President Joe Biden opened a two-day visit to the Pacific Northwest by focusing on the runway and roof of the airport where he landed Thursday than on any of the region's more traditional, natural attractions.
Portland International Airport lies on a tectonic plate fault line but is working on a series of improvements, including a new, earthquake-resistant runway capable of accommodating jets coming and going even after a major natural disaster. The design would be modeled after the runway of the Sendai airport in Japan, which survived the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in that country, according to the White House.
