Cracked Window

I’ve been thinking of “The Big One.” Long before earthquakes devastated Haiti and then Chile, I wanted to have our 1920s Craftsman house bolted to its foundation with steel plates. That’s enough protection to qualify for earthquake insurance.

The work begins tomorrow, ten months after I arranged for an estimate. Waiting until my wife and I could afford the work was a gamble, considering that scientists believe an earthquake of up to 9.0 magnitude off the Oregon Coast is inevitable within the next 50 years.

The last such quake in the Cascadia Fault, 310 years ago when the indigenous people sparsely populated the region, triggered widespread devastation. There are also three faults beneath Portland — one only a few blocks from our house — capable of delivering quakes of 6.5 magnitude or greater. Talk about Ground Zero.

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Until the last few days, I hadn’t traveled through the Columbia River Gorge and seen the new price of protecting the planet. For several miles east of The Dalles, the bare ridge lines that for eons had starkly demarcated earth from sky now are scarred with wind turbines. Aligned like robotic sentries, they look like a science fiction future set in the prehistoric past.

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South of the tiny hamlet of Pilot Rock along a lonely road, I saw an ancient barn. One end had collapsed. No one lives close enough in the desolate hills to have heard it. The rest of the building looked ready to fall in the next big wind. I ventured inside. Sunlight poured through holes in the roof. Dried cow dung littered the dirt floor. From a darkened corner came a noise. A deer stared at me then scrambled through a gap in the rear wall, hooves clattering on fallen planks. I was alone.

Posting a comment on Facebook has landed me a radio show interview tomorrow. Topic: the implications of severe cutbacks at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, where I spent much of the last two years researching this book.

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