IT’S ONLY A TEST:Major earthquake strikes West Tennessee today

That’s the scenario for Operation Heartland ’04, one of the largest emergency preparedness exercises in the region.

“This is going to really test our capabilities to see if we can all work together if we have an event of what could happen along the New Madrid,” said Cecil Whaley of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Stretching from the boot heel of Missouri south into Arkansas, the New Madrid fault is considered the most likely site of a future major temblor east of the Rocky Mountains.

Such a quake could be felt in 20 states and cause billions of dollars in damage, scientists say. In Tennessee, foundations could crack in older homes as far east as Nashville, but the worst damage would be in West Tennessee.

“We hope it never happens, but having gone through a strenuous exercise like this one, we feel we’ll be better prepared to add organization to all the chaos,” said Col. James M. Rushing, commander of the Tennessee wing of the Civil Air Patrol.

TEMA will join its federal counterpart FEMA and the U.S. Army for the five-day exercise, which Whaley said will help test response times and gauge the best place to send resources.

Officials are particularly eager to use a new damage-assessment system acquired from the CAP that can quickly transmit photographs of affected areas in any part of the state to TEMA’s emergency operations control center in Nashville.

The system is a digital camera connected to an on-board satellite modem that allows a crew member on a plane to log onto the Internet and e-mail the photograph to decision-makers on the ground.

“It’s something we’ve been talking about having the capability of doing for years and years but have never had,” Whaley told The Tennessean. “Now, we’re at the point where the governor, the adjutant general and the TEMA director can … actually see live shots of whatever we need to see, whether it be an earthquake site, a tornado site, whatever.”

Whaley said the new system is an improvement over the old one, which sends photos through the airwaves using a VHF radio signal. That system’s capability is limited to a 40-45 mile radius and takes about 45 seconds to transmit a photo. The new satellite setup is much faster and covers a lot more ground.

More than 10 planes from Tennessee, mostly Cessna 172s and 182s, will begin flying sorties Friday morning from the Humphreys County Airport in Waverly.

“There’s going to be simulated damage from Jackson to the west. All up and down the Mississippi River it’s projected to be pretty heavy damage when the New Madrid lets go,” Rushing said.