While talk of a devastating west coast earthquake has reached the White House, as we learn in this story from Michael Snyder at 'End of the American Dream' and the 1st video below from Gary Franchi and the Next News Network, America's 'biggest earthquake problem' may not be the West coast at all but middle America where the New Madrid is ready to pop and 'shake America like never before' we are told.
“If we have another event in Tennessee like we had in 1811-1812, it would be the biggest and worst disaster in the recorded history of the United States. Hurricane Katrina will be a small event compared to this,” Cecil Whaley from the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said.
What would happen to bridges, dams, our drinking water, the electrical power grid, and even natural gas pipelines if another earthquake of that magnitude occurred?
In Middle and west Tennessee combined there are about 2,600 bridges. Those would be rendered unusable.
Dams are built to withstand a 5.0 to 5.5 magnitude on the Richter scale, but we are talking about 7.0 to 7.5. It could be the worst case scenario for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the TVA, requiring rescues of people and loss of infrastructure along the banks of the rivers.
Very few of Middle Tennessee’s pumping stations are protected against an earthquake. There’s the possibility residents could be without drinking water for weeks to months.
“There are three major natural gas pipelines that come through west Tennessee and also Middle Tennessee,” according to Whaley .”There are going to be ruptures. There are going to be fires. There are going to be explosions.”
However, the loss of the electrical power grid could have the biggest impacts on our lives.
According to The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, it could take six months, a year or possibly two years to restore power, and the entire eastern half of the United States would be affected.
We learn the New Madrid fault zone is 6 times larger than the San Andreas fault zone in California and covers parts of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. We're also told that back in 1811 and 1812, a series of devastating quakes in this region caused parts of the Mississippi River to run backwards, left several very deep fissures in the ground and could be felt as far away as Washington DC and the Boston area.
Is the New Madrid getting ready to 'shake, rattle and roll' again? Scientists and all of the signs tell us it's just a matter of time before an absolutely massive earthquake strikes the New Madrid, leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans, the destruction of countless buildings throughout the region and likely leading to millions homeless. As we learn here, the New Madrid will unleash destruction unlike anything we've ever known before from an earthquake in America. It has also been a very long time since a devastating earthquake struck the New Madrid area, long before the masses of people arrived in the region. Think of an 1800's style quake except with millions of people in the surrounding areas. Cataclysmic.
We're also asked to remember that there are 15 nuclear reactors along the New Madrid fault line - how many of them were there back in the 1800's? 0. The potential devastation that might be caused by those nuclear plants alone is unimaginable. With our planet Earth now going through incredible earth changes, is this mere talk or do the experts giving these warnings know something much more?
As always, we believe that our emphasis should be placed upon preparation for such an event - if we're prepared to weather almost any kind of natural devastation, preparation for earthquakes should go right along with our overall preparedness goal and as we learn in the 2nd video below, the White House and emergency officials are doing the same thing with extra emphasis on a devastating tsunami along the west coast triggered by a 9.0+ undersea earthquake.
With the White House's 'earthquake resiliency summit' going on, the Express took a look at the conference and tried to figure out why there is now such a big concern. These few paragraphs excerpted from their story tells us why. The West Coast and Cascadia fault line are long overdue... as is the New Madrid.:
Emergency response officials are preparing how to deal with a magnitude-9 undersea earthquake which they expect will be triggered by the Cascadia fault line.
Experts have know there is a very real threat of the quake, but have only now begun planning the response in earnest.
The White House said a new commitment to develop an earthquake early-warning system for the US will be announced at today's summit.
The fault line lies in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which is seventy miles off America's Pacific Northwest and stretches all the way from Vancouver Island to Northern California.
It is a seismic activity hotspot area where a massive quake has historically happened on average every 240 years.
But scientists, who warn that more needs to be done to prepare for the impending disaster, say the last one was 315 years ago -so it is 75 years overdue.
The problem lies with the subduction zone where it meets the Oceanic Plate and is slowly forced beneath the North American plate.
Chris Goldfinger, Oregon State earthquake geologist said: "It buckles upward and it gets pushed backward like a spring until eventually, after a few hundred years, it just has to let go."
