My family jokes that Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel and those other science-y documentary type channels have days which we’ve dubbed “Scare the Public” Days.Â? On those days, they talk about these impending supertornadoes, the explosion of the supervolcano that is Yellowstone National Park, massive tsunamis hitting the coasts, and these massive earthquakes that happen every 6000 years and how this is the time when all of that is going to happen.
Currently, the national disaster facing me is the supervolcano under Yellowstone exploding.Â? Apparently, this happens every 600K to 800K years and it’s been some number of years in that timeframe.Â? My thought: you know… if the volcano is going to explode, it’s going to happen whether or not the states of Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and the west coast evacuate.Â? I mean… I know that I have a chance of dying from the lava and falling debris.Â? I also have an equally good chance of being mauled by my 4 cats because we’re out of catfood.
My point: yes, a tsunami could hit the west coast.Â? The KFC in Crescent City, California even has pictures of the last time it happened.Â? Yes, a supertornado could hit Dallas or Oklahoma City and kill hundreds of thousands of people.Â? Yes, a massive earthquake could happen and wipe out southern California (not that it would be a bad thing — sorry, I am not a fan of SoCal culture/attitude/people except for my friends list and my in-laws).Â? We’re all going to die at some point and these shows kind of hype people up to think that their chance of dying is a whole lot more inflated than it actually is.Â? If a tsunami hits the California coast, it’s gonna be awful but it’s one of those things you have to take into account when you live on the coast.
So anyway… I’m off to find out about how screwed the people in the Pacific Northwest are when the next megaquake comes.Â? 🙂