The 1,700-foot Tsunami that struck Alaska (in 1958) - can it happen again?
This is an interesting read for a number of reasons. Firstly, it shows the possible danger the whole Western US and Canada may be under. From the article:
...Their scenario depicted a rupture beginning in the north and propagating toward the south along the 600-mile long Cascadia Subduction Zone (an area where two tectonic plates move towards one another, forcing one to slide beneath the other). In their scenario, the ground moved about 1.5 feet per second in Seattle, nearly 6 inches per second in Tacoma, Olympia and Vancouver, and 3 inches in Portland, Oregon...
Also, think about the latest rush by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo etc to build Data Centers in this part of the world near the Columbia River. I hope they factored in some severe earthquakes in their construction...
A geological event like that described in the article above would not only have a major impact directly on this region but also on global commerce because of the interconnectedness of everything and the growing move to Cloud Computing (and in particular the services of the companies mentioned above).
Business Continuity Management planning is something every company should have but especially in this region. Also, it goes without saying (or it should) that secondary / backup facilities and data centers shouldn't be anywhere near this region - just in case of the big one...
Kevin
ZeroTouch IT Ltd
