The Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium has a new tool projecting the impacts of potential major earthquakes within the New Madrid Seismic Zone. The planning tool is meant to help local governments plan for earthquakes shaking southeast Missouri.
Executive Director Brian Blake said the New Madrid zone has nearly 300 earthquakes a year.
“It basically takes earthquake scenarios using computer simulations and says if we had this magnitude earthquake, what would the potential impacts be? We’ve got three earthquake scenarios in there right now,” Blake said. “One of them that would occur in southeast Missouri around Sikeston and Scott County.”
One scenario depicts a magnitude 7.5 quake in Scott County, between Cape Girardeau and Sikeston. The results would be massive – over 500 deaths, tens of thousands of displaced residents, and billions of dollars in damages.
“It’s mainly a planning tool for local government, for state government, and for individuals in the kind of preparedness space like first responder groups or hospital associations and healthcare coalitions and those sorts of groups,” he explained.
The online tool helps estimate the need for things like building inspections, hospitalizations, and other emergency responses.
“It’s interactive, so you can click on counties and see potential impacts and you can zoom in to the map and, you know, see potential impacts to transportation infrastructure, or buildings like essential facilities, and those sorts of things,” he said.
The New Madrid Seismic Zone primarily stretches from southeastern Missouri to parts of northeastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, southwestern Kentucky, and southern Illinois. In 1811 and 1812, that zone produced some of the largest earthquakes in U.S. history.
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