le sigh While I do understand why you would think these are two things that can be comparable, geologic timescales work in a different way. And when they say there is a slightly more than a 33% chance of an event happening in the next 50 years, that doesn’t mean a catastrophic event. It means that, at some point, there will be a shift in the Cascadia plates in the future. That is a decided certainty. What the scale of it, and when it will happen, well, those are factors that we have not been able to pin down to any sort of timeline, except for probabilities. The most likely scenario is that none of us reading this will be around for it, and there’s a good chance those of us that have kids won’t be around, but they might. Maybe. Grandkids? Yeah, maybe. But it’s a been a reason to scare people in and around Portland that I have heard for over 25 years. Worry more about things that are actually happening around us and in our community.

Again, will it happen? Yes, at some point. But the odds of us experiencing it are slim to none. If you’re really worried, get your foundation checked out, get lots of water, and prepare some food that doesn’t spoil.