[MplsSteve]

IIRC, the last major quake in the New madrid Zone was a doozy.

1811 or so, I think.

Given how much that area has grown since then, I’d hate to think of how bad the damage would be from a similar quake now.

[lightman]

The nineteenth century earthquake sent shock waves that caused church bells to ring spontaneously as far away as Charleeston, SC.

Many major energy pipeline—especially NG—which supply the Great Lake cities and upper midwest pass through there.

[Viking2002]

They say that the 1811 quake was so strong, it caused church bells to ring in Boston. Now that's an earthquake. Because the New Madrid fault has had so much human activity built up on it since then, they say that the potential damage and loss of life could be even worse than an equally strong San Andreas quake. One reason being, there aren't building codes in force to mitigate the damage the way California has done it. Score one for Cali for a change.

[saintgermaine]

And it continued rumbling with aftershocks for almost a whole year. Should this happen today some of the big cities close by will be nothing but a pile of trash.

[hanamizu]

The New Madrid quakes were massive. Fortunately there were few people living in the area and even fewer large buildings to kill when they collapsed. As noted, the quake supposedly rang bells in Charleston SC which tells us the waves travel much farther than say in California.

Much of St Louis is made of brick. Brick buildings do not fare well in earthquakes. In the last 25 years there has been an awareness of the potential of another quake and building codes have been upgraded considerably since then. Newer construction should be ok but the older stuff...

[Travis McGee]

Sounds like a novel I wrote.

[ought-six]

“IIRC, the last major quake in the New madrid Zone was a doozy. 1811 or so, I think.”

Yup; it reversed the flow of the Ohio River for a little while, That is BIG!