yet another reason not to move [to Washington]!

[Riggerjack]

Joining earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis, landslides, floods, avalanches, windstorms, lahars, mudslides, falling trees, hobo spiders, rattlesnakes, bears, cougars, giant octopus, great white sharks, we would like to introduce you to our newest deterrent: tornados!
welcome to Washington, where nature really wants fewer humans, and ain't afraid to show it!

Yup, we had a tornado over the weekend, nothing serious 110 MPH winds derailed a train, restacked some lumber, light roof damage. Nothing on the Oklahoma scale, but we can add that to the list!
I need to start a website. Welcome to Washington, where nature will kill you!

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Strong- ... 16201.html

[Freedom_2018]

Actually none of those would be reasons for me not to move to a place

However I must say that from my recent trip to Seattle, I found the people a bit...how shall I say...strange. Aloof, unfriendly, reluctant to smile, gloomy dispositions, avoid eye contact like the plague, will absolutely not respond to a casual "hi". Felt soulless.

My friend has been working at Amazon in downtown for a couple of years and he has felt it too...very hard to make friends or connect with people. His wife developed mild depression too I think and the weather does not help. Have had similar feedback from other people who have been living in the area....one said it took him 8 yrs to make a local friend.

Anyways, the Eastern side of the Cascades seemed warmer in more ways than one. To my untrained eye, Washington seems to be two states/mindsets separated by the Cascades.

I would like to explore the East/North East of the state more as well as border with Idaho etc. Seattle/Tacoma area probably not a good fit for me.

[Riggerjack]

Wolves! I forgot wolves!
Freedom, the social dysfunction you are talking about is the Seattle Freeze. Pretty well documented.
Passive aggressive politeness, barely contained self loathing, clinical depression, PC straightjacketing, baseless social posturing, what's not to like about that?
It's. Not as bad when you get out in the sticks, but yeah city folks seem to be more interested in disdain, subtly expressed, than any other kind of interaction. Unfortunately I also saw this in the Portland area recently, but I was wine tasting on a holiday weekend, so it could be the natural reaction to tourists coupled with winery culture. Once I got away from the wine, folks were just fine, but that was out in farm country ...

[Riggerjack]

The two states thing is very true. The sun shines over there on the wrong side of the cascades. If Oregon and Washington were divided along the cascades instead of the Columbia, I'm sure everyone would be happier.

I don't like the sunny dry weather over there. Too dirty.

[Riggerjack]

Mudslides are no joke, but not usually this bad:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/oso-washing ... in-debris/

usually, they are more like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013 ... tml?ref=us

or this:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/ ... de15m.html

every winter the Sounder, part of our "public transportation network" is knocked out by mudslides on the tracks. This is just erosion, just like they taught in middle school science classes, but our weather and geology makes it fairly sudden.

if you look at the Oso pics, what made it particularly bad was the slide went into the river. mud, moving thru the water emulsifies further, and that's why the slide levels as far as it did, and reached as far as it did. without that water, it would have stopped much sooner.

on a side note, the newer houses with up to code seismic bracing were completely destroyed. but the older places, on post and pier foundations, were still destroyed, but picked up and moved as a unit, rather than leveled.

[Chad]

on a side note, the newer houses with up to code seismic bracing were completely destroyed. but the older places, on post and pier foundations, were still destroyed, but picked up and moved as a unit, rather than leveled.

I guess you would have to pick your poison in that instance. Old house might save you from a mudslide, but the new house might save you from an earthquake. I would probably have to go with earthquake, just because it seems to be the higher risk.

I know your just doing this for fun, but it is an interesting topic. What deadly part of nature/planet would keep you from moving to a place?

None of what you list would bother me. Though, sharks always creep into my mind when I'm in the ocean. At least against a bear, lion, or wolf I'm on my home turf, though at a distinct disadvantage athletically. Against a shark, the environment basically makes me something that just flops around compared to the predator. You have to get super specialized equipment (spear/trident) to have a real chance against it. Bear spray or a gun are much more than a spear/trident. Though, of course, a small gun is just going to piss of that bear.

[theanimal]

Those mudslides are insane..one of the people in the Seattle Times article was one of my NOLS instructors haha.

[George the original one]

I won't move to a flood plain (retirement house is _barely_ outside 300-yr flood plain) nor tornado alley.

Heavy concentration of biting insects is a definite turn-off, too.

[Riggerjack]

yeah, sharks are scary. but the sound is so murky you'd never see it coming. visibility in the sound is usually only a few feet. when i was a kid, i did alot of fishing off the docks, caught alot of dogfish (small sharks) you could never see what you had until it was within a few feet of the surface. canoeing at night in the sound, you can see the bioflourescent leading crescents of shark noses, if you look long enough. we have like 30 odd varieties in the sound. i never saw anyone catch anything over 6 feet though. and never heard of a shark attack here.

Yeah, i'm doing this for fun, but it is astounding the places people build. 15 years ago, i lived in edmonds, and one of the streets i passed regularly had to be repaired every year. every year a full lane of the road would slip down a few inches. the patches and patches on patches were obvious. the year before i left, they built this:

http://www.snoco.org/app2/propsys/PropI ... w/Basement

sold for $1.8 million in 2011, and at some point, it will slide. when it does, it'll be on the train tracks, or in the sound, nowhere else to go.

i'm sure on a sunny day, it would seem like that was just earthquake damage on the road above it.

My point, when I started the thread, was that you should spend some time looking at the hazards of any area you intend to move to. the best way i know to do that is by example, in an area i know well.

[Riggerjack]

Just a quick update. We just had a windstorm here, and three separate deaths from trees falling on cars. We lost 11 full sized trees on our property, and drove under 2 trees that were down over the road, held up by power lines. We've been out of power since Tuesday afternoon.
None of this is uncommon, it just hit harder than usual, because of heavier than normal rain before the wind. We get windstorms every fall, and power outages are pretty common, too. We've averaged about one windfall per year, so this is more than usual for us, but not in any way a freak occurrence. I watched 5 go down in under 3 minutes, from my basement, quite the sight!

[GandK]

Glad you're OK, @Riggerjack.

I'm more afraid of those earthquakes than anything. I saw a video on the fault line right off the upper left coast and how overdue "the big one" is, and it really scared me (admittedly, that was probably the point of the video).

[Dragline]

Wow, sorry about that. Glad you are ok.

I have to confess I have a perverse love for watching huge storms. It reminds me of my childhood in Iowa, I think.

[Sclass]

Are wild animals like Cougars and sharks dangerous?

The two places I spend most of my time are getting lotsa sightings. I feel it's kind of a gift to see a wild animal till they take a chunk out of my rear.

A cougar was spotted in my hood this morning. I thought they almost never attack people. Turns out my neighborhood was the site of the once a decade attack. I forgot the location of the killing in 2004. Turns out it was down the street from my new place.

A sighting awhile back-

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/01 ... d-20140401

The national news headline of 2004-

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=128077


Nothing to fear right? I think I'm gonna start carrying bear spray or my colt mustang.

[SimpleLife]

All the more reason not to invest all your eggs in one basket.

[theanimal]

Are wild animals like Cougars and sharks dangerous?

Sclass- Cougar attacks are pretty rare. Sharks likely too, but I don't know too much about that. With regards to cougars, they are very stealthy so they will see you usually way before you notice them. Just like other animals, they will go after the small, lone figures if they do attack (i.e. smaller men, women and children) , or any objects on the move. Not something to be overly worried about though, just be aware.

[vexed87]

And there I was getting annoyed with our mere 80 mph gusts, gets a bit dicey on the road bike I tell you!

[George the original one]

Household rule here in Seaside is not to go outside when it's windy like that.

That storm blew down a tree onto my brother-in-law's garage/shop in Cour d'Alene. He and his dad had just finished building it a couple weeks ago! Father-in-law is up there now helping to rebuild it.

Here at the Seaside retirement abode, we lost power for only 2 hours. There were white-out rain conditions briefly! Necanicum River in my backyard stayed well within its banks, though the nearby Nehalem River was several feet above flood stage. We didn't lose any trees this time, probably because we already had a couple come down last month.

Upshot is that there are 8 chinook spawning in the neighbor's creek.

[GandK]

Sharks likely too, but I don't know too much about that.

You're more likely to be hit by lightning, bitten by pigs, or killed by falling coconuts than being attacked by a shark. In fact, you are way more likely to get bitten by other human beings than by either sharks or cougars.

In short, they are less likely than zombies.

[Riggerjack]

Power is back! Showers are very nice!
I don't sweat falling trees, everything has a lifespan. And the winds weren't even that high, but combined with heavy rain, lotsa tree damage.
It's all part of living in the backwoods, but hearing the horror stories at work (OMG, there was a tree blown down in my neighborhood! I had to back up and drive down a different street! That really makes me feel like making my neighbor cut his tree down! I mean, what if it fell?!? It's a hazard! I'm going to call the planning dept.) Made me think I should throw this out there for folks moving to the sticks.

As for cougar attacks, I knew a game warden who was attacked. He was armed, but it messed him up pretty good before he could shoot it. Tore up the muscles along his spine, and had a mouthful of shoulder when he shot it. He said he never knew it was there until it hit him.

[Riggerjack]

Living on an island, means no bears, no cougar, I haven't even seen any raccoons. We do have coyote, and there's not much more unnerving than having a bald eagle fly up right behind you, but no danger. I've never heard of a shark attack in the Sound, but then I doubt very much a body would be found. Low visibility, and lots of marine life, plus the water is cold, so much less recreational use than similar areas elsewhere.