New Madrid Fault - EARTHQUAKE (Memphis: station, areas, cities)

[KewGee]

I'm just curious.

Do the residents of Memphis and surrounding areas worry about the potential earthquake catastrophe that is predicted to occur "one of these days" which will be worse than any quake CA has ever experienced due to the very soft ground in your area?

[Dd714]

Yes there have been newspaper articles about it and the expected devestation it will cause, I forgot when the "big one" is scheduled to hit within. 10 years? 20 years? Old timers still talk about the last big earthquake where the mighty mississippi river flowed backwards (they must be pretty old since this happened a couple hundred years ago I think, but it did happen). People don't worry about it at all.

Memphis is totally unprepared but the local leaders are way to incompetent to grasp this. Expect another New Orleans - chaos in the streets, people demanding government help, widespread looting, Al Sharpton blaming the president, all that. Me I have canned food, a water source, a portable stove, and a loaded shotgun with plenty of ammo, that's all I need.

[MrsMichelle]

Right on, ditto here!

[MoMark]

It's not just Memphis, but St. Louis is also likely to be destroyed in great portions in a truly catastrophic quake along the New Madrid zone. It stretches from a bit north of St. Louis down past Memphis and all the towns and cities along the Mississippi River are vulnerable. Cairo, Illinois, western Kentucky, a great part of southern Illinois, eastern and southeastern Missouri, northeast Arkansas, and western Tennessee are all likely to be impacted. It's a tough fault area to get an idea of threat because it's a shattered fault, much different than California's San Andreas Fault, or the Juan de Fuca subduction zone that threatens Seattle. The New Madrid is buried on thousands of feet of sediment, so no one really knows where the actual fault/s are.