Kathryn Schulz (courtesy Columbia University)
Last year, I drew attention to an article in the July 20, 2015, issue of The New Yorker about when–not if–a giant earthquake will sink much of the coastal Northwest, especially Seattle. The vivid article, by Kathryn Schulz, caused a great deal of discussion in booming Seattle. The debate ranged from the scientific basis for the deadly thesis of Seattle sinking into the sea to the notion this simply was old news. The article carried the headline, “The Really Big One.”
Old news or not, the narrative was compelling enough that, this afternoon, the article won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The citation called the piece “an elegant scientific narrative of the rupturing of the Cascadia fault line, a masterwork of environmental reporting and writing.”
You can read the story by clicking here. Meanwhile, just like I did in California before becoming New To Seattle, I still carry earthquake insurance.