Research Motivation
The reason I wanted to research this topic is due to the fact that I was born and raised outside of Nashville, TN, and throughout my childhood and high school years there, I was aware of a potential for an earthquake in Nashville. In my community, we had learned early on about the possibility for earthquakes in places like California and Japan, but the thought of an earthquake here in my home town was really an afterthought. My sole opinion as well as opinion of many other citizens in the area was not directed at the threat of an earthquake happening in Nashville, rather than what would happen if one with any serious magnitude ever struck?
Introduction to Earthquake History
Many have already forgotten the past with the largest number of earthquakes in American history that happened over 200 years ago. In this day and age people in the Central United States think earthquakes can only occur in California. The city of New Madrid, Missouri, historical society lists what happened during this time, “The New Madrid earthquakes were the biggest earthquakes in American history. They occurred in the central Mississippi Valley, but were felt as far away as New York City, Boston, Montreal, and Washington D.C”. (New-Madrid, Missouri). The central Midwest was the richest in earthquakes that frequently happened from December, 1811, through March, 1812, reaching a total of 2,000. Also, the Bootheel of Missouri was not spared of the tragic happenings, where historians recorded from 6,000 up to 10,000 earthquakes in New Madrid alone.
The New Madrid Earthquakes Dynamics
The New Madrid earthquakes entered the history book of the world, since they have lasted especially long periods of time and caused unpredictable damage. Even America’s top earthquakes lists three of the known earthquakes in the area: “on December 16, 1811, a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter scale; on January 23, 1812, at 7.8; and on February 7, 1812, at as much as 8.8 magnitudes” (Hough, 2009). Moreover, strange happenings were present and frequently reported by locals, hours before the quakes hit in. A local reporter reported this, “People reported strange behavior by animals before the earthquakes. They were nervous and excited” (Johnston, Schweig, 1996). A number of wild and domestic animals sought escape and support, hiding near more populated areas by people. These happenings were not even the most unbelievable things that happened. This event was documented by multiple sources and reported by the New Madrid paper, “After the February 7 earthquake, boatmen reported that the Mississippi actually ran backwards for several hours” (Gorin).
Also, the land upheaval near New Madrid was the cause of Reelfoot Lake creation, during which thousands of its village inhabitants drowned, and thousands of acres were devastated, as a result creating of two waterfalls in the Mississippi. Luckily, a few boatmen survived this aftershock and their testimony has been recorded to show the most wreckful of the earthquakes in the world history. Another event like sand boiling took place as well. The New Madrid paper from the time reported this, “The world’s largest sand boil was created by the New Madrid earthquake” (Johnston, Schweig, 1996). Reports say that its lengths were 1.4 miles and 136 acres, the epicenter located in the Bootheel of Missouri. For that reason, locals came to call it “The Beach”.
Another phenomenon was the number and frequency of earthquakes that occurred as well as we can see in the New Madrid paper from the time, “As the general area experienced more than 2,000 earthquakes in five months, people discovered that most of crevices opening up during an earthquake ran from north to south, and when the earth began moving, they would chop down trees in an east- west direction and hold on using the tree as a bridge” (New-Madrid, Missouri). A number of inhabitants were reported as missing, when the earth opened up as long as five miles.
Synopsis and Explanations
The Tennessee Emergency Management or “TEMA” states this “By now everyone in the state is familiar with the New Madrid Earthquake zone and the potential it has for creating a major catastrophe, not only for Tennessee but also for much of the country”. Another may be even larger earthquake zone that is not named before parallels Interstate from Chattanooga to Knoxville. Earthquakes still present undisputed concern for all people in the area, and many are afraid of a major earthquake probability, which then would turn into the natural disaster that was never dreamed of to occur in Tennessee. Looking at a wider periscope, that would bring a nationwide catastrophe in the real life event and citizens would continuously suffer from the disruption in fuel, transportation and communication systems that affect the whole infrastructure.
Now you can see that a Central U. S. earthquake is expected to bring more damage to the county. The building codes are nowhere near what they are in California, and this would lead to a greater property damage and potential loss of life. The main reason that the threat is not in the fore front of many of the citizens is that the last time a major earthquake hit the area was in the 1800’s, and time has a way of making us forget the potential danger that looms. A researcher from Life Science conducted research on the largest earthquake ever recorded in the lower 48 states and found this, “In a three-month period in 1811-12, three major earthquakes rattled a broad expanse of the United States, causing damage as far away as Charleston, South Carolina and even rattling nerves in Boston”. The quakes caused severe landslides.
The earthquakes were in New Madrid, and were reported to be as strong as 8.1, 8.0 and 7.8. Thanks to geologists’ persistent work and dedication, other evidence for calamities was found. This means that soil has a tendency to liquefy, and those earthquakes are more severe and wider in scope than normally. The damage that was done at that time was nowhere near what it would be now. At that times, there were no high rise building, and most of the buildings were single story homes or simple, uncomplicated structures.
There is new data that has scientists’ concerns from Life Science, when they found this “The new data show the ground indeed moves a few millimeters each year near the fault, as most geologists had expected. But away from the fault, the movement was discovered to be less”. The good news is that the shift in New Madrid is still considered as slow, as there is no vivid collision between major Earth’s plates.
Contradictions to the Study
There is another problem to getting citizens behind being prepared for a major earthquake and that is conflicting studies that were done in the 1990’s. Life Science documents these findings, “The findings contradict a study in the 1990s, based on less data, that concluded the ground was not shifting and so strain buildup was minimal”.
The recent results obtained and published in Life Science confirm the status of seismic hazard. We can speculate about the magnitude of another earthquake, but the estimates today show that it is likely to happen in 50 years, around the 10 percent of likeliness.
Strong earthquakes in this problematic zone can occur in the near future, and the likeliness is said to be high. As reports Life Science, "There is a 9-in-10 chance of a magnitude 6 to 7 temblor occurring in the New Madrid Seismic Zone within the next 50 years".
With all of this data that has been documented, we can see a major event has happened in the past that shows now, we as a society need to take the proper steps to prevent major damage from happening. TEMA actually conducted a test run of what the responders would do if a quake happened back in 2010. The Nashville City paper was there on hand to witness what took place and how things would work out from a logistical aspect. The Nashville City paper reported this that 1,500 tractor trailer loads per day were expected, including emergency supplies in case of a catastrophic earthquake of 7.0 or above.
Findings and Conclusions
TEMA’s current effort, more than two years in the making, will lead to a variety of exercises next year, culminating with the National Level Exercise 2011. For example, Earthquake Awareness Week in Tennessee will be recognized in February. And on April 28, the state will be part of the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut. “There’s lot of planning going on,” Heidt said, “We're having regular meetings almost weekly with various committees related to the exercise or planning.” According to the official, in case of a massive quake, all the eight states in the seismic zone would be affected. As compared to Haiti following that earthquake, in the U.S. alone, there are 14 million people in the seismic region. That would roughly make the number of deaths in Tennessee from 2,000 to 4,000. Not only power would be lost, countless lives can be lost as well, and for this the city of Nashville was never prepared, neither in 2010, nor now, and most regrettably that no new preventions measures have been invented.
Appendix
Sample Business Letter
Taken into consideration that there is now a way to predict an earthquake, but it is impossible to prevent them with our current technology, we in the Emergency Management field have to be prepared for the after math and to help prevent things from deteriorating further after the earthquake hits. Thus, we propose the following to all stakeholders:
The best plan of attack is to educate the population on the history of what happened over 200 years ago and to educate the leaders such as the town officials all the way up to the mayor of Nashville. A good way to do this in the Nashville area would be to policy entrepreneur who is an expert in the field of earthquakes and could add legitimacy to the efforts to help get the public behind this. Other than that, it would be a waste of time to have a local politician from the area come out and start trying to energize people to get behind this.
The next step would be to have new explorations. With technology constantly changing new information could be brought to light that would educate the public on the dangers. Organizing these events could be led by experts from areas where earthquakes occur more frequently and professionals who have sound experience in Emergency Management. These officials would also need to adopt a continuous planning process as well.
Allowing many other organizations to get on the same page and cooperate with each other is an example of this. Identifying the areas affected and how the population would be affected is crucial in this case as well. The Nashville officials would need to set up a series of committees to combat the threats:
• Emergency assessment: will allow us to detect a threat, and predict its potential impact
• Hazard operations: will allow us to take actions to limit the magnitude of the earthquake impact
• Population protection: will allow us to limit the loose of life
• Incident Management: will allow us to mobilize and direct our resources to respond to the quake.
This certainly allows for a functional plan to be put in place to help keep the loose of life and property damage from getting out of control, because as we have seen in the past, the lack of planning leads to catastrophic results.
References
Gorin, Sandi.(n.d.)South Central KY Historical & Genealogical Society. Retrieved from http://www.new-madrid.mo.us/index.aspx?nid=132%3Ehttp://www.new-madrid.mo.us/index.aspx?nid=132
Hough, S.E. Cataloging the 1811-1812 New Madrid, Central U.S. (2009). Earthquake Sequence, Seismological Research Letter, 80 (6), 1045-1053. doi: 10.1785/gssrl.80.6.1045
Johnston, A.C., & Schweig, E.S. The Enigma of the New Madrid Earthquakes Of 1811-1812. (1996). Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 24, 339-384. doi: 10.1146/annurev.earth.24.1.339
New Data Confirms Strong Earthquake Risk to Central U.S. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com/3871-data-confirms-strong-earthquake-risk-central.html
New-Madrid, Missouri. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.newmadrid.mo.us/index.aspx?nid=132
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. Retrieved from http://www.tnema.org/public/otherthreats.html
