This assignment is concerned with possible Natural Hazards that would significantly impact the Seattle area. You are to prepare a presentation, hypothetically to the Seattle Mayor's Advisory Council (SMAC), on the possible magnitude/impact of the threat, the probability that it will occur, the mitigation steps needed to minimize the impact, and potential evacuation routes and the need for emergency services.

In addition to the above elements, each presentation should incorporate:

    a) A plausible worse case scenario - example: The Cascadia MegaThrust Earthquakes occurs at 1/2 time of the Seahawks game when every one is getting beer and the stadium falls down.

    b) A plausible representation of the risk that convinces the SMAC to take the risk seriously (good luck with this) and a plausible estimate of how much advanced warning there will be (which will vary considerably from risk to risk).

    c) A recommendation for evacuation strategies and routes. For example, suppose the earthquake scenario knocks down the I-5 Bridge over lake Union making evacuation to the North much more difficult.


Your presentations are limited to 17--18 minutes in order to allow for some discussion of all of this afterwards. Please practice so that your within this time frame and schedule a practice session with Tyler.

For reference, here are some YouTube videos of similar presentations last year. Watch them and learn.



Blue Team:

You are assigned the FLOOD scenario. Under this scenario there is a major "Pineapple Express" which brings heavy, warm rains on top of the existing snowpack. All rivers in the Seattle and surrounding area reach several feet above flood stage in a 24 hour period. In addition, high winds (50mph +) send a storm surge into the lowlands of Seattle Downtown during a high tide. Your reference cases include This November 1990 event as well as the February 1996 Pineapple Express floods in Western Washington (and Oregon). Now its your time to fully inform SMAC of the various impact possibilities.

Dragon Team

You are assigned the FIRESTORM scenario. This scenario is a bit different than the other ones. In this case you have to present jointly to SMAC and BMAC (B= bellevue - where all the money is in the Seattle area these days). Its been an extremely dry spring and summer. Over labor day weekend, teenagers are having a drunken party on Tiger Mountain (near Issaquah) - they decide to start a campfire around midnight. By the time they get their campfire going (illegally of course), a sudden massive SE wind develops (this is the same rare SE wind present in the Volcano Scenario) rapidly pushing the fire to the NorthWest (towards Cougar Mountain). The city of Bellevue is directly in the path of this NW spreading fire; SMAC is worried that embers carried on the wind will set Seward Park on fire and the subsequent upslope winds will drive the fire up the east side of capital hill and towards downtown. Scare the hell out of SMAC and BMAC and use the Firestorms in Victoria Australia as a reference case.

Shark Team

You are assigned the EARTHQUAKE scenario. Under this scenario there is a major megathrust earthquake in the Cascadian subduction zone. All kinds of shit might happen to the Seattle area. There are already many documents that cover this that you can find if you search on "Cascadian Earthquak Risk" and the like so finding source material will not be a problem. Present your scenarios to SMAC.

Tiger Team

Your are assigned the VOLCANO scenario. Under this scenario, Mt. Rainier roars back to life. On that particular day, a rare SE wind develops to put Seattle in the immediate ash cloud fall out. In addition, just like 5500 years ago, most the glaciers instantly melt and a large mudflow develops. Your case history for this mudflow is the Osceola Mudflow . Present your disaster scenarios to SMAC.





Some important tips to follow:

Group Dynamics/Presentation:

Communication is everything. Someone needs to be a project coordinator/leader to insure that individual tasks are coordinated. This is easier said than done.

Before even proceeding, everyone needs to get on the same page about the focus and intent of your presentation.

Assign individual research tasks; set timelines; meet those timelines.

Your "graded" on overall team performance - not every individual needs to talk on every presentation. Organize your presentation as you see fit.

Presentations should be 17-18 minutes in duration. -to leave time for discussion after words.