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?
I'm going down into the New Madrid epicenter this afternoon. Hope you're right.
I'm a Californian. We know earthquakes and how to build for them. The folks in the Midwest don't. All those pretty brick buildings will come tumbling down like so many houses of cards.
I agree that the "over due" assessments are a stretch. There's no indication that the New Madrid system has the sort of periodicity that the San Andreas system has. My concern is that even a moderate quake there would flatten cities like Memphis. I would be pleasantly surprised to learn that their building codes make even a passing reference to earthquake resistance.