"SEATTLE – Walking down almost any street in Seattle’s historic downtown, Eric Holdeman sees danger.

Holdeman ran the King County Office of Emergency Management for 11 years. He doesn’t think the area around Pioneer Square would do well in a powerful earthquake.

'These buildings would likely pancake,' said Holdeman, who now has his own consulting business. 'The walls separate and the floors fall down. We’re talking about, like, the Haiti earthquake, where you see structures completely collapsed right on top of one another.'

For Holdeman, geologists and emergency planners, it’s not a question of if a major earthquake will strike the Pacific Northwest, but when."

David Martin and Sheila MacVicar report for Aljazeera America November 13, 2015. [2]