Not for nuthin’, but the “Big One” is not going to come in So Cal. The last time New Madrid let loose, the Mississippi changed its course. it was something in the 8’s on the richter scale if I remember correctly.
This is not hype. It is the real deal, and I am glad they are planning.
I have no problem with planning and basic preparation: the process is pretty much the same to meet any natural disaster. The problem is the trillions of dollars we MUST SPEND NOW to be properly prepared for it....
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There was a story posted here about two or three weeks ago that stated Geologists had declared the New Madrid fault inactive and unlikely to cause an earthquake......
IIRC, The Mississippi River flowed backwards for 3 days after the big one of 1811 or 1812.
12/16/1811 2am violent shock accompanied by awful noise and a complete saturation of the of the atmosphere with sulphurous vapor, causing total darkness. Trees cracked and fell and the Mississippi current was retrograde for a few minutes. Lighter shocks occurred until sunrise, at which time one still more violent than the first too place. The earth shook to such a degree that no one was able to stand or walk. At this juncture, the earth was observed to e rolling in waves of a few feet in height with a visible depression between. Soon the swells were seen to burst, throwing upward large volumes of water, sand and charcoal with a sulphurous odor. When these swells burst, large fissures were formed running north and south, parallel for miles. One person died. (very few inhamitents in Missouri in 1811).
One family on a bend of the Pemiscot River, had a well and a smokehouse a ways from their home. After the second hard shock subsided the wife went to the well for water and the smoke house for breakfast mean, but could not find them. Upon further search, they were both found on the opposite side of the river.
There were several lighter shocks each day from that day until 1/22/1812.
1/23/1812 another as violent as the severeest former ones accompanied by the same phenomena occurred. A woman died a few days after a log of a cabin fell on her.
From this time until 2/4/1812, the earth was in a continual agitation, visibly waving as a gentle sea. On that day there was another shock, enarly as hard as the preceding ones; next day four sch, and on 2/7/1812 about 4 am a concussion took place so much more violent than those which had preceeded it that it was denominated the “hard shock.” There was awful darkness of the atmosphere which, as formerly, was saturated with sulphurous vapor and the violence of the noise. At first the Mississippi seemed to recede from its banks, and its water gathered up like a mountain, leaving, for a moment, many boats which were on their way to New Orleans, on the bare sand, in which the poor sailors made their escape from them. It then rising 15-20 ft. perpendicularly, and expanding, as it were, at the same moment the bank overflowed with a retrograde current rapid as a torrent. The boars, which before had been left on the sand, were now torn from their moorings, and suddenly driven up a creek nearly a quarter jile. The river, falling immediately as rapidly as it had risen, receded within its banks again with such violence that it took with it whole groves of young cottonwoods which were broken off with such regularity that persons who had not witnessed it had difficulty believing thatit had not been the work of art. A great many fish were left on the bank. The river was strewn with wrecked boats, in one of which a lady and 6 children were lost.
The earth was horribly torn to pieces, the surface of hundreds of acres was covered over of various depths by the sand which issued from the fissures made in great numbers all over the country. In some places a substance resembling impure stone coal was thrown up with the sand. The site of this town was settled down at least 15 ft. and not more than 1/2 a mile below the town, back from the river, numerous large ponds or lakes which covered a great part of the country dried up, the beds of which are now elevated above their banks of an elevation of 15-20 ft above their original. Reelfoot Lake was found on the opposite side of the Mississippi in Indian country, upwards of 100 miles in lengh and from 1-6 miles in width of a depth from 10-50 ft.
Folks lived 12-18 mo after the first shocks in little light camps made of boards or tents for fear their houses would fall in. New Madrid was largely depopulated. The destruction of previously good land left many persons homeless and landless.
—From History of Southeast Missouri
Supposedly, church bells rang on the East Coast
As of 3/22/1816 small shocks continued to be felt. It was seldom more than a week without feeling one and sometimes 3-4 a day. In the winter of 1815 there were two much hard ones.