Louisville, KY and Evansville, IN
Louisville is a beautiful city, one of the most vibrant and sophisticated cities in the South, a place where it is hard to avoid the name and image of the city’s favorite son, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.
We did several television appearances, including WHAS (ABC) and WAVE-TV (NBC). We did not do a public forum in Louisville: there is a wide-held notion that the western part of the state is more vulnerable to the New Madrid fault line than Louisville. Given the wide spread effect of the 1811-1812 seismic events, this may only be partially true. The western section may indeed be more vulnerable, but the effect in other parts of Kentucky, given a seismic event between 6.0 and the estimated 7.0 – 8.0 of the previous major event will be enormous.
We had been told by several USGS and Emergency Management people that Evansville was one of the most aware and progressive cities along the New Madrid Fault Line. They were right.
On the evening of July 24, a group of us assembled for a town hall meeting at Evansville’s stunningly beautiful central library. In attendance were Evansville’s Fire Chief, Ken Zuber, their Emergency Management Director, Sherman Greer, Dr. Norman Hester, seismologist and former director of the Indiana Geological Survey, and others.
The Evansville event really underscored the entire New Madrid “situation.” Disaster specialists, first responders and scientists are acutely aware of the vulnerability of their regions. But the level of awareness and preparation among most citizens and most politicians is woefully low.
Sherman Greer, who chaired the Evansville discussion, spoke of the wide range of problems facing Indiana after a major earthquake. He noted that Un-reinforced Masonry Buildings (URM’s), mostly brick and stone exteriors, were prevalent throughout Evansville and the entire state of Indiana. He talked about the enormous number of bridges – throughout our journey, we crossed bridge after bridge and river after river – and the potential loss of life in the event of bridge failures. In addition, the damage to bridges and freeways – many freeway approaches are on filled ground and highly susceptible to failure due to liquefaction – could produce the “island effect.” It is a subject well known to those of us who study earthquakes in California, and simply means that cities and communities will be cut off from one another, making it difficult and often impossible to move resources between different areas according to their needs.
Evansville’s very young and very dedicated Fire Chief Ken Zuber was an inspiration, one of the most knowledgeable and dedicated chiefs I have met in my many travels. A former high school and college wrestler, as was I, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the sport and how important fitness and athletic skills were to police and fire fighters, male and female. Ken Zuber is acutely aware of the potential problems facing his department, and tries to maintain a very high state of readiness.
I reiterated at every event that I, and ProtectingAmerica.org, was not there to lecture or frighten anyone and that our mission was simply to share our concerns and our knowledge with our neighbors in the region. I was also determined to learn as much as I could about the area immediately surrounding the New Madrid Fault Zone. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
Some of the lessons I learned:
1. Dr. Norman Hester informed me that there was a “sub-fault” or secondary fault line through Indiana, the Wabash Fault Line, that could potentially be as destructive as New Madrid. In Northern California, we have seven fault lines, including the massive San Andreas, but it is not always the dominant fault line that presents the biggest problem.
2. The New Madrid Fault region is in dire need of study. The San Andreas exists on the edge of the North Americana plate, where it bumps against the Pacific Plate, and is much easier to study as the plate’s movements can be seen and measured on the surface of the land, one giant scar through California. New Madrid is an “intraplate” fault, in the middle of the North American Plate, and is at least 3,000 feet below the surface, making it much more mysterious and inaccessible.
3. In Memphis, the EMA Director, Claude Talford, reiterated a conversation he and I had that “the fact we have not had a 6.0 or greater on the New Madrid since 1895 is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for obvious reasons, a curse because it has lulled us into complacency.”
4. Because of the frequency of significant quakes in California, the state receives attention from geologists, and lots of money for research and planning. The New Madrid Zone receives far less, and yet USGS officials believe the region is more vulnerable than California. In 1811 and 1812, the ground shook for four months along the New Madrid Zone, with four major earthquakes, each progressively larger than the previous. And yet their building codes are not nearly as rigid as California’s, where every modern quake produces higher standards and more preparation.
5. The soft, alluvial soil of the New Madrid region and everything east of the Rocky Mountains amplifies ground waves so that a 6.0 event there is much more catastrophic than a similar event in California.
6. The enormous number of rivers and bridges throughout the region further complicate the problems.
7. It has only been since 1989 that modern seismic standards have been introduced into new buildings: they have since been strengthened, but do not apply to retrofitting of older buildings, particularly the unreinforced masonry buildings.
9. I have long been an advocate of citizen involvement in groups and organizations like the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and believe that a community’s survival may be tied to how many trained back-up personnel they can summon during a major event.
10. I also believe that the state National Guard units should be trained in fire fighting and heavy rescue operations. A quick-response strike force in every region of the country could be crucial when there is a major disaster.
Our trip to St. Louis, which should have been our final stop, was halted by a natural disaster, ironically. Major wind and rain storms knocked out power to over 500,000 residents, and the participants in the St. Louis event – mostly emergency management personnel – were impossible to reach.
I got a first hand look at the scope of disaster potential during the trip through the South. I experienced 100 plus degree heat for days, torrential rains storms, hail storms, high winds and were in Southern Indiana when the freeways were blocked due to a sniper on the freeway overpasses.
All in all, it was a remarkable experience, those 10 days. We found the people of the South and Mid-West to be exactly how I remembered them: civil, generous, friendly and infinitely helpful.
We also realized that those few voices trying to be heard on these crucial issues are in serious need of whatever help we can lend them.
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