Last night (Thursday, 9/15) on ABC’s Primetime the subject was disaster preparedness. One of the lessons from Katrina is that individuals shouldn’t depend entirely on immediate aid from any relief agency; they should have a plan to survive for at least 3 days on their own.
I hadn’t thought much about it until last night, but I live in a zone that would be at risk from an earthquake in the New Madrid fault. It hasn’t done much since the big one in 1811, but the next one could be huge.
How can I tell what kind of damage my frame house is likely to suffer in a big quake?
I actually asked a geologist with the USGS about the Madrid Fault. Its much different than ours out here.
One thing he said was, that no one and few structures in the mid-west are in any way prepared.
Here are few things to check
Does your house have a basement, and if so, is it concrete or cinder block? If its concrete you may have a chance, cinderblock, not so much.
Is the house anchored to the foundation? If not, It can be done fairly easily, with not a pot full of cash.
Remember, the earthquake expected there is 100 times more powerful than any we’ve had out here. The Richter scale is exponential, so a 9+ (what could happen there, is 100 times more powerful the 8+s we’ve had out here.
The USGS guy was pretty sure nothing would be standing.
Make a plan, and stock pile some supplies, somewhere you could shelter if your house went away.
We have a little aluminum shed in the yard, with two of those big rectangular bins with everything we might need for 1-2 weeks. That’s how long we figure we’d have to wait for rescue, Katrina, not withstanding. The infrastructure would make travel impossible. They have food, clothes, medical supplies a wind up radio, a little money, some ammo, yes, it could be necessary. Our firearms are are both long guns and in a gun safe in the house. We might not be able to get to them right away, but we probably wouldn’t need them for a week anyway.
One other thing we have in the shed that you’d need even more, is Great Stuff™ To insulate the shed if its winter.
My husband counted the bridges and overpasses he’d have to climb over to get home there are 16. He could probably make it home in 3-4 days barring other difficulties. Besides the two bins in the shed, we have back packs with food for 2 days and some medical supplies in both cars.
Here’s the home page for the USGS It should give you some more answers.
Look up liquifaction. They have maps for here showing what areas could liquify (yes, the ground ) whole buildings can disappear.
Check the site, I’ve said enough to scare me. I think I’ll have hubby go check expiration dates in the bins.
Good Luck.
Its been about a year, so I no cite. I e-mailed one of the geologists at the USGS, I was curious about the New Madrid fault. It isn’t on a plate edge, and I wanted to know how it works.
At that time he said the chances were high for an 8.0 to 9.0 within the next 50 years.
Unfortunately, I don’t even remember much about what he said about the fault . I kept the e-mail for months, but when I got my new computer, I dumped it.
I do remember the fault exists because of a giant void space in or near the mantle.
Sorry.
I found a bit of information about theNew Madrid Fault on the USGS site the link takes you to a page where you’ll find a PDF. In the PDF it says the chances of a 7.5-8.0 in the next 50 years is about 15%
40% for a 6.0 or greater.
