New Madrid Earthquake

by Bobby Akart

  For her part, she had no particular plans and had already told her husband she’d be working late. Since her mother-in-law moved into their house, Dr. Lansing had found a myriad of reasons to stay away.

  Her team of computer analysts had completed their preliminary modeling of deformation from the weeklong earthquake swarm. The earth’s shift had been negligible thus far and not enough to warrant an official earthquake warning to be issued through FEMA, according to her boss in Washington.

  Regardless, she had been instructed to carefully monitor data from several seismometers located up and down the Mississippi. She’d been at it nonstop throughout the day. Several of the weary seismologists had volunteered to work late with her to study the data.

  “Let’s look at InSAR first,” she said to the skeleton crew that remained.

  The Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar was the most technologically advanced and effective way to measure changes in land surface altitude. It replaced the agency’s former reliance upon global positioning satellites. InSAR made high-density measurements over large areas by bouncing radar signals from the ground to low-Earth orbiting satellites. The imagery was measured by calculating the time the signals pinged a target point on Earth back to the satellite.

  “Yes, mum,” began the ever-present, loyal Oliver. He made a few keystrokes on his computer and showed the results on a large monitor mounted at the center of the curved wall, where maps, televisions, and a whiteboard flanked it. “We’re looking at a split screen of two monitoring points along the New Madrid fault. One is at the southernmost end of the NMSZ near Millington, Tennessee, just north of Memphis. The other is located near your hometown of Cape Girardeau.”

  “Is this real time?” she asked.

  “No, mum. The imagery is fixed. I compiled it at four o’clock local time.”

  “Oliver, can you provide me a side-by-side comparison with the noon readings?”

  “Yes, mum,” he replied politely. He expanded his computer’s reach to three monitors across the wall. “You didn’t ask, but I’ve included the eight a.m., noon, and four p.m. for your reference.”

  She walked slowly toward the wall of monitors. Her eyes read the data and compared the images from left to right. She didn’t seem to blink as she digested what she saw.

  “Does anyone else see the pattern? The faulting is indisputable.” She paused to point at three particular parts on the images and explained, “The relative displacement, here and here, reflects a dramatic change over the last, um, eight hours.”

  “Yes, mum. The satellite measurements indicate a continuous movement consistent with the New Madrid right-lateral strike-slip fault. Clearly, the fault has moved laterally to the right. The measurements also lead us to the conclusion that shearing forces beneath the surface are forcing the competing plates to move nearly vertical. It’s a classic strike-slip scenario.”

  Dr. Lansing reached behind her head and gathered up her long hair in her right hand. She pulled it into a ponytail and then released it. She repeated the action three times, a habit she’d developed when she was a teen. She was fidgeting, something she often did when deep in thought.

  “Oliver, can you bring up the InSAR data in real time?”

  “Yes, I believe I can,” he replied. It took a moment for him to enter the information, and then, one by one, the screens changed, and the current time, measured in Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, was displayed.

  Friday, December 21 22:40 UTC; 4:40 CST (UTC-6)

  Dr. Lansing focused on the time first out of habit. Then her eyes grew wide as the InSAR measurements were fed from the satellites to their computers.

  “My god!” exclaimed one of the geophysicists who’d been observing from the back of the room.

  Suddenly, those in the operations center who were only marginally paying attention to the interaction between Dr. Lansing and Oliver jumped out of their seats and craned their necks over their cubicles to view the monitors.

  Oliver spoke first. “The surface deformation is extraordinary. This can’t be possible.”

  There were murmurs of disbelief and gasps in amazement.

  “This amount of uplift exceeds Sumatra in ’05,” said one of the geophysicists.

  “Easily. With an uplift like this, how much energy might be traveling up and down the fault?” said another.

  Then every phone in the NEIC in Golden, Colorado, began to ring.

  Dr. Lansing ran her fingers through her hair and turned in a complete circle as the operations center burst into chaos. Tension and energy filled the room. The roar of excited voices and phones ringing was deafening as the New Madrid fault awakened in real time.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled before she spoke in a faint whisper.

  “And so it begins.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Friday, December 21

  Friars Point, Mississippi

  Beth drove up the highway way faster than she wanted to. She’d covered seventy miles in about an hour with her hands gripping the wheel and her ears glued to the local radio stations. It was just past 4:30, and the dark, rainy skies brought sunset early. The wipers beat furiously across the windshield as Beth fought to adjust her vision to the night.

  Her trip northbound on Highway 1 was desolate. No cars were headed south as the word spread up and down the Mississippi of the extraordinary flooding and the unexplainable rising waters inland. The reports began to repeat themselves, so Beth switched back to SiriusXM for a while.

  However, as darkness set in, and Anthony fell asleep in his car seat, she elected to direct all of her senses to the task at hand, which was to make her way to Friars Point, where her GPS directed her to turn west toward U.S. Highway 61, better known as the Blues Highway. It rivaled Route 66 as the most famous road in American music folklore.

  Water sprayed up from the pavement and caused a steady roar in her wheel wells. From time to time, she’d have to let off the gas as she hit an unexpected stretch of road where an inch or more of water had crossed from one field to another.

  The robotic female GPS guide interrupted her thoughts. “In a quarter mile, turn right on Friars Point Road. Continue on for six-point-five miles.”

  “Right. Left. Right. Left,” mumbled Beth as she rolled her head back and forth on her shoulders like a metronome. She loved the back roads, and this was a route she’d taken before when coming to visit Jill. Ordinarily, there was something peaceful about driving through flyover country, as rural America was often referred to. It was a reminder that the world didn’t revolve around places like New York, Chicago, LA and DC.

  She checked her mirrors and slowed to make the turn, easing into it so Anthony wasn’t jostled. After she completed the turn, the steering wheel shuddered in her hands. She glanced down at her speedometer. She recalled that sometimes tires get out of balance at a certain speed, causing the steering wheel to shake.

  Beth sped up to forty-five, but the shaking continued.

  Now she was genuinely concerned she might have a tire going down. When she’d driven another mile and there was no change in the vibration at any speed, she thought it best to get out and look before she got stuck on the main highway in traffic. The last thing she needed was a tire blowing out.

  Beth quickly stopped and exhaled. She slowly released her firm grasp of the steering wheel before she reached into the back seat to retrieve her zip-up half-length raincoat. She wrestled it on and pulled the hood over her head. Zipping it up wasn’t an option thanks to the bun in the oven.

  Anthony was awake, and Beth explained she needed to step outside the car to look at their tires. He became slightly agitated, so she promised to hurry.

  Through all the rustling around with her raincoat and the attention focused on Anthony, Beth discovered as she opened the car door that the problem wasn’t out-of-balance or damaged tires. The ground was quivering and shaking ever so slightly, enough for her to recoil and quickly pull the door closed.

  The earth began to move
with a little more force, causing her car to jump slightly on the asphalt road. Anthony was amused by this, raising his arms up and down as each seismic wave passed under them.

  “An earthquake? Seriously?” She shook her head in disbelief and subconsciously wrapped her arms around the unborn baby to comfort her.

  Beth started the engine and scanned the AM radio in search of a station. There was a lot of static, but none were broadcasting. Puzzled, she reached for the dashboard to switch from radio back to SiriusXM.

  Without warning, her car spun sideways. She frantically looked in all directions to see if she’d been struck by something. She shifted uncomfortably behind the steering wheel as her vehicle turned at a ninety-degree angle to the road. Through the windows, she could see streaks of light shooting up out of the ground like the orangish-blue flames of a gas lantern. Above the flames, bright orbs floated skyward until they disappeared into the rain and darkness.

  Then pockets of water shot upward near her, joining the light show as if it were a Las Vegas casino attempting to lure gamblers inside. Beth was witnessing sand boils created by underwater pressure wells aggravated by the earthquake. As liquefaction occurred at the shallow depths from the quake, the ground settled and small pits opened up, forcing water from the underground aquifer upward.

  Beth started the car and forcefully put it into drive. She turned the steering wheel to the right and pressed her foot down hard on the pedal. The front-wheel drive caught the pavement, and the crossover lurched toward the right onto the road again.

  Relieved, she wasted no time in continuing east on Friars Bend Road toward the highway. Her eyes darted all around, checking her mirrors and Anthony. Her palms were sweaty, causing her to take one hand off the wheel at a time to wipe them on her jeans. With the nervous distractions, she lost her focus. She’d barely traveled a mile when her car hydroplaned, spun out, and came to an abrupt stop bumper deep in a soggy cotton field.

  Beth closed her eyes to fight back the tears. She wanted so badly to break down and cry. She wiped away the few tears that escaped her eyes and used her jacket sleeve to stifle her sniffles. She checked to make sure Anthony was okay, and then she rolled down her driver’s side window to see how bad the car had plunged into the mud.

  The car was half-a-wheel deep in the soggy ground and standing water. Hopelessly stuck. As in, it would take a farm tractor to tow her out.

  Now her emotions turned to anger. She slapped the steering wheel several times and bounced the back of her head off the headrest. She silently cursed her husband for not being there when she needed him. She chastised herself for losing her focus moments ago.

  Then she turned to her cell phone to call for help.

  She dialed nine-one-one and waited. She nervously looked through all her windows. The ground had stopped shaking, and the mysterious lights had disappeared from her view.

  Beth furrowed her brow and looked at the display on her cell phone when her call hadn’t been connected.

  No service.

  “Jeez, really?”

  The rain was coming down, and her headlights no longer illuminated her surroundings like they had a few moments ago. She rolled down her window again and stuck her head out to get a better look at the ground. The car had sunk to the point where the mud was close to the doorframe.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” She pounded the steering wheel again as her mind raced to make a decision.

  “Okay, Elizabeth Harrison Chandler. You’re not gonna sink. This is not quicksand.”

  She tried to convince herself that the wise course of action was to stay put until morning. By then, hopefully, the rain would’ve stopped, and surely cell service would be restored at some point.

  Then the car lurched to the right, sending the passenger side deeper into the mud. She recalled the words of the sheriff. Unexplained. Springs. Groundwater. Lakes showing up out of nowhere.

  Beth had to do something. She couldn’t allow them to be swallowed by a sinkhole or drowned by the rising river. She flung open the driver’s door and slid out of her seat until her feet sank into the muddy ground. At first, she had trouble picking up one foot after another to move. She thought if she could just get them back to the road, walking would be much easier, and they could flag down a passing car.

  She opened the rear door and slid into the back seat next to her son.

  “Honey, we’re gonna have to walk in the rain. You like that, right?”

  “Rain! Rain! Falling on my head!”

  One of his favorite songs was an old classic Beth had played for him as an infant—“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” written in the sixties. She hadn’t played it in over a year, a testament to her son’s ability to learn and retain information, only to be brought out when it suited him.

  She squeezed her body sideways and reached behind the seat to grab Anthony’s jacket. She removed him from the car seat and worked with him to get dressed. He struggled with her at first, as he insisted on doing it himself.

  “Young man, now is not the time to assert your independence,” she grumbled as she helped him with his coat.

  She retrieved her crossbody bag from the front seat and pulled the strap over her head. As she did, she began to feel moisture around her feet. The water was oozing into the car.

  She turned to Anthony. “Okay, buddy. It’s time for a walk in the rain.”

  His response brought a smile to her face. “Falling on my head!”

  She slid out of the car and immediately was submerged in the mud halfway up her calf. Anthony was sitting on the edge of his seat, reaching his arms out to her for an assist onto the ground. He weighed nearly thirty pounds and was off-limits for Beth to carry due to her pregnancy.

  She did it anyway. She positioned his arms around her neck and shoulder. He wrapped his legs around her back so his feet dangled just below her belly. She set her jaw and trudged through the muck. By the time she found the roadbed and stepped up into the twelve-inch-deep floodwaters, she’d lost both shoes and her mental toughness.

  Beth Chandler looked into the rain-soaked sky and began to cry floods of tears.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Friday, December 21

  Downtown Memphis, Tennessee

  It all happened in a matter of seconds. Jill was violently knocked off her feet. The thrust of the earth heaving upward sent her airborne for a moment before dropping her flat on her back. Then, throughout downtown Memphis, car alarms roared their disapproval. Screams filled the air. The sounds of music emanating from the bars along Beale Street were silenced, displaced by a loud rumbling growl resembling a locomotive roaring through the throngs of partiers.

  The impact stunned her and momentarily knocked the breath out of her. Jill’s mind was in an incoherent daze. Her first assumption was that a terrorist bomb had been detonated nearby. When the shaking of the parking structure continued, she knew it was an earthquake.

  She rolled over and over again to avoid the cars bouncing up and down on their tires. She tried to gain her footing, but the wet surface was slippery, and the ground shaking the parking garage made it difficult.

  She crawled back to the half wall where she’d stood a moment ago reminiscing about the Peabody Hotel. Just as she pulled herself on to her feet, glass began to break out of the windows of the adjacent skyscraper. 100 Peabody Place, which housed Bank of America, swayed ever so slightly, just enough for the window frames to buckle, causing the glass to shatter. A minute after the quake had hit, pieces of glass, large and small, joined the rain as they sailed to the ground.

  Jill pulled her half jacket over her head to avoid the deluge. She rushed to the far side of the garage, as far away from the building as she could. She dropped to her knees to use a four-door sedan as a shield from the glass while being mindful that the continuous hopping of the vehicles could result in her getting crushed against the wall.

  She began to panic as she thought of the kids alone in the Halloran. She reached into her pocket to retrieve her phone.
The moisture from the rain, coupled with the constant jarring of her body by the earthquake, caused her to drop her phone repeatedly. Frustrated, she held it down on the wet concrete and tried to dial Tate’s number.

  It never rang. The phone didn’t register any signal at all. In the first thirty seconds of the quake, the cell towers and most emergency communications towers had been destroyed.

  The falling glass had taken a brief respite, so Jill decided to run for the down ramp of the garage, located near the center of the parking structure. She pulled herself up by the sedan’s door handle and steadied her footing. She bravely rounded the rear bumper and began to race toward the ramp when a series of loud explosions rocked downtown, coupled with a groaning, creaking sound.

  Then, from half a mile away, she could hear the enormous series of splashes into the Mississippi. The Hernando de Soto Bridge, which connected I-40 from Tennessee into Arkansas, was falling apart despite a $260 million retrofit. It was a momentary, epic struggle titled Quake v. Concrete and Steel—two behemoths wrestling for supremacy over Old Man River. Quake emerged victorious.

  However, that was just the beginning.

  Jill held onto a pickup truck bed to stay upright. The Doubletree Hotel, located two blocks northeast of her across from the ServiceMaster headquarters, started to teeter and eventually fell over onto B.B. King Boulevard. The Holiday Inn across Union Avenue tipped over as well, crashing into the building where world-famous Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous restaurant was located.

  Jill became emotional as she watched the disaster unfold. It was the total destruction of the Peabody that started her tears flowing. The downtown had been shaking violently for nearly eight minutes. The older buildings were beginning to lose their structural integrity. The hundred-year-old Peabody Hotel was no match for the New Madrid earthquake.