Quake center at Southeast loses funds, closes doors

The sign still advertises the former duplex at Southeast Missouri State University as the Center for Earthquake Studies, but nothing is shaking in the building at 810 Normal.

The university quietly closed the center, the victim of budget cuts, at the end of October. Officials said there are no plans to reopen the center, which operated for 13 years as a partnership between the university and the State Emergency Management Agency.

But SEMA officials insist that earthquake preparedness and education will continue. For instance, the Missouri Seismic Safety Commission -- which makes recommendations on preparing and responding to earthquakes -- will hold a seminar on earthquake preparedness for businesses from 8:30 a.m. to noon on Feb. 4 at the Osage Community Centre in Cape Girardeau.

Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey in Memphis, Tenn., released revised New Madrid Fault earthquake probabilities this month: Within 50 years, a 7 to 10 percent chance exists for a devastating 7.5 to 8.0 magnitude earthquake, and a 25 to 40 percent chance of a magnitude 6 earthquake. That's a slightly higher estimate for devastating quakes and much lower for less damaging quakes than earlier estimates.

The New Madrid zone runs through parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

Missouri has an average of 200 earthquakes a year, although state officials say few are felt.

Still, a tight state budget has forced SEMA to provide earthquake education more economically by relying on local emergency management directors and SEMA staff to give presentations to civic clubs and schoolchildren. SEMA hopes to enlist retired elementary school principal Jim Watkins of Cape Girardeau in making presentations to school staff in the region.

Watkins, who became an enthusiastic supporter of earthquake preparedness more than a decade ago, said he wants to help promote such preparedness in the schools. Watkins, who only wants to be able to cover his expenses, said a contract still must be finalized.

University officials said the Cape Girardeau school -- already saddled with state funding cuts in other areas of its budget -- had no choice but to close the Center for Earthquake Studies last fall once the state dropped its $25,000 in annual funding.

"I thought we were doing a fine job," said Dr. Ken Dobbins, university president. "But sometimes you have to make tough decisions."

The closing of the 13-year-old center occurred so quietly that even the director of the university's news bureau didn't realize it had shut down until last week. The approach was in sharp contrast to the publicity the center garnered in 1990 when its then-director David Stewart was the sole seismologist to lend public support to climatologist Iben Browning's forecast of the possibility of a major earthquake occurring along the New Madrid Fault around Dec. 3 of that year.

The prediction drew widespread attention from news media and the public and propelled the earthquake center into the national spotlight. When the earthquake didn't occur, both Stewart and Browning were roundly criticized. Stewart resigned as director on Dec. 11, 1990, claiming he was forced out.

He taught science at Southeast until May 1993 and today runs a Marble Hill, Mo., publishing company. Stewart said the center helped educate the public and emergency personnel throughout the region.

"We are a hundred times better prepared now than two decades ago," he said.

But the center fell on hard times after Browning's date came and went with no quake.

State, federal and university funding cuts reduced the center's budget from over $100,000 to $25,000 in the early 1990s. The university provided the building, including office space, for Mark Winkler, SEMA's disaster preparedness coordinator in Southeast Missouri. It also paid the utilities and paid students to work in the office from time to time.

Stewart said he raised private money to supplement the center's funding. Subsequent directors didn't solicit donations, he said.

The center coasted along and eventually ran out of steam, he said. The university's seismograph in the basement of Magill Hall fell into disrepair, Stewart said. The university no longer measured the intensity of earthquakes even before a radiation spill forced the university to remove the contaminated equipment last year as part of a massive $1 million cleanup in the building.

'Charity work'

Dr. Nicholas Tibbs, a geosciences professor, was the center's last director. He said university budget cuts eliminated his time to handle the duties of director, and any future director would have been part-time at best.

"It didn't break my heart that the thing closed," Tibbs said. "Basically I viewed it as charity work to keep it open."

The center relied on student labor and a part-time earthquake educator.

Most of the money went to printing earthquake information for distribution to the public, said Chris Smith Aide. "We were working on an increasingly tight budget," said Aide, whose job at the center ended last year even before funding ran out.

Winkler, SEMA's area coordinator, had an office in the center from the time he was hired in 1990 to the end of last October. He spent November operating from temporary space in Jackson and Cape Girardeau fire stations.

In December, he moved into space in an office building on Blattner Drive in Cape Girardeau. Winkler said his one-man office -- rented at a cost of $2,000 a year -- is a room once used by the state liquor control agency as a conference room.

Winkler said he will continue to preach earthquake preparedness, but it's just one part of his emergency management job at a time when responding to possible terrorist threats is top priority.

"As emergency management folks, we prepare for the worst-case scenario," Winkler said. "Right now, the hot topic is terrorism."

Winkler said the public lost interest in earthquake preparedness after the Browning forecast.

But Winkler said the area still could use an earthquake center, but one equipped with a working seismograph on the Southeast campus to help monitor the intensity of quakes. The closest such centers now are at Memphis and St. Louis.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123APRIL 1989

Southeast Missouri State University science professor and seismologist David Stewart opens the Center for Earthquake Studies at Rhodes Hall in Cape Girardeau.EARLY 1990

Center moves into former duplex at 810 Normal Ave. on the Southeast campus.SEPT. 26, 1990

A 4.6-magnitude earthquake caused no major damage but rattled nerves among residents along the New Madrid Fault.FALL 1990

Stewart is the only seismologist to give credibility to climatologist Iben Browning's forecast of the possibility of a major earthquake occurring along the New Madrid Fault in Southeast Missouri around Dec. 3, 1990. Stewart and the center are thrust into the national spotlight.DEC. 3, 1990

National media converge on the Bootheel town of New Madrid, but no earthquake occurs.DEC. 10, 1990

The Center for Earthquake Research and Information at Memphis State University severs ties with Southeast's earthquake center and blames Stewart for earthquake hysteria in the region.DEC. 11, 1990

Stewart resigns as director of the Center for Earthquake Studies.AUGUST 1991

The Center for Earthquake Studies scales back operations because of state, federal and university funding cuts.MAY 1993

University fires Stewart from his teaching job.OCTOBER 1994

Stewart sues Southeast, claiming earthquake controversy cost him his job.JANUARY 1999

Southeast and the state of Missouri agree to each pay $50,000 to settle the lawsuit.OCT. 31, 2002

Center closes when the State Emergency Management Agency eliminates its $25,000 in funding for the center. Southeast, coping with its own budget cuts, doesn't have the money to keep the center open.