Feds asked to prepare emergency drill for quake zone

Earthquake experts agree it’s a matter of when, not if, another major quake strikes along the New Madrid Seismic Zone. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, two Missouri lawmakers said Wednesday it’s time to get ready.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson and Sen. Jim Talent, both Republicans, asked Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff to organize within the next year an emergency response drill in anticipation of a potential earthquake that could devastate a region from Memphis, Tenn., to St. Louis.

In a letter to Chertoff, the lawmakers noted that the fault centered near the Missouri Bootheel town of New Madrid produced the largest earthquakes in North America between December 1811 and January 1812. Witness accounts said the quakes caused the Mississippi River to flow backward and rang church bells as far away as Philadelphia.

“We have learned the lessons of hurricane season well, and we need to apply this knowledge to all kinds of natural disasters, especially earthquakes,” said Emerson, whose 8th District covers southeast Missouri.

Earthquake experts say there is a 25 percent to 40 percent chance of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake along the New Madrid Fault in the next 50 years. They say the probability of a quake similar to those in 1811 and 1812 is 7 percent to 10 percent. Small earthquakes are common along the fault.

Talent, of suburban St. Louis, said, “A major earthquake is no time for on-the-job training.”

A magnitude 8.0 to 9.0 quake would devastate the region, the lawmakers wrote — interstate highways would become impassable, bridges would collapse, electricity would go out, communications towers would fall.

“The number of lives lost and people displaced would likely number in the millions,” Emerson and Talent wrote. The delta land of the Bootheel would turn to an unstable, shifting soil mass that “would destroy homes, businesses, and much of the region’s infrastructure.”

The letter seeks a coordinated exercise among state, local and federal agencies. In addition, it asks that a scenario be examined in which a major quake would happen at a time when the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers are at flood stage.

“We need a comprehensive test of our communications systems, rescue and recovery operations, and our evacuation plans for schools, hospitals and nursing homes,” Emerson said.