Midcontinent Earthquakes Scenario'd

The Mid-America Earthquake Center just finished a large exercise assessing what would happen if a magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck the New Madrid fault zone. The report is available from the center here. Scientists are still arguing how likely such an event is today, but long-term planners need these reports, and so do the eternally vigilant people who perform emergency response. Ordinary citizens, please ignore headlines like "Major earthquake looming to strike Southern and Midwestern U.S."—this isn't what the report is about. It does occur to me, though, that when the next administration sends out a flood of money to fund infrastructure work, all of us might look to reports like this. Maybe really long-term problems like disaster preparedness can benefit at the same time as the construction-related work force.

The Mid-America Earthquake Center is one of three major federally funded centers of earthquake engineering.