The Cascadia Subduction Zone, or CSZ, is a sleeping giant.

Stretching a bit over 600 miles from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to Cape Mendocino, California, it last awoke over 300 years ago.

At 8 a.m. this past Tuesday, a simulated disaster began when nature's alarm clock sounded, the giant stretched and a simulated 9.0 earthquake occurred 95 miles west of Eugene, Oregon. 

Within minutes, the tsunami that follows the approximate five minutes of quaking and liquefying earth will devastate the coastal communities of Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

Officials expect Washington to be especially hit hard and estimate injuries and fatalities will run into the thousands.

With this sobering thought in mind, the Washington National Guard has planned and trained for four years to perfect a system of command, control and coordination in meeting this giant.

The test of this preparation is called Cascadia Rising.

About 20,000 people representing various federal agencies, the military, state and local emergency response managers from across the Pacific Northwest, Native American tribes and emergency management officials in British Columbia are involved.

The four-day exercise will test how well the various agencies work together to minimize loss of life and damage and coordinate recovery and rescue when a mega-quake awakens along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) and unleashes a killer tsunami.

Between the quake and the tsunami, the latter is the most dangerous.

While more than eight million people live in the area that is vulnerable to the CSZ quake, coastal communities are the most vulnerable and will be hit hard. 

One of those who takes this training seriously is Gov. Jay Inslee. 

"Hundreds of bridges will be down; power will be gone; Internet will be gone; your cell phones will not work; buildings will come down," he said during a Tuesday morning press conference at Camp Murray.

During the exercise, about 2,300 Washington National Guard personnel will take part in land, sea and air operations across the region.

"We are as fully prepared as humanly possible; this training improves our ability to respond," Inslee continued.

He stressed that help could take weeks to arrive and that Washingtonians should prepare themselves by creating emergency kits.

"We all have to be leaders; for a while we will be on our own."

Predicting when the next CSZ quake is problematic.  It could happen tonight; it could wait to happen for another 200 years.

"I encourage everyone to take this week of training very seriously," added Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, Washington's Adjutant General, as he stressed preparedness for such an event.

It is the level of preparedness that can lead to survival.

"These events are survivable," Ken Murphy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regional administrator for Region X, said.

"Make a plan; build a kit; this will make the biggest difference."

For more information about building a survival kit, visit www.ready.gov.