Posted on 02/25/2006 9:38:10 AM PST by Strategerist
ST. LOUIS - Preparing for a catastrophic earthquake along the New Madrid fault is a priority, a FEMA official said Friday before a congressional field hearing on government readiness to handle natural disasters.
"New Madrid is at the top of the list," Michel Pawlowski, section chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said. "It's our primary objective."
Pawlowski told a congressional committee that FEMA has "significant concerns" for the potential of a catastrophic earthquake equal in magnitude to those that struck parts of the Mississippi River Valley in 1811-1812, and again in 1895. The estimated magnitude of those earthquakes is 7.5 or 8. The probability of a magnitude 6 or larger earthquake is 25 percent to 50 percent over the next 50 years.
Even a magnitude 7 earthquake would destroy more than 60 percent of buildings in St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., because most buildings predate building requirements aimed at resisting the shock, officials estimate.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Close enough to Atlanta to appreciate how good things would be if the right 60% of buildings there collapsed.
I love to duck hunt in the winter and crappie fish in the spring in Reelfoot Lake, Tenn created by the Great New Madrid earth quake.
How you've been my pretty?
So, are you predicting The Big One soon for either Alaska or California?
Several trends were interesting. A new trend south of CA from Ensenada to the Sea of Cortez runs parallel to past trends but further south.
A large arc seems to be forming now in the US NW.
But the trend that sparked my interest was from Maine through the Great Lakes towards the New Madrid vicinity. Interesting connection between past waterway patterns. I hadn;t previously though they may have been related seismically.
Northern New Mexico seems to be pretty earthquake free but not totally. Maybe 2-3 very small ones in 50 years.
Well done.
hat a riot of a document!
We're going to have an earthquake that kills thousands in this country, and likely within the next 20 years.
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Hmmmm surprisingly . . . not that different from my expectation, it seems.
Following the waterways...I wonder if or how the nation would be split: Northern and Southern USA; or Eastern and Western USA? We could have new borders to worry about.
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