New Madrid Fault Map

When You've Got Those First-24-Hour Blues

A traveler arrives in London , jet-lagged, throws his bags down in the hotel in Islington and sets out to meet a friend at Kings College, which Google Maps says is a 30-minute walk away. A half-hour later he’s lost and caught in pouring rain. Forty-five minutes later he’s wandering Fleet Street with a cheap umbrella in hand. An hour and a Tube ride later, this soaked and stressed shadow of his former self gives his impatient friend a hug.

A few months later he arrives in Lebanon from Cyprus, and hops a bus to a bed-and-breakfast in Byblos. But he’s let off at the wrong exit and finds himself on the side of a broiling highway, still in his air-conditioning-ready plane clothes, rolling his suitcase over the potholed, littered shoulder and wondering how he is supposed to find the bed-and-breakfast spot he has reserved. (He finally figures out that his Cyprus SIM card has enough credit to send a message to his host, who picks him up.)

For any traveler, the first day in a strange place can be stressful. Just like everyone else, I suffer regularly from what I call 24-TDD: 24-hour Temporary Distress and Disorientation. In layman’s terms: the first day in almost every new place usually stinks. You arrive and think you’ve made a terrible mistake: it’s too touristy, it’s not touristy enough, it’s boring, it’s ugly, you didn’t do enough research, your research is terrible. You’re tired, lost, hungry, cold (or hot), feeling woozy.

This applies even to me, an alleged travel expert — and the victim in the sob stories above. It’s supposed to go like this: I arrive at my destination without a bead of sweat on my forehead, toss my bags down in my what-a-steal rustically charming hotel, and minutes later have found a secret charming corner of town where I can eat or drink or shop as I shoot the breeze with charming proprietors and the local old men sitting around full of bons mots to start my story.

Occasionally, something like this actually happens, though mostly in small, unintimidating places, and then only when my initial intelligence turns out to be, you know, intelligent. Like in Zacatecas, Mexico , last summer, when I arrived with a bead on a cheap, fantastic hotel , made friends instantly and was off to a locals-only concert within hours.

That’s rare. And I’ve come to realize it’s mostly not my fault when 24-TDD sets in. It’s a traveler’s phenomenon, exacerbated by a low budget and magnified by being alone. That overnight bus or multiconnection flight may save a few bucks but it leaves you cranky. Then add a foreign language, unfamiliar streets and a noncentral hotel, where the only place a concierge can be found is in the French dictionary a backpacker left behind. Misery loves company, but I’m long on the first and short on the second.

Rivers runs backwards – New Madrid Fault | Guide to kids art ...

I’m well aware that hard-core disaster preachers will most likely say I have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s fine & doesn’t bother me the slightest, since nothing in the universe is able to change their minds but THEM. I don’t do the psychic-disaster-prediction-preachers thing, the reason I laughed at Camping (think that’s his name anyway) & his recent revelation. But I don’t condone people potentially spreading panic, who’ve actually done little REAL research on what they are claiming.

Those small quakes in NC Arkansas are getting MORE numerous, but not really any larger. So the “safety fuse” is working well, constantly siphoning off what the NM needs for a truly devastating quake like in 1811. With the GOOD info I helped gather & publish in those 3 years, I feel very safe in saying the NM simply does not have the capability, in PRESENT condition, to do much at all. When the little quakes stop, that means the “safety fuse” is no longer working. THEN you need to start worrying.

Will the NM shake again? Most certainly …. and it’s about time for it. But will the NM ever shake anywhere close to how it did in 1811? No one actually knows, but 3 years of very detailed study, consulting some of the leading geologists in the world at that time, says with a high degree of surety …. NO. The other SW fault will need to shut down for several decades to allow the NM to store up enough energy for anything more than a medium intensity quake. And the exact OPPOSITE is happening.

This means 2 things for the New Madrid, both connected. The first is that a great deal of the NM’s accumulated energy is now being expended through the numerous & constant small quakes on this more western fault. And that contributes to the 2nd part, which is the NM is simply not able to build up the huge amount of stored energy it had before the 1811 quake. It quite literally shook itself apart then, allowing energy to constantly bleed off through smaller quakes to the west.

The very first person will be a Master Sergeant. That was I, just to prove I’m not making this sh!t up. I’m NOT going to post my name here however, because, well, this is the internet. But onto the main point here. That little event that occured in 1811 was that the New Madrid quake was so strong, it woke up an even older fault running SW from about Cairo, Ill., SW to the very eastern limits of the Ouachita Mtns. THAT is the fault which is doing the shaking around Conway & Vilonia now.

The New Madrid fault finders guide

Damages & losses from future New Madrid earthquakes, a Central U.S. Earthquake Intensity Scale for pre-earthquake planning "CUSEIS"

Effects of Earthquakes in the Central United States

Continental intraplate earthquakes, science, hazard, and policy issues

Earthquakes