Not if. When.
The Seattle Earthquake Project is an upcoming documentary about earthquakes, anxiety, and the delicate relationship between humans and land in a city built on unstable ground.
The Seattle Earthquake Project is the working-title of an upcoming feature documentary about a rapidly growing city built on fragile ground and the seismic forces that continue to shape it. Western Washington has endured many major earthquakes, yet much of that history has been forgotten. The film uncovers this past in drowned forests, fractured brickwork, and archival records, asking why decades of expert warnings have left Seattle and the broader Pacific Northwest so vulnerable.
Blending scientific insights with local narratives, the film looks beyond physical danger, examining how anxiety can influence preparedness, how cognitive biases skew our perception of risk, and how collective memory influences what we treat as urgent. It investigates the hazards beneath our feet and the deeper faults in our systems and priorities.
Funded by 4Culture, the film is slated for completion in 2026.
Why It Matters
Scientists estimate there’s around an 86 percent chance of a damaging earthquake in the next 50 years, yet the region remains dangerously unprepared, despite known ways to reduce risk. Thousands of old brick buildings across Washington are vulnerable to collapse. Known as unreinforced masonry buildings (URMs), they include apartments, schools, neighborhood businesses, and historic gathering places. In Seattle, many of them are concentrated in underserved communities. Entire neighborhoods also face a high risk of liquefaction. Compared to countries like Japan, the United States lags decades behind in preparedness, while disaster planning and scientific research have repeatedly faced funding cuts. This story is not only about one city’s risk, but about how we undervalue the histories written into the land beneath us, science, and the future itself.