All shook up: Marysville gets a taste of 7.0 magnitude quake
Published 6:30 am Friday, August 30, 2024
MARYSVILLE — Blue and white couched-benches, flatscreen TVs and stuffed animal-lined shelves fill a 24-foot trailer that looks like a living room.
On Thursday afternoon, locals lined up at Delta Plaza in Marysville to experience a 7.0 magnitude earthquake with the “Big Shaker” simulator.
“For my sister, it was fun — like a game or a ride at the fair,” said Ceci Jordan, 14, of Marysville who did the simulation with her siblings. While the trailer rocked back and forth, the stuffed animals fell on family members’ laps below and blue cups on the dresser landed on the floor around them.
The California-based company Big Shaker Enterprises manufactures simulators used at events across the West Coast to prepare residents for earthquakes. Big Shaker visited Everett back in 2019.
Off the coast of Washington, the Cascadia Subduction Zone — stretching from Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, California — is expected to lead to a magnitude 9.0 “megaquake” known as the “The Big One” within the next several decades.
But an earthquake along a less-known, less-studied fault could cause extensive damage in Snohomish County. The southern Whidbey Island fault runs roughly from Port Townsend to the southern tip of Whidbey Island, then to Mukilteo, Bothell and North Bend.
Ta’Leah Van Sistine: 425-339-3460; taleah.vansistine@heraldnet.com; X: @TaLeahRoseV.
