All right.

Count it off and let's do this!

[Drums bang] [Drumming] I'm Jes Burns.

I am a science reporter and producer.

I produce science videos, namely 'All Science-' 'All Science.

No Fiction.'

[Drumming] [Dan Evans] Got it [Music] This episode of 'All Science.

No Fiction.'

is about a group of scientists at Portland State University who are trying to prevent soil liquefaction from happening during earthquake.

[Jes Burns] This is like the waste product of all the bacteria?

[Arash Khosravifar] -Yeah.

But it's not toxic or anything like that?

- No.

No.

Ok.

I hope not.

Because I just touched it.. - You don't want to [Chatter] - You don't want to grab a spoon and eat it [laughing] Well I won't do that.

- Right But I did just stick my finger in it.

So I found this story through my Executive Producer, Aaron Scott.

And, the more I read about it, the more I knew it was going to be a perfect story for 'All Science.

No Fiction.'

It was solutions oriented.

It had to do with, like, the existential threats, facing us- you know, Cascadia Earthquake.

I knew I wanted to create a scale model of what happens during liquefaction.

The original idea is that I pictured this kind of Druid scene.

You know, doo doo doo doo kind of thing.

And it was going to be people that work at OPB- I often cast people around me in my shows.

I started talking this over with, Dan Evans.

And he was like, "Uh yeah It's okay."

And I said, "Or we could get a high school drumline in, and we could have them be Cascadia."

And he was like, "And that's it!"

[murmurs and chatter] - I'm going to just go, "One-two-ready-go" and then you step.

[Jes Burns] From there we went, with this idea, what Cascadia is doing is like, this thing is far off.

That's coming at you, coming at you.

And then when it hits, it's going to be this chaos.

- [Nalin Silva] We're starting with chaos?

We're starting with chaos.

Yep.

- Chaos [Murmurs] [Nalin Silva] A little more chaos please.

Three, two, one.

Action.

[Loud drumming] And we set up this, studio where we filled this dog pool.

[Dan Evans] Oh my gosh, the dust.

[Jes Burns] It's supposed to be low dust We filled it with sand.

I think that there was approximately six to 800 pounds of sand in there.

And then we filled that with water [Sand smoothing sounds] So I made a little city and I made a little bridge.

And we buried a pipeline.

It's an incredible science experiment to do because it's so it's so satisfying because it works really well.

And we didn't know if it was going to work because this tank was so big [whisper] This is amazing!

[Drumming] And exactly what we thought was going to happen, happened.

The buildings just tilted, tilted, tilted, tilted and fell.

[Sounds of buildings falling] Alright we're going to cut it.

[laughing] When the opportunity came to bring in a local percussion group, especially like a high school, I just thought, this is what it means to be OPB.

We are a group of journalists and producers who have connections to our community.

And those connections are what we're built on.

What we make wouldn't have nearly any impact- if we got to make anything at all.

[Nalin Silva] Keep the tempo in your heart [metronome clicks] One, two, three, four.

Two, two, three four.

[Drums to beat] We are allowed to do what we do because of the community support we have and member support.

[music] [Jes Burns] You would pluck.

I would come in.

And you would pluck again And I would say, "Something is coming!"

[Bang bang bang bang of drums] [Jes Burns] But saturated soils can't compress because there's water in the way.

And go!

[drumming] [Narrator] Buildings sink or tilt Bridges destabilize.

The longer and stronger an earthquake is the more likely liquefaction will happen [...]