“If history is any guide, a major earthquake in Southeast Missouri is just a matter of time.  Scientists are hard at work measuring and mapping the seismic activity in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, and we can help, too.

A reporting tool called “Did You Feel It?” lets citizens report the earthquakes they experience when the earth moves under their feet.  By logging in information about the location and severity of the shaking, reports from private citizens help experts at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shape their understanding of seismic events.

In Southern Missouri, most of those earthquakes are small tremors, but even little quakes are significant in value to the scientists at the USGS.  In fact, the aggregate data from the “Did You Feel It?” website has begun to resemble the national earthquake hazard map. 

Whenever the USGS records a seismic event, in locations all over the world, they post the data on their Internet site.  Visitors to the online Earthquake Center can view the time of the earthquake, its intensity, exact latitude and longitude, and a list of nearby communities in which residents might have felt the tremors.  Then, observers of the earthquake can answer the question, “Did You Feel It?”

Every week, a few tremors from Southern Missouri show up on the USGS map of the central United States.  Generally between 1.0 and 3.0 in range on the Richter Scale, the energy from these earthquakes doesn’t travel very far, but it does register on the sophisticated sensors used by the USGS.  It may also register with us, since there is always the possibility of a small earthquake occurring right beneath our feet.

That possibility should point to another concern – a major earthquake may not be as likely or as frequent as the small ones, but one is still highly possible in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.  Experts predict a seven to ten percent probability we will experience a major seismic event, greater than 8.0, in the next 50 years.  As these measurements go, this prediction is actually quite high.

The last time Southern Missouri experienced an earthquake of this magnitude, the responses to the USGS’s “Did You Feel It” website would have stretched from South Carolina all the way up to Boston.  Of course, there was no Internet then, and neither were there many inhabitants to the west of Missouri to report the shaking. 

With modern technologies to record earthquakes, however, come modern technologies to prepare.  We should be taking full advantage of the opportunity to get ready for the potential disaster by assessing the needs of our federal, state and local first responders and by making sure they have interoperable communications equipment in place to respond to the widespread, dangerous situation an earthquake would present.

To prepare for this type of natural disaster at home, make certain the preparations your family has made for a tornado also cover the necessities following an earthquake: bottled water, canned goods, battery-operated flashlights and radios, and a basic first aid kit.  Little earthquakes are interesting, to be sure, but the Big One promises to do more than simply make us shake in our boots.

Learn more about the USGS Earthquake Center online at: earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter.”