The quake that ought to be scaring the bajeebers outta everyone is the next New Madrid quake. It will be at least as big as the next “Big One” expected here in L.A.; but, we’ll fare much better with our “Big One” than cities like Memphis will with the next New Madrid quake.
The quake that ought to be scaring the bajeebers outta everyone is the next New Madrid quake.
The New Madrid fault seems to be the darling of the "God is going to punish America" crowd, so I have been reading up what is out there. From the scientific side, there are no indicators that the New Madrid is expected to do anything in our lifetime. From the "Sky is Falling" side, they dwell on the history of the site, perseverate on the destruction then and the hypothetical "worse case scenario" now and then make the giant non sequitor leap that "we are due" based not even on a gambler's hunch, more of a perverted "watch it burn" sort of hope.
Because there are government sponsored studies on the havoc of a hypothetical event, this is seen as proof that the government is hiding something from us and thus we should be anxious and lose sleep over it. The government does studies on everything, its the lifeblood of universities and government grifters for generations, so government "war gaming" to me isn't proof.
Given that, on what do you base your prognostication?