When you grow up by the sea, one of the first things you learn is how small you are, and how quickly you could disappear. But in Seattle, it’s not just the sea that reminds you of your own insignificance. Seattle is wedged between the Pacific Ocean’s expanses to the West and the Cascade Mountains to the East. Fault lines score the crust below the Puget Sound, and seismologists predict a massive earthquake—one so powerful it will render five-story waves that rake through coastal towns—is inevitable. The city lives in the shadow of Mount Rainier, a snow-capped volcano that will eventually erupt, just as its sister Mount St. Helens did in May 1980. In Seattle, our lives are always dwarfed by the bigger picture just beyond the horizon.
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