Natural Hazards on Whidbey Island
Natural Hazards on Whidbey Island Protect and prepare your family and your home — a guide for surviving disasters caused by earthquakes, landslides, wildland fires, tsunamis, and windstorms Island County, Washington Department of Emergency Management Digital elevation map of Island County (Jessica Larson) ii Dealing with Natural Hazards on Whidbey Island This is a guide to the natural hazards that could affect you, your family, and your property. It offers a brief description of the ways you can prepare your home and family to survive disasters caused by earthquakes, landslides, wildland fires, tsunamis, and windstorms. Power outages caused by windstorms during the winter of 2006-2007 — as well as numerous other events in prior and more recent years — have made most residents of Whidbey Island amply aware of the difficulties of being without light, heat, water, and the ability to prepare meals or use health-related equipment. Although most of us have experienced being without power for less than a week, we have still been able to travel to a grocery, a hospital, or the mainland. Friends across the island could help each other. But what if there were a major natural disaster that cut off the island from the mainland and we were entirely on our own for two or three weeks? A truly large storm or an earthquake could destroy or damage docks at the Clinton and Coupeville ferries systems and seriously compromise footings of the Deception Pass bridge, disrupting delivery of food, water, fuel, emergency services, and many other vitally necessary elements of our Island life. These realities are even more evident recently as we have had record rains, experienced more landslides, and observed the damage suffered by the islands of New Zealand and Japan.
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