Explains that a major earthquake and resulting tsunamis are likely to occur off the Pacific Northwest coast any time within the next two hundred years, arguing that the effects of the disaster will be far worse than the damage from the 2004 Sumatran quake and tsunamis.

pt. 1. Tremors and ripples -- Mexico City : preview of coming events -- Lessons from the rubble : a front-page story -- The Alaska megathrust : Cascadia's northern cousin -- Against the wind of convention : Plafker, Benioff, and Press -- Cauldron and crust : the rehabilitation of continental drift -- Nuke on a fault : early clues in Humboldt Bay -- Proving the doubters wrong : the Chile connection -- Mount St. Helens : Cascadia's smoking gun? -- pt. 2. Setbacks and breakthroughs -- Mud cores and lasers : the search for evidence -- The whoops factor : Cascadia's true nature revealed -- Quake hunters : finding Cascadia's ghost forest -- Cedars, peat, and turbidites : a tipping point at Monmouth -- Cascadia's segmented past : apocalypse or decades of terror? -- Digital water : catching waves in a computer -- Defining the zone : hot rocks and high water -- Cracks, missing rings, and native voices : closing in on a killer quake -- The orphan tsunami : final proof of Cascadia's last rupture -- Episodic tremor and slip : tracking Cascadia with GPS -- Turbidite timeline : Cascadia's long and violent history -- When's this going to happen? : the problems with prediction -- pt. 3. Shockwaves -- Facing reality : Cascadia equals Sumatra -- The next wave : thinking the unthinkable -- Watching it happen, wishing it wouldn't -- Cascadia's fault : day of reckoning -- Epilogue: Survival and resilience, a state of mind.