The forecast factory: How an Alberta tech company simulates disasters before they happen

On a May evening in 2019, Edmonton’s Myrna Bittner watched as a 6.7-magnitude earthquake tore through Santa Clara, Calif. Labelled a nine on the Mercalli scale—an index measuring the intensity of earthquakes—the quake levelled buildings, upended roadways, and plunged the city of more than 100,000 into darkness. As the trembling settled, splintered gas lines spewed methane into the air; rogue sparks from downed power lines along busy US Route 101 ignited those fumes into flames that crescendoed a