Oregon Telecom’s and Cascadia

The Portland Mercury has a good article, Quaking Communications, talking about the vulnerabilities that telecommunication companies in Oregon have in the face of a Cascadia earthquake and tsunami.  While the Oregon Resilience Plan lays out the impacts on telecommunications and makes recommendations for strengthening the systems, the article does point out the difficulty of bringing the telecom’s on board during the process.  Their input is needed going forward, so hopefully they will play a more active role.  Again, while the report shows the rather poor state of affairs now, the point is that it can be improved upon in smart, cost effective, ways.

Note: While the seismic impact on telecommunications was mentioned, it should be noted that fiberoptic cables come ashore along the coast and will be impacted by the tsunami.