Businesses in Cascadia - CREW

CREW’S BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE SERIESCascadia is a region of vibrant communities, abundant natural resources, and diverse businessesand industries. Because of its unique geology, it is also a region vulnerable to damaging earthquakes.The Cascadia Region Earthquake Workgroup (CREW) was created to help address thischallenge. The resilience of communities and businesses alike depends on people understandingand mitigating their earthquake risk: CREW’s role is to provide the information and assistancethey need to accomplish this.CREW’s business roundtable series is part of its mission to increase earthquake preparedness,lower earthquake risk, and improve resilience throughout Cascadia. CREW hosted three regionalbusiness roundtables in 2012: one in Oregon, one in Washington, and one in British Columbia.The objectives of the roundtables were to:• Further develop interaction between CREW and the business community.• Provide a setting in which business people could discuss their concerns and current levelof preparedness.• Allow CREW to learn from the participants what types of tools and information CREWcan supply that would be of greatest use to businesses.The discussions that evolved during these meetings provided insights not only into the state ofreadiness of participating businesses, but also into the particular challenges and obstacles thatcan make the planning, implementation, and practice of earthquake preparedness difficult formany of the region’s businesses. CREW intends to use the results of the roundtables to developand improve the focus of the information and other resources it offers to the businesscommunity. The more prepared businesses are to withstand and recover quickly from the nextbig earthquake, the greater will be the resilience of the regional economy and of everycommunity that depends on it.Figure 1. Map of Cascadia. Geologically, Cascadia isdefined by the Cascadia subduction zone where theJuan de Fuca Plate meets and descends beneath theNorth American Plate (shown on the map as a thickblack line marked with arrowheads). The two platesare continually pushing against each other along this800-mile (1,300-kilometer) zone, causing intensepressure to build up along the line of collision (wherethe plates are currently stuck), along fractures orfaults in the North American Plate that have formedas a result of the collision, and in the subductingedge of the Juan de Fuca Plate. This pressure isperiodically released in the form of an earthquake.(For more information, see CREW’s website:http://crew.org/earthquake-information)The Business Roundtable Series | 1