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Update – February 6th
The
anniversary of the one of the biggest New Madrid Earthquake is
Sunday.
The
earthquake occurred February 7th, 1812.
It is
estimated that the February quake was 8.3 magnitude
LINK
We found a great article
by the Mississippi State University explaining the dangers:
 Memphis
is located along the New Madrid fault zone. The zone includes a
large series of faults beneath the continental crust in an area
known as the Reelfoot Rift. This fault system extends some 150
miles in length, from near Marked Tree, Arkansas, through
northwest Tennessee, the boot heal of Missouri, extreme west
Kentucky and to the southern part of Illinois.
The rift formed about 500 million years ago when plate
tectonics cause the region to be stretched in a northwest-south
east direction. In reaction to this stretching, rocks slowly  dropped
down (approximately 1 mile) in an area 40 miles wide and 300
miles long, running northest-southwest.
As seen in the diagram right, the Reelfoot Rift was then covered
by approximately 3000 feet of sediment. This sediment was
deposited by an ancient sea which covered the central part of
the United States near the end of the Cretaceous period.
Stretching of the earth's crust beneath the central portion of
the United States caused the crust to begin to subside. This
allowed the ocean to reach what is southern Illinois today. For
more historical geology information follow this link to the Memphis
Aquifer.
The New Madrid fault system has the greatest potential for
earthquake damage of any area east of the Rocky Mountains. And,
although these damaging earthquakes are much less frequent than
in  California,
they hold the potential for much greater damage. This potential
for damage is due to the sediment covering of the faults of the
area. Earthquake waves are amplified as they travel through
sediments and therefore travel a much greater distance. These
waves can cause damage and earthquakes to be felt many hundreds
of miles farther than earthquakes in the California area.
For example, the picture (below) shows the San Francisco,
California, earthquake of 1906 (magnitude 7.8). It was felt 350
miles away in the middle of Nevada. Whereas the New Madrid
earthquake of  December
1811 (magnitude 8.0) rang church bells in Boston, Massachusetts,
1,000 miles away. As described (left), differences in geology
east and west of the Rocky Mountains cause this strong contrast.
Today, the crust in this same geographic region is going
through east-west shortening and the ancient Reelfoot Rift has
been reactivated again causing earthquakes in the area.
LINK
This last week the St. Louis University
held a conference on 'Earthquake Preparation'
LINK
“One of the main things is having people
come out and learn what the earthquake threat is.” Steve
Besemer, earthquake program manager for state emergency
management agency said. “We want people to have an
understanding about the geology and reasoning behind them.” ...
Besemer said the earthquake seminar is a tool to get people
thinking.
“We want people to think about it and not be scared or worried,
but understand the threat and think about what they can do to
prepare when it happens,” he said.
Mr. Besemer, we at ShowMe Broadband have been thinking!
The coverage area for the ShowMe Broadband project is in one of
the richest mineral areas of Missouri. In this area there
are 467 abandoned and working mines. Entire communities
are built on these mines. The area lays in the New Madrid
Fault zone, with the highest earthquake risk in the United
States outside the West Coast. Many of our counties are
latent in deploying E911 services, our coverage would include
two counties not equipped with E911 emergency service.
Potential for Future Earthquakes, a report filed in
November of 2008, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency
warned that a serious earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone
would result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural
disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread
and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and particularly
Tennessee, where a 7.7 magnitude quake or greater would cause
damage to tens of thousands of structures affecting water
distribution, transportation systems, and other vital
infrastructure.
LINK
ShowMe Broadband is aware of these issues and has addressed them
in our broadband stimulus project.
LINK
Recently, as we have reported,
LINK
the
state of Missouri has had to cut important programs from the
state budget. While we understand we are in a time of
economic peril and jobs are a number one priority that these
funds address, we also are also keenly aware of the issue of
public safety and the ever changing effects of our planet and
ecosystem.
When President Obama signed the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009, he also made provisions for public
safety in his bill. The number one priority of the
ShowMe Broadband project is public safety! Our tower
infrastructure will not only provide high speed Internet access
to the very rural areas of Missouri, but they will also be
equipped with a 21st Century First Responder network for
Southeast Missouri and surrounding areas!
There is another potential Katrina being ignored in this region.
The ShowMe Broadband project
has been designed to
proactively address a potential disaster of catastrophic nature.
LINK
We
have designed our First Responder network with this
potential event in mind, but importantly, our communications
network operations center (NOC), will be strategically
located and designed, to provide emergency communications to
address the needs of other densely population centers within our
community coverage.
The St. Louis Chapter of the American Red Cross,
LINK,
has been using our fixed wireless service for seven years.
We have taken advantage of their expertise in these matters, and
responded with a solid network design to provide an emergency
response plan for Southeast Missouri and surrounding areas.
When
the disaster of Katrina occurred it was fixed wireless that put
the communications back online for the emergency responders.
The recent earthquake in Haiti was no different. Wireless
Internet Service Providers (WISP) answered the call to
duty and assisted in these disasters.
We believe that while it is important to get America back to
work, and expand high speed Internet to rural America, it is
also important that we keep a watchful eye on her children with
their safety in mind!
We are working for
you!
~V~
Semper Fi
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