Eight years ago, Erik Thorsen — CEO of Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria, Ore. — received a warning that no hospital administrator wants to hear: A big earthquake could cause his hospital's building to collapse. His staff and his patients could die in a matter of moments.

"They basically said, 'None of you are prepared for a major natural disaster from the Cascadia subduction zone,'" recalls Thorsen.

The Cascadia subduction zone is an earthquake-prone region that stretches about 700 miles from California to British Columbia. Thorsen's hospital sits right along it — which is why a team of experts and engineers from the state had come to talk to him and other leaders from coastal hospitals about earthquake risk.

Alarmed, Thorsen — who grew up in this area, left for college, and th

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