Is St. Louis Doing Anything to Prepare for when the New Madrid Fault Goes? (Kansas City: homes)

[Cleverfield]

I'm just curious whether or not St. Louis is doing or has done anything to prepare itself for the massive Earthquake that will eventually hit it. Obviously there's not a whole lot you can do if the Earthquake hits a 9 on the richter scale like the last one, but has the city put any kind of disaster plans in place, or tried to retrofit any of its old buildings to withstand a large earthquake? Do the residents of St. Louis worry about this issue much?

[Dawn10am]

I worry about it every day. This whole city is built out of brick and mortar so it would pretty much be toast. It's not just St. Louis, though. If an earthquake that powerful erupted it would also probably level Chicago, Kansas City, Memphis, and everything in between. However, the latest research indicates that the likelihood of this happening in the near future has been overestimated. As far as I'm aware I don't think much has been done to prepare for it.

[aragx6]

Did you hear about the 3.9 magnitiude quake that just hit? That's the biggest one if quite a long time, so it's certainly worthy of some concern!

A couple of articles on the subject for those interested:

National Guard Holding Earthquake Exercises Following Memphis Quake | FOX2now.com

At New Madrid Fault, Shaky Guesses On Next Quake : NPR

Here's the full study done by the University of Illinois in 2009 of the possible impacts of an earthquake similar in severity to the quakes in the early 19th century: https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bits...%20USAVol1.pdf

It's a long report, but the overall points are pretty scary (from Wikipedia):

The report found that there would be significant damage in the eight states studied – Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee – with the probability of additional damage in states farther from the NMSZ. Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri would be most severely impacted, and the cities of Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri would be severely damaged. The report estimated 86,000 casualties, including 3,500 fatalities; 715,000 damaged buildings; and 7.2 million people displaced, with 2 million of those seeking shelter, primarily due to the lack of utility services. Direct economic losses, according to the report, would be at least $300 billion

Also in 2009 a study by Northwestern University and reported in the Journal Science suggested that the fault might in fact be shutting down: New Madrid fault system may be shutting down | e! Science News

The New Madrid fault system does not behave as earthquake hazard models assume and may be in the process of shutting down, a new study shows. A team from Purdue and Northwestern universities analyzed the fault motion for eight years using global positioning system measurements and found that it is much less than expected given the 500- to 1,000-year repeat cycle for major earthquakes on that fault.

[Dawn10am]

I like that last study the best I'm from Memphis, went to undergrad in Arkansas, and I'm now in St. Louis. My whole world would be destroyed!

[moorlander]

MODOT is currently working on a project that includs an "earthquake siesmic retrofit" to the elevated section of 40/64 near downtown.

[aragx6]

I also believe the new Mississippi River Bridge currently under construction is better prepared for potential seismic activity.

[STLCardsBlues1989]

I've heard my whole life that we're overdue for another big one, but nobody really knows.

I agree that we need to be prepared, but I'm not sure what you can do to homes that are already standing. You can only prepare so much for an earthquake, since it's unpredictable.

I'm not sure what St. Louis is doing, but it's good that Modot has been working on the elevated highway and the new bridge. That's something at least. Like I said, I'm not sure what you can do for a city that's built of brick.

[Smtchll]

The "big one" (a repeat of 1812, 7.5+) happens every 300-500 years. It's just now been 200 years, so hopefully we won't see one in our lifetime. The smaller ones will probably happen, but all the maps I've seen show that St. Louis is not in imediate danger.



But maybe they dont factor in the types of buildings in St. Louis

[Amercity]

I've heard memphis has a few buildings that are earthquake proof but ive never heard of anything in st.louis over earthquake proofing buildings. St.louis would be decimated by the earthquake along with most of memphis, indianapolis, little rock and maybe chicago, cincinnati, louisville and kansas city.

[marigolds6]

The biggest problem for St Louis is soils. We have a lot of old riverbed that is at risk of liquefying from the shocks from an earthquake. Collapse from shaking is an issue too, but not as significant an issue as liquefaction.