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With the disaster modeling program on his computer, project analyst Adam Campbell dials up a 7.2 earthquake for Seattle and King County.
He's looking for how many buildings will topple, how much debris will fill the streets, making them impassable for emergency responders. He wants to know how many casualties the massive quake will produce.
"Cascadia is a scary fault," said Campbell, a contractor for Federal Emergency Management Agency, in what will prove to be an understatement, as he demonstrates the program to The Associated Press,
Minutes later, FEMA's Hazus computer program churns out its hair-raising answers: Billions of dollars in structural damage; area hospitals leveled; tons of debris blocking the streets, and more than 1,000 deaths and several more thousand injured.
"The data that comes out of a tool like Hazus shows our risks and what kind of impacts could occur here," said John Schelling of the Washington Emergency Management department. "The program brings some resolution. It provides some context so people can begin to see some of the challenges following these types of disasters."