis level is raised from four to five on the seven point international scale of gravity for atomic accidents.
Tonight, LXG will host the Manquisition, a satirical mock trial of prominent men on campus, in the Terrace room in The Bauccio Commons at 6 p.m.
College and Portland State University as well. According to Rook, 75 to 80 percent of people who respond in an emergency situation are volunteers. The purpose of the CCERT program is to make sure the University of Portland has some prepared volunteers. “It’s disaster medicine,” Rook said. “It’s learning how to take a cardboard box, strip it down and use it for splinting.” On April 1, CCERT will have a four-hour field experience day where members will utilize their training to size up a fake emergency situation and extricate victims from the emergency. They will also practice search and rescue as well as triage skills. “There are one to two Public Safety officers to a total student body of over 3,000 plus faculty and staff,” Rook said. “You are in a situation where you are completely overwhelmed. We want to make sure our campus members are better prepared.” UP has also taken steps to prepare for a disaster. According to Rook, UP has a small stock of Koldkist water bottles on campus, despite
•
MANQUISITION
Chinook helicopters and fire engines dump water on nuclear complex to cool overheating reactor.
!
•
2
Continued from page 1
Wednesday, March 16
Thursday, March 17
Friday, March 18
Saturday, March 19
Sunday, March 20