Earthquake preparedness event to be held in Malden

An earthquake awareness and preparedness program will be held on Saturday, February 26th from 10 AM to 2PM at the Bootheel Youth Museum in Malden.

The program is being held in honor of the bicentennial of the New Madrid earthquakes that occurred in 1811 & 1812.

The event will feature presentations from a geologist and a representative from the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium, Brian Blake.

Blake will be presenting on the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut, a region-wide earthquake drill that will take place on April 28th.

"We want to teach people what to do when there's an earthquake and have them know how to react because when a big earthquake comes along you only have a few seconds to react and sometimes you don't have even that," Blake said.

This is the first year that the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium will hold a ShakeOut drill. 800,000 people have already registered to participate.

Katie Long, KRCU

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FEMA head stresses the importance of earthquake preparedness

Some scientists say risks of another major earthquake from the New Madrid fault are minimal.

But FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate insists the threat to Missouri is real.

Administrator Fugate was a featured speaker at a conference on earthquake preparedness for business and industry last week at Saint Louis University.

Fugate said that getting ready for earthquakes isn’t just government’s responsibility.

“A major player in this is the private sector, and how prepared they are, to get their facilities up and running, to begin those operations again and provide those critical services that will be needed by everybody in the days after an earthquake,” Fugate said.

Fugate said businesses like gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies, and utility and cell phone companies must be ready to provide services following a disaster.

Véronique LaCapra, St. Louis Public Radio

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New Madrid Seismic Zone may have passed its energy on to other faults

Mian Liu on the site of May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan.

A new study suggests that the New Madrid Seismic Zone may not be as active as previously thought.

The study looked at 2,000 years of documented earthquakes in Northern China. Northern China is similar to the Midwest because it sits far from a plate boundary, yet still experiences frequent earthquakes.

It turns out that none of the Northern Chinese fault lines produced more than one earthquake during the 2,000 year period. According to one of the study’s co-authors, Mian Liu, a University of Missouri geosciences professor, the energy seems to move from one fault zone to another to another.

"The faults communicated with each other. Rather than looking at only one fault zone such as the New Madrid Fault Zone just because it produced an earthquake in the past, because if there is anything that we can learn from the Chinese data it’s that the large earthquakes in mid-continent migrate," Mian Liu said.

Following an earthquake, the study suggests that a mid-continental fault zone may pass through an extended period of inactivity. Meanwhile, another fault zone, perhaps 600 or 700 miles away, builds up the energy that produces the next big quake.

The study was published in the journal Lithosphere.

Jacob McCleland, KRCU

Photo courtesy of the University of Missouri

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