Rep. Peter DeFazio urges Congress to fund earthquake early warning

COOS BAY — The South Coast’s man in Congress is joining colleagues in a push for an earthquake early warning system.

In a hearing Tuesday morning, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, criticized legislators for not acting sooner.

“It’s pretty pathetic when countries like Romania, Mexico and now Mongolia are doing more to protect their citizens (from) severe damage in the case of an earthquake then the United States of America,” DeFazio said.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s budget is already overstretched, and can’t build the system without more congressional funding.

DeFazio had co-signed a letter in April with more than 20 other colleagues asking for more funding for the system.

He said the system could buy Oregonians a few precious minutes to prepare before the “big one” hits.

University of Oregon Professor Doug Toomey testified that a major earthquake in the region isn’t a risk — it’s guaranteed.

The Cascadia Subduction zone, a massive underwater fault, lies just off the coast.

“A magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami, comparable to those that occurred in Alaska in 1964, Sumatra in 2004, Chile in 2010 and Japan in 2011, has and will again hit the Pacific Northwest,” Toomey said, bluntly. “The Pacific Northwest is unprepared for a catastrophe of this scale.”

Toomey said that scientists find it hard to predict the behavior of underwater faults because of the lack of a seafloor early warning system.

USGS estimates put the cost of an early warning system at $38 million. It would cost about $18 million annually to maintain.