The Goobermint spent hundreds of millions of dollars putting seismic equipment in the small town of Parkfield absolutely certain that the next rupture of the fault would happen there. Nada, zip, zero - the fault got quiet and nothing is going on.
BTW did you know the Mississippi River ran backwards for sometime after the big one on the New Madrid.
Yes, I had heard that. I wouldn't want to have been around to see it. Don't even want to think about having been in a boat on the Mississip when it hit!