Is America's Heartland Prepared For An Earthquake?

So the Chicago area recently had an earthquake.  At 3.8 on the Richter scale it would scarcely be noticed in a place like Southern California but in America's heartland, so recently after the disastrous Haiti earthquake, it was a bit of a shock.

But it shouldn't be such a big surprise.  The earth beneath our feet is just a cracked crust floating on mushy molten magma.  Marcy & I often say "Everything's temporary" and our so-called terra firma is no exception.  We can get so caught up in the trivial distactions of the here and now that we may deny the evidence that things were not always as they are now, and won't be the same in the future either.  If we dig around, we find seashells in the bedrock.  How's that for an indication of change in the long term?  We may focus on the big snows that have fallen all over America and see that as evidence that global warming is a hoax, but ignore that fact that the ice at the poles is melting and providing more atmospheric moisture for snow.  Anyway earthquakes happen as part of an only partially understood natural process, not as a fulfillment of prophecy and certainly not as divine retribution for a deal with the devil as that hateful jackass Pat Robertson would have his followers believe.  Quakes happen all the time, especially around fault lines, and while we cannot yet predict them well, we certainly should do our best to cope with the possibility of experiencing an earthquake and its aftermath.

One place where we are pretty complacent about earthquakes is smack in the middle of America.  Located in Missouri, the New Madrid Fault Line was hammered by a series of quakes estimated to have been about 8.0 in magnitude.  Luckily, this happened in late 1811 to early 1812, less than 10 years after the United States bought this real estate from France in the Louisiana Purchase.  It was a very sparsely populated frontier area.  Also at that time we were a bit distracted by the British troops burning the White House and such in the War of 1812.  Missouri was way off the radar, so to speak.

That quake was massive.  It caused the Mississippi River to reverse flow for a time, sent a 30-foot tsunami-like wave running up it, created Reelfoot Lake, caused a lot of soil liquifaction and sand volcanoes, made river banks collapse, even rang church bells as far away as Boston and toppled chimneys in Maine.  But like I said, it was a sparsely populated frontier, mostly log cabins scattered about.  Stilll, it was bad enough for the governor of the area to make what is believed to be the first request to the U.S federal government for disaster aid.

This is a map in the public domain courtesy of the US Geological Survey, your tax dollars at work.  It compares the damage range of a moderate New Madrid zone earthquake in 1895 (magnitude 6.8), and a similar Los Angeles quake (1994, magnitude 6.7).  Lots of cities in the red zone:  Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, St. Loius, Indianapolis, plenty more.  Prepared for an earthquake?  I doubt it very much.

We have now have FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  The more conspiracy-minded among us believe that they exist only to maintain government control.  If you believe that their job is to protect and rescue us and wipe our noses and make everything all better, then you should ask somebody from New Orleans how well they handled Katrina.  I don't want to fear them and I don't want to be dependent on them.  However, I do give them kudos for providing some very sensible information on how you can take action for yourself to be prepared for earthquakes and other hazards that may come your way.  READ THEM HERE AND GET STARTED NOW.  They have tips for lots of other scenarios too, check them out.  You can also order free hardcopy publications.  Good information and training are also available from The American Red Cross.  Leave a comment to let me know what you have done!