No Warning

By Doug Thompson
Arkansas News Bureau

Hurricanes got me to ask about earthquakes. The news is not good.

How would we get people out if a serious earthquake along the New Madrid fault hit northeast Arkansas? I started wondering this a few months ago. People were dying in the New Orleans Superdome at the time.

It's hard to draw up an evacuation plan when you don't know what bridges will still be standing over the rivers, David Maxwell said. Maxwell is deputy director of the state Department of Emergency Management.

In 2011 we'll celebrate, if that's the word, the 200th anniversary of the worst North American earthquake east of the Rockies. It was along the New Madrid fault, which is named after New Madrid, Mo.

I don't know much about geology, but suspect 200 years is a pretty good run. There are people at the university who do know much about geology. They're quoted later.

When earthquakes hit, you see what's left of your transportation system, and then react as swiftly as you can by whatever routes are left open, Maxwell said. If New Madrid hits, the local airports at Walnut Ridge and Stuttgart will suddenly take on great importance, judging by Maxwell's description of disaster response plans. The Civil Air Patrol will play a big role. However, any helicopters or similar rotary-winged craft are going to be valuable and too few. We don't know how many level, usable landing strips will be in handy locations in the quake zone. Chances are, they'll be in the areas that were hit the least.

There will be Memphis. Assistance will rush there. It's not a matter of political clout or better preparation in Tennessee or discrimination against smaller towns. It's a matter of saving as many human lives as possible. Memphis is where the people are. The only chance that Memphis won't get the utmost priority is if Saint Louis is clobbered too. Even then, Saint Louis will have to share.

People in large swathes of northeast Arkansas will likely be on their own for a week after a big quake, Maxwell said. That's without water, electricity, natural gas or likely the ability to leave.

"We can't logistically supply 19 counties with water and essential supplies," Maxwell said.

Now, to quote those people who know something about geology.

There's a difference of opinion now between University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and University of Memphis researchers over whether the New Madrid region is showing signs of stress before an earthquake. University of Memphis researchers say they see signs in small changes in the location of stations, measured by using the Global Positioning System. University of Arkansas professor Glen Mattioli and his colleagues had a short letter recently in the journal "Nature," saying more information is needed.

Forecasting of earthquakes isn't practical yet, and New Madrid quakes are even harder than normal to out-guess. According to a recent news release by the University of Arkansas:

'"This whole thing is a big enigma,' Mattioli said. 'As far as we know, the reason we get earthquakes is because of applied stress related to the motion of plates.' But, in the nation's heartland, this reason does not apply, and no theory has fully explained why large earthquakes may have occurred there. The Mississippi River basin further complicates regional studies, because the unstable, shifting sand and mud make it difficult to isolate any significant movement from the 'noise' surrounding it."

To have an adequate pre-quake evacuation, "we'd need at least 72 hours warning to get people out," Maxwell said. Ordering the evacuation of 19 counties without a solid forcast or even the possibility of getting one would be somewhere between amazing and irresponsible, depending on whether the authorities who ordered the evacuation guessed right.

The authorities in New Orleans, the rest of Louisiana and elsewhere watched satellite pictures of Katrina on TV and, up until the last moment, kept hoping the storm might not be so bad. Pre-earthquake evacuation isn't a realistic option.

The only earthquake warnings we've had so far were false. As many people remember, somebody predicted a New Madrid earthquake a few years ago. The biggest effect appeared to be on the media. We sent crews to Missouri. This wasn't one of my profession's most inspired moments.

So what do we do? Talk and think about it more than we do, Maxwell said. People in northeast Arkansas need to look around their homes and ask themselves: Could I live here a week without running water, sewer, electricity, heat, cooking on a stove or medical treatment?

Arkansas was a frontier when the last one of these quakes hit. Frontier folk were tough. "We're not the same hardy stock," Maxwell said.

Doug Thompson is a Fayetteville-based reporter and columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau and The Morning News. His e-mail address is dthompson@arkansasnews.com.

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2006/02/04/DougThompson/333899.html