New Madrid Awareness Tour

The last two stops on our ProtectingAmerica.org tour took us to Louisville, Kentucky and Evansville, Indiana.

Louisville is a beautiful city, one of the most vibrant and sophisticated cities in the South, a place where it is hard to avoid the name and image of the city’s favorite son, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali.

We did several television appearances, including WHAS (ABC) and WAVE-TV (NBC). We did not do a public forum in Louisville: there is a wide-held notion that the western part of the state is more vulnerable to the New Madrid fault line than Louisville. Given the wide spread effect of the 1811-1812 seismic events, this may only be partially true. The western section may indeed be more vulnerable, but the effect in other parts of Kentucky, given a seismic event between 6.0 and the estimated 7.0 – 8.0 of the previous major event will be enormous.

We had been told by several USGS and Emergency Management people that Evansville was one of the most aware and progressive cities along the New Madrid Fault Line. They were right.

On the evening of July 24, a group of us assembled for a town hall meeting at Evansville’s stunningly beautiful central library. In attendance were Evansville’s Fire Chief, Ken Zuber, their Emergency Management Director, Sherman Greer, Dr. Norman Hester, seismologist and former director of the Indiana Geological Survey, and others.

The Evansville event really underscored the entire New Madrid “situation.” Disaster specialists, first responders and scientists are acutely aware of the vulnerability of their regions. But the level of awareness and preparation among most citizens and most politicians is woefully low.

Sherman Greer, who chaired the Evansville discussion, spoke of the wide range of problems facing Indiana after a major earthquake. He noted that Un-reinforced Masonry Buildings (URM’s), mostly brick and stone exteriors, were prevalent throughout Evansville and the entire state of Indiana. He talked about the enormous number of bridges – throughout our journey, we crossed bridge after bridge and river after river – and the potential loss of life in the event of bridge failures. In addition, the damage to bridges and freeways – many freeway approaches are on filled ground and highly susceptible to failure due to liquefaction – could produce the “island effect.” It is a subject well known to those of us who study earthquakes in California, and simply means that cities and communities will be cut off from one another, making it difficult and often impossible to move resources between different areas according to their needs.

Evansville’s very young and very dedicated Fire Chief Ken Zuber was an inspiration, one of the most knowledgeable and dedicated chiefs I have met in my many travels. A former high school and college wrestler, as was I, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the sport and how important fitness and athletic skills were to police and fire fighters, male and female. Ken Zuber is acutely aware of the potential problems facing his department, and tries to maintain a very high state of readiness.

I reiterated at every event that I, and ProtectingAmerica.org, was not there to lecture or frighten anyone and that our mission was simply to share our concerns and our knowledge with our neighbors in the region. I was also determined to learn as much as I could about the area immediately surrounding the New Madrid Fault Zone. It was eye-opening, to say the least.

Some of the lessons I learned:

1. Dr. Norman Hester informed me that there was a “sub-fault” or secondary fault line through Indiana, the Wabash Fault Line, that could potentially be as destructive as New Madrid. In Northern California, we have seven fault lines, including the massive San Andreas, but it is not always the dominant fault line that presents the biggest problem.

2. The New Madrid Fault region is in dire need of study. The San Andreas exists on the edge of the North Americana plate, where it bumps against the Pacific Plate, and is much easier to study as the plate’s movements can be seen and measured on the surface of the land, one giant scar through California. New Madrid is an “intraplate” fault, in the middle of the North American Plate, and is at least 3,000 feet below the surface, making it much more mysterious and inaccessible.

3. In Memphis, the EMA Director, Claude Talford, reiterated a conversation he and I had that “the fact we have not had a 6.0 or greater on the New Madrid since 1895 is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing for obvious reasons, a curse because it has lulled us into complacency.”

4. Because of the frequency of significant quakes in California, the state receives attention from geologists, and lots of money for research and planning. The New Madrid Zone receives far less, and yet USGS officials believe the region is more vulnerable than California. In 1811 and 1812, the ground shook for four months along the New Madrid Zone, with four major earthquakes, each progressively larger than the previous. And yet their building codes are not nearly as rigid as California’s, where every modern quake produces higher standards and more preparation.

5. The soft, alluvial soil of the New Madrid region and everything east of the Rocky Mountains amplifies ground waves so that a 6.0 event there is much more catastrophic than a similar event in California.

6. The enormous number of rivers and bridges throughout the region further complicate the problems.

7. It has only been since 1989 that modern seismic standards have been introduced into new buildings: they have since been strengthened, but do not apply to retrofitting of older buildings, particularly the unreinforced masonry buildings.

8. In Evansville, I asked Ken Zuber how much of his water suppression system was above ground. Evansville has a single fire boat, capable of pumping 2,000 gallons of water per minute. That is the only system above ground: during seismic events, underground water pipes, many of them older and deteriorating, rupture from the intense ground movement. In 1906, San Francisco burned to the ground because of ruptured water mains: in 1989, the city escaped a repeat when the below ground systems failed again and the fireboat Phoenix, pumping 10,000 gallons per minute, supplied five and one half million gallons of salt water to extinguish the famous Marina fire. The residual dangers from an earthquake are enormous: landslides along the region’s many rivers, and fire, particularly, as we saw in San Francisco, should be part of disaster mitigation.

9. I have long been an advocate of citizen involvement in groups and organizations like the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and believe that a community’s survival may be tied to how many trained back-up personnel they can summon during a major event.

10. I also believe that the state National Guard units should be trained in fire fighting and heavy rescue operations. A quick-response strike force in every region of the country could be crucial when there is a major disaster.

Our trip to St. Louis, which should have been our final stop, was halted by a natural disaster, ironically. Major wind and rain storms knocked out power to over 500,000 residents, and the participants in the St. Louis event – mostly emergency management personnel – were impossible to reach.

I got a first hand look at the scope of disaster potential during the trip through the South. I experienced 100 plus degree heat for days, torrential rains storms, hail storms, high winds and were in Southern Indiana when the freeways were blocked due to a sniper on the freeway overpasses.

All in all, it was a remarkable experience, those 10 days. We found the people of the South and Mid-West to be exactly how I remembered them: civil, generous, friendly and infinitely helpful.

We also realized that those few voices trying to be heard on these crucial issues are in serious need of whatever help we can lend them.

James Dalessandro
(back at home in San Francisco)

It has been another very inspiring day in hot and muggy Memphis. Yesterday I participated in a morning television show “LIVE AT 9” on WREG-TV, Memphis’ CBS affiliate, with Marybeth Connelly and Alex Coleman (photo below) , the show’s hosts, who were very knowledgeable and eager to discuss the New Madrid Fault situation. Immediately thereafter,I had lunch with WOMEN IN COMMUNICATIONS, a nationwide organization, where I spoke for about 45 minutes on the importance of preparation in Tennessee.



And last night, I chaired a Town Hall meeting at the Memphis City Council chambers, with an introduction by their very charming, articulate Mayor A.C. Wharton. Mayor Wharton takes the issue of disaster preparation very seriously: in his opening remarks, he emphasized the importance of citizen preparation and the government’s obligation to protect their citizens.

We showed a portion of my documentary, The Damndest, Finest Ruins, which was warmly received. Once again, I tried to deliver the message of ProtectingAmerica.org, that James Lee Witt and James Loy are trying to unify business and private citizens to confront and mitigate the very real concerns that we have in America.



Shelby County Director of Emergency Management, Claude Talford, former Deputy Fire Service Director, showed an incredible knowledge of the broad scope of the problem and the solutions that need to be pursued. Department of Transportation Director Ed Wasserman told about retrofitting the Arkansas/Tennessee bridge on I-40, which handles 70,000 trucks every four hours. He stated that the region has an enormous number of bridges, and retrofitting all of them is just not economically feasible.

And Buddy Schweig of the USGS, one of the world’s premier earthquake and geology experts, expressed how much needs to be done in terms of research on the New Madrid Fault. He admitted that the region is far behind California in their research, and is only beginning to come to grips with the New Madrid Fault.

The New Madrid, he explained, is an “intraplate” fault, which means it is not the result of two opposing plates, as is the San Andreas. That makes it more difficult to map and gauge: scientists here do not even know how long the rupture was in 1811 and 1812.

What is perhaps most amazing is the force of the 1811-1812 earthquakes. The ground shook in the Central Mississippi Valley for four months. Because of the very soft alluvial soil in the region, the ground shaking was magnified, causing ground motion over an area of 1.5 million square miles, 20 times the area affected by the 1906 San Andreas Quake.

What became evident during the meeting – attended by fire fighters, police officers, Homeland Security officers, and several members of the media – was that this region needs help. They need funds for research, updated maps, and to help raise awareness among public officials and private citizens.

Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium director Jim Wilkinson and Buddy Schweig told us of the reluctance of some insurers to write hazard policies for earthquakes in the region, and for officials to pass stringent building codes and allocate mitigation funds, for the simple reason that they do not have accurate facts on which to base their analysis. “In California, they understand the dangers,” Schweig stated, “and that allows them to make tables and understand risks. We are still in the dark. While California has had scientist and researchers examining your problems for decades, we are still struggling to get the resources we need to truly understand New Madrid.”

Leaving San Francisco, I knew a 12-day tour of the New Madrid Fault area would be a personal learning experience. Self enrichment aside, to reach just one individual and truly open his eyes to the earthquake risk at hand, persuading a few that preparedness is a “now” and a “must” would be a success.



The City of Little Rock, my first stop along a six-city tour of the New Madrid Fault area, was hot, lovely and fascinating.

On Monday, July 17, a small but impassioned group of us met at the Pulaski Regional Center in downtown Little Rock in the opening salvo of my ProtectingAmerica.org tour.

They (pictured below) included Daniel Cicirello, Chair of the Governor’s Earthquake Council, Frank Allison, Structural Engineer with Engineering Consultants, Jeffrey Connelly, Department of Earth Sciences at UALR, Tony Evans, Maintenance Engineer with Dept. of Highways and Transportation, Scott Ausbrooks, Geologist with the Arkansas Geological Commission, Jim Wilkinson, Executive Director of the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium. Mr. Wilkinson is the chief earthquake preparedness voice for eight states in the Midwest and Midsouth, and drove from Memphis just to join us.



What was most surprising to me was the openness, urgency and candidness of the group. Geologists Ausbrooks and Connelly were very impassioned in their belief that greater studies had to be done in order to understand the very complex New Madrid Fault System.

The New Madrid Fault, they explained, is a different kind of fault from the infamous San Andreas in California, which caused the 1906 disaster. New Madrid is an “intraplate” fault, which means it is centered in the North American plate, and much harder to observe and measure than the great San Andreas.

In the winter of 1811, three major earthquakes struck the region, centered between Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. The first occurred on Dec. 16, the second on January 23, the third on Feb. 7. Each earthquake increased in intensity, until the granddaddy of the three exceeded the magnitude of the 1906 earthquake, likely registering a whopping 8.1 on the yet-to-be-invented Richter scale.




The earth shook for four months, and was felt as far as Washington D.C, Boston and Cuba. More than 1.5 million square miles of American soil felt the tremor, ten times the area set in motion by the 1906 earthquake. For a time, the Mississippi River ran backward. Sand “geysers” opened in the earth, shooting rocks, soil and debris into the sky, some of the fissures 100 feet in diameter, with columns of debris 100 feet high. The mounds they created can still be seen throughout the South.

Engineers Allison, Evans and Governor’s Chair Cicirello all spoke about the need to increase earthquake standards. Cicirello was particularly focused on the need to improve the quality of Arkansas’s school buildings: almost a quarter of a million children attend classes in buildings built of unreinforced masonry. Everyone on the panel agreed it was a moral and ethical imperative to protect the region’s children.

James Wilkinson showed an extraordinary knowledge of the danger facing the entire region, subscribing to the consensus that a seismic event is a “when” and not an “if.”

In the audience were state disaster and recover specialists, fire officials, journalists and television reporters.



It was a truly inspiring and engaging evening. When television reporters asked me if I was concerned about scaring folks with the “doom and gloom” message, I replied that I consider preparation and mitigation as the antidote to doom and gloom. It will happen, I argued: when it does, would the citizens of the South rather we be prepared or unprepared?

Every member of the panel, and fire officials in the audience, echoed a common theme. This was not just a problem for state, local, and federal officials. Every citizen of the South and Midwest must take precautions. They must store food, water, medical supplies, and be able to self-sustain for an extended period of time.

And they must participate in programs, organize their communities, and aid all these marvelous scientists and relief experts in saving their homes, families and communities.

We live in a marvelous country, I said, with all the gifts that one can ask for. But that comes with a price, and that price is eternal vigilance. I called complacency “the ultimate terrorist”, a theme I think I will repeat.

I admitted at the end of the two hour meeting that I felt a bit pretentious and uncomfortable at first, coming as a stranger into Little Rock, talking about disaster and telling people what to do about it. But I was welcomed with open arms and enthusiasm. There did not seem to be a single difference of opinion among the entire group. What I tried to do was carry the lessons that we in California had learned, and no more eager or open audience could have appeared at the inaugural event.

We are one country, one group united around a common cause. A small and determined group can accomplish much.

I thanked James Lee Witt and Admiral James Loy for welcoming me into ProtectingAmerica.org and allowing me to start on this remarkable journey and meet these extraordinary people.

I appeared on several Arkansas television stations, and was warmly received by everyone, and the efforts of ProtectingAmerica to help disseminate the message, were exemplary.

The message of mitigation and preparation is getting out. The efforts of James Lee Witt and James Loy are working. Now we are on to Memphis and Nashville, Evansville and St. Louis.

So far, so great.