For many Portland Public Schools parents, the first weeks of school are a jumble of excitement and anxiety. But for some, that anxiety goes beyond the standard, “Will the teacher like my child?” to “Will the building my kid is entering every day withstand an earthquake?”

David Turnbull is the parent of two students at Beverly Cleary K-8. The idea that an earthquake could knock down the building where his children go every day is “such a devastating thought to have in your head when you send your kids to school.”

The knowledge that many of Portland’s aging schools could become lethal in a seismic event, and that much of Oregon could be devastated by a megathrust earthquake at any time, is not new.

The Pacific Northwest is due for a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake and since the turn

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