Knowledge and Prep Are Key      
           
   No, we're not talking hurricanes, destruction from above.

   Our St. Louis daughter, a Salvation Army volunteer, will attend training for the big one - destruction from below. Knowledge and preparation are key.

   You may have heard of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (also called fault line). Scientists give a 10 percent likelihood of a magnitude 7 to 8 earthquake occurring within this 50-year window. 

   Consider: greater than $200 billion in damage, $70 billion in economic losses, 87,000 buildings destroyed in eight states, and 730,000 displaced people. 

   That's a lot of food truck deliveries ... or will it take boats and helicopters?

   The fault line begins at Cairo, Illinois. Oops! That's where the big Ohio merges into the mighty Mississippi, south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. 

   It happened four times in late 1811 and early 1812, with the town of New Madrid, 42 miles southwest of Cairo, at the epicenter. Movement in the earth's crust, 3 to 15 miles deep, produced some of the largest quakes in U.S. history, estimated at mag 7.0 or greater. Ground shook in Washington, DC, Richmond, VA and Charleston, SC - on the Atlantic coast! 

   Cairo is close to parts of Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee, and the fault line reaches into Oklahoma and Mississippi. 

   Missouri, including St. Louis well north of Cairo, has small quakes nearly every day.

   Hey, dainty daughter. Are you up for this? 
 

Now consider: If the fault line goes 

/-_\*|~<~/v__|>\zZz 

will the town of New Madrid, pop. 2,957, be at fault?

       Jimmy

TOMORROW: Good God and his provoking planet