LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) – Sitting at home or at your desk at work you feel some light shaking. You look to others around you to make sure you actually felt something and eventually realize, there was just an earthquake.
That scenario is not uncommon but when you think of major earthquakes that cause damage, California comes to mind.
The largest earthquake to be felt in Louisville in the past decade was back in 2008 when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake hit in Southern Illinois and it is possible we could have an even stronger earthquake in the near future.
“It pretty much knocked out all the electricity, gas, started fires, building collapse is what they are experiencing right now behind us as you see,” Kevin McCombs, the Public Information Officer for the Indiana District Four Taskforce, said.
This is the aftermath of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, but this is just a training scenario. However, this is the type of quote we could be hearing from Emergency management sometime in the near future.
A few hours’ drive west on the borders of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, sits the New Madrid fault. The fault that is responsible for most of the area's earthquakes.
“One of the largest earthquakes that we have ever had in the continental United States was the 1811-1812 earthquake which occurred in the New Madrid fault area. Through geologic evidence, we have basically tried to back into a time frame of how frequently these size of events should occur and we think it should be about every two to three hundred years,” Tom Rockaway, an Associate Professor at the University of Louisville, said.
It means we could experience this type of earthquake tomorrow or 100 years from now.
Since the last one of this size took place nearly 200 years ago, all we have to go by are journals of the event and hand drawn photos of what the damage looked like.
“That type of damage locally would be catastrophic. Obviously the farther you get away from the source zone, the less damage you would expect,” Rockaway said.
Think of throwing a rock into a pond. The intensity of the Earthquake is how much the water moves, the magnitude would be how far the ripples travel.
It is tough to say the exact impact this type of Earthquake would have on Kentuckiana. The more we learn about earthquakes, the safer buildings become with better architecture.
The State of Indiana is preparing their emergency services teams for a major Earthquake scenario.
“We have a specialized structural collapse team that is coming in accessing the situation, seeing where entry points can be made, and if there is any victims in the structure. They also have some high angle situations going on across the campus where they are rescuing a dummy from on top of tower,” McCombs said.
The damage of a major earthquake would last for days so they treated the training at the Muscatatuck Urban Training center in Jennings County like it was real time.
Going for several days, the teams would be presented with new challenges that they would expect from this kind of disaster. People are starting to become dehydrated. People have been trapped for several days.
“It is important for us to have the local resources work with the state resources and get that opportunity to hammer out the details and make sure everything goes smooth before a real emergency occurs,” Amber Kent, The Public Information Officer for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, said.
If there was a major earthquake, it is likely thousands would be out of power for an extended period of time.
Just like in severe weather situations we urge people to have kits ready in case of an emergency.
Things like hand crank radios and food like granola and protein bars that will not go bad.