At some point in the future - it could be today, ten years from now, by the time you finish reading this story - it is almost guaranteed that a 9.0 earthquake will strike along the 700-mile Cascadia Subduction Zone that runs through Oregon and Washington. And when it happens, bridges will be knocked down, land will liquify, tsunamis will strikes, people will die.

A document prepared for last year's Cascadia Rising training exercise paints a very grim picture. "Medical facilities in the region may experience a surge of as many as 30,000 injured survivors seeking medical treatment. Some injured survivors may arrive at the hospital only to find out that it has been damaged beyond use. Others may never make it to the hospital because of impassable roads.

"Thousands of critically injured people may need to be evacuated by air or sea if they are to be saved." The training exercise, which took place over four days last June, involved 20,000 people from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. In Oregon alone, there were representatives from 23 counties, the nine tribal nations, 17 state agencies and departments, several major cities, and the local branch of the Red Cross.

The state's office of emergency management recently completed their assessment of how everyone performed. "Are we prepared?" Oregon Emergency Director Andrew Phelps asks in the report. "More than we were yesterday.

"We need to continue to add resources to our developing and existing capabilities, build capacity and reinforce a culture of preparedness so we can continue to say without hesitation we are more prepared today than we were yesterday, and we will be more prepared tomorrow."

The assessment found many positive things on which to build including:

Jurisdictions of varying size and complexity activated and coordinated internal operations with limited preparedness and training.

Partners leveraged existing relationships to inform decision-making and facilitate information sharing.

Auxiliary amateur radio communications were established quickly throughout the state and were maintained throughout the exercise.

Exercise development provided participating jurisdictions with significant data regarding risks, vulnerabilities, capabilities, and operational considerations prior to and during exercise play.

The exercise provided an extraordinary opportunity for the state, FEMA, and other agencies and organizations to practice their response to a catastrophic event and to identify gaps in individual and collective capabilities.

Oregon Health Authority and American Red Cross began developing plans to assess the safety of shelters and the medical needs of shelter residents. Having well developed relationships and coordination plans at the local and state levels enhanced connectivity and resulted in rapid shelter activation within many impacted areas. Since the purpose of the exercise was to figure out areas where the state needs to improve, much of the language in the assessment is critical. "Current emergency planning is not adequate or comprehensive enough to effectively address catastrophic disasters and their impact on the whole community within Oregon," the report found. "Government, at all levels, is ill prepared and equipped to implement effective Continuity of Operations (COOP) and Continuity of Government (COG) operations based upon the level of impact identified during the exercise.