Study outlines nightmare scenario for Bootheel in case of major New Madrid quake

Following a study of earthquake consequences in the central United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has began planning catastrophic event response assessments, particularly in the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ).

The study, which was conducted by the Mid-America Earthquake Center at the University of Illinois and the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at George Washington University in Washington D.C., was contracted by FEMA through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study earthquake consequences and provide earthquake impact assessments with the most up-to-date hazard, inventory, and fragility data in order to save lives and protect property.

The project team has concluded the first phase of the earthquake impact assessments, which are the preliminary estimates of direct damage to infrastructure, social impacts, and economic losses for the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

The central U.S. is not often thought of as a seismically active region, although the April 2008 earthquake near Mt. Carmel, Ill., brought a great deal of attention to this region and its potentially seismic hazards. Although this particular earthquake occurred on the Wabash Valley Fault in Southern Illinois, the larger and more active NMSZ is only a short distance away. The NMSZ stretches from Southwest Illinois to Northeast Arkansas and is located in portions of five states in the central U.S.: Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

The NMSZ has produced some of the most major seismic events in U.S. history. During the winter of 1811 and 1812, a series of three earthquakes, with magnitudes around 8, struck Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri.

During this time, the central U.S. was sparsely populated, however, the region is vastly populated today, specifically around Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis.

Both of these cities are likely to sustain damage from a NMSZ event, and Memphis in particular could see severe damage.

According to a 1996 report by Hildenbrand, the chance of a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake occurring within the next 50 years is roughly 90 percent. Since 1974, more than 3,000 earthquakes have occurred in the NMSZ. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7, or a recurrence of the 1811-1812 series could have devastating impacts on the region, as well as the nation as transportation routes, natural gas and oil transportation pipelines are broken and services are interrupted. Preliminary estimates show that the economic loss from a magnitude 7.7 earthquake could reach $50-80 billion in direct losses alone. There is also the possibility of thousands of fatalities, tens of thousands of injured victims, and hundreds of thousands left without homes, according to the study.

The report also specifically indicates that Dunklin, Pemiscot, New Madrid, and Stoddard counties will lose between 70 and 90 percent of building value, indicating that a significant portion of these counties will need to be repaired or rebuilt after a NMSZ earthquake. These counties are four of the 46 counties listed as critical counties in Missouri. The critical counties are counties that are expected to experience the most significant shaking and are anticipated to receive the most damage. Several other counties in Southeast Missouri show loss ratios greater than 20 percent which is less critical, but still significant.

In the area of hospital functionality, the report shows that Dunklin and Pemiscot Counties, which have a total of 327 beds, will not have any available beds until at least 30 days following the NMSZ event. After 90 days, Dunkin and Pemiscot Counties are expected to have only 56 available beds. Stoddard County results were not listed and New Madrid County results were listed as not available.

These four counties, which have a total of 37 police stations, are expected to have zero police station functionality at day one. The 75 schools and 36 fire stations in the four counties are expected to be non-functional.

In the area of shelter, 20,574 of the 33,155 people living in Dunklin County expected to be displaced and 3,097 are expected to be shelter-seekers. Dunklin County is also expected to have 841,000 tons of debris.

Kennett Fire Chief John Mallot gave some insight as to what Kennett and Dunklin County should look forward to in the event of an earthquake.

"What I encourage people to do if we have a big earthquake is that neighbor is going to have to go to neighbor to make sure they're okay," Mallot said. "Neighbors are going to have to pull together to say 'hey, we all need to survive'."

"We're doing a lot of things through our regional homeland security oversight committee. It's a 13 county region. That's where the homeland security money comes in here. Where this region gets most of its money is because of the New Madrid earthquake threat and the tornado threat," Mallot continued.

"I don't want people to stay up all night thinking 'what am I going to do if we have an earthquake tonight'. But they need to take an hour and sit down and look at what would I do and how would we survive.

"The biggest thing we're up against is we don't know what to plan for. [An earthquake is] an act of mother nature or an act of God. The plan is, we have to get a damage assessment. We have to get an overall picture of what is standing and what is down. The next part of the plan is to gather that information and get our assessment and our needs up to the state emergency operations center in Jefferson City."

Mallot stated that parents who work out of town need to have a plan for their children in case they are out of town when the event happens. He also mentioned that people should prepare to be without federal help for up to two weeks.