About 1:35 Friday afternoon, the North Coast area of Clallam County experienced an earthquake. The USGS estimated the magnitude at 4.5 and placed the epicenter about 30 miles off the coast from Neah Bay. Neah Bay immediately took steps to evacuate from the lower areas to higher ground. Information was received within a few minutes from the Tsunami Warning Center that no tsunami was generated from this quake.

The quake was not felt in Port Angeles. Clallam County Emergency Operations Center received a couple of calls from Clallam Bay reporting the shake as well.

Clallam County Sheriff’s Department reported that in Neah Bay, no one was aware of any damage or injuries occurring as a result of the quake.

This is a stark reminder that we do live in earthquake country. Taking steps to be prepared for “the big one” is always the perfect thing to do. In a few weeks, Clallam County Emergency Management will be rolling out some information called “Prepare in a Year.” This will give everyone ideas and tasks to take small bites of the apple over a period of time and be ahead of the game about this time next year and ready as you can be for a major disaster.

Sunday, Jan. 26, marked the anniversary of the Mega-thrust earthquake that occurred in the year 1700. What is believed to be one of the world’s largest earthquakes occurred along the west coast of North America. The undersea Cascadia thrust fault ruptured from mid-Vancouver Island to northern California in a great earthquake, producing tremendous shaking and a huge tsunami that swept across the Pacific.

The Cascadia fault is the boundary between two of the Earth’s tectonic plates: the smaller offshore Juan de Fuca plate that is sliding under the much larger North American plate.