by Bobby Akart
She’d spent countless hours in the library, studying old accounts of the 1811 to 1812 earthquake swarm that rocked the region and much of the Eastern United States. As she got older, her fascination with the NMSZ and geology in general led her to a career path as a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. Now she was the director of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, commonly referred to as the NEIC.
It was almost her turn to speak, so she sat up in her chair and glanced at her notes, not that she needed them. Dr. Lansing was passionate about her work. She was not shy about public speaking and fashioned herself a bit of a storyteller. Unlike loss-mitigation specialists or structural engineers extolling the virtues of constructing buildings to achieve vertical stiffness while allowing for counter-directional forces, she got to tell them about the drama unfolding beneath our planet’s surface.
She helped the attendees understand why the pressure builds and what causes it to release. She left them with the warning that earthquakes can happen anytime, without warning, with deadly consequences. It was never her intention to scare the wits out of people but, rather, to scare the wits into them. To raise their awareness to the sleeping threat that could change the topography of America in an instant.
After introducing herself, she drew in her audience by helping them visualize what was going on underneath their seats. As she spoke, she couldn’t help but notice the attendees look down from time to time, wondering if the heinous beast lurking beneath the ground was stirring. She oftentimes wondered that herself.
“Every year, fifty thousand earthquakes are noticed by people without the need for seismic instruments. The ground shudders, swells, and stretches, leading to a massive tweet-storm that reads something like did you feel it?
“Social media junkies flock to Facebook and mark themselves safe from the earthquake in X or Y location. Friends commiserate back and forth about how the wine in their glass rippled or Aunt Bessie’s vase fell off the mantel. What they really should’ve been thinking about is what is going on around our planet’s mantle.
“Over two hundred years ago on this date, at around two o’clock in the morning, the first of three major earthquakes rocked the New Madrid Seismic Zone. An immeasurable pressure had been building along an ancient plate boundary. Born out of frustration, and feeling underappreciated, the New Madrid fault announced itself with a vengeance.
“You see, five hundred million years ago, the North American Plate tried to form a plate boundary along the center of the continent, running from north to south. The struggle during these formative years was intense, but the splitting stopped before the new plates could be formed. What we have beneath us are the remnants of this struggle in which the North American Plate is still settling down. In other words, a seismic event that began five hundred million years ago is still in the process of resolving itself. There remains a jagged scar buried below the surface, evidencing this epic struggle. And it’s never healed.”
She adjusted the wireless microphone attached to her headset and abandoned the podium, much to the dismay of the event coordinator. Dr. Lansing was in the zone, and she wandered along the front of the elevated stage so she could make eye contact with the attendees as she told the story.
“So imagine, if you will, that it’s the early morning hours of December 16, 1811. Very few people lived up and down the Mississippi River. The United States had just purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. Our war with Britain in 1812 was brewing but not yet underway. The only means of navigation were canoes, flatboats, and rafts that were one-way in nature, as in downstream only toward the Port of New Orleans.
“Underground, the North American Plate, at this ancient boundary, began to disintegrate in part. The vertical shelves that butted up against one another moved. Not much. Maybe half an inch. However, it was enough for the rock along the boundary to disintegrate.
“The centuries-long stalemate beneath the planet’s surface had a change in dynamic. One side of the plate saw an opportunity, an opening, so to speak, to exert pressure on this primeval crack. It forced its will upon its opponent, and the vertical shelves became snagged on one another. As one snag became weaker than the other, one side shifted upward just below the surface of the earth.
“The scrum continued until it held for a minute or so. Then the incredible strength of the always-moving earth pushed again. This time, the snag became an ever-widening crack below the surface, and the first earthquake rocked the region.”
Dr. Lansing stopped her casual stroll back and forth across the stage. With a pensive look on her face, she touched her fingers to her forehead and focused on several educators sitting along the front row.
“Remember, it’s 1811. Google didn’t exist back then. We have to look at the historical record of this event as told by residents in their correspondence and journalists in their newspapers. Obviously, we can only estimate how powerful this series of earthquakes was. Earth-shaking fissures opened up along the fault that were felt far and wide. Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia. It was felt at the White House, as we know from a letter sent to Thomas Jefferson by our fourth president, James Madison. Even Dolly Madison, his wife, shared accounts of the quake.
“During the third massive quake in February of 1812, vast swaths of land sank while other areas were lifted. Landslides occurred. New lakes, like Reelfoot in West Tennessee, were created. For a brief time, those who relied upon the Mississippi River to deliver goods to the Port of New Orleans found themselves facing the unthinkable. A fluvial tsunami forced the river to run backwards the day of the third earthquake.
“Here’s the thing. As geophysicists and those who make a living based on our field of study, we recognize a major event like the 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes as a mere geologic blink of the eye. Yet the quakes reshaped Earth’s surface. And it had happened before, based upon our sediment study, including major upheavals in 2350 BC, AD 30, AD 900, and AD 1450.”
Dr. Lansing paused to catch her breath. It was time to introduce her theory.
“It’s natural for those in government whom I have to answer to, or even representatives of the insurance industry, to ask—when will the next big one strike the NMSZ? I believe I’ve identified a mathematical pattern called the Devil’s Staircase.”
A murmur went through the crowd as she introduced her designation for her findings. Dr. Lansing wasn’t sure if the audience thought she was serious or leading them into a joke of some kind. She got right to the point.
“In conjunction with quake activity, I have been able to identify a mathematical pattern where clusters of large shallow earthquake events were separated by long, somewhat irregular period of seismic inactivity. Heretofore, geophysicists focused their study on the classical seismic modeling that suggested quake activity would occur quasi-periodically based on cycles of buildup followed by the release of tectonic stress.
“In regions like the Ring of Fire, for example, large earthquake sequences, those with a magnitude six or greater, are characterized by a clustering of quake activity in bursts. This is a near-certain predictor of a much greater earthquake event to follow.
“In my study of the NMSZ, the irregular gap between event bursts shows how difficult it is to predict the next major quake event. The Devil’s Staircase pattern, as I call it, can be applied to recent large earthquake events in Australia, the plate boundary off the coast of western Algeria, and more recently, at the Dead Sea Transform fault west of the Golan Heights that many labeled as biblical in nature.
“The fact is that these quake events show a pattern of stress transfer between fault segments near identical to the New Madrid fault. What I am suggesting is this. In the United States, most of the public awareness of the devastating impacts of earthquakes is focused on the faults running along our West Coast. Those faults, frankly, are far more predictable than the NMSZ. As a result, warnings can be issued with relative accuracy and in a somewhat timely
manner.
“In the case of a fault line like New Madrid, we have what’s commonly referred to as a high-impact, low-probability event. An analysis of the Devil’s Staircase pattern, which I continue to expand upon, indicates a massive New Madrid earthquake is not as low probability as most contend. In fact, it is a relative certainty based upon the patterns, and most likely will occur in our lifetimes.”
Part I
Living at the Edge
We live our lives. Work. Love. Play. You never know the day before a catastrophe strikes that it was, in fact, the day before. If you did, you’d prepare your mind, alter your way of life, and even get right with your maker. However, we don’t do that. We live on the edge of an unforeseen, unpredictable catastrophe that could be the end of the world as we know it, blissfully unaware of the consequences of our inaction.
And then, one day, the universe says let’s shake things up a bit.
Chapter One
Monday, December 17
St. Louis, Missouri
Jack Atwood had led a charmed life. He was a small-town boy, growing up near Dyersburg, Tennessee, just eighty miles north of Memphis and a dozen miles east of the Mighty Mississippi River. He’d had his share of good luck growing up. He’d been labeled reckless by his parents and a miscreant by his schoolteachers. Then, suddenly, all that changed.
They say cheating death can have a profound effect on a man’s soul. Well, it certainly changed Jack. He was a senior in high school when his parents gave him the green light to embark on his first spring break trip with his friends. Like so many his age, they loaded up their cars, stopped by the Short Stop on the way out of town to lie their way towards the purchase of several cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and drove nonstop to Fort Liquordale—Fort Lauderdale, for those who’ve never experienced spring break in the Florida coastal city.
His best friend’s car was far too powerful for him, or anyone else for that matter. The fire-engine red Chevy Camaro boasted five hundred forty horsepower, way too much power for a teenager.
“This thing will run right out from under ya,” his best friend proudly claimed when he first took Jack for a spin. And spin, they did.
Their spring break trip to Fort Liquordale was filled with wine, women, and song. The party never ended until the kids passed out or got arrested. The next day, they sought out the hair of the dog and started all over again.
On the third day of their weeklong drunkfest, Jack’s life changed. After about a fifth of Jim Beam being consumed between the two of them, they decided to roar down A1A along the beach, letting the horses run, as Jack’s buddy said. The hundred-mile-an-hour joyride didn’t go unnoticed by two motorcycle officers, who’d been writing a ticket to another spring breaker for public nudity.
They immediately gave chase, and the Camaro responded. Weaving in and out of traffic, they tried to evade their pursuers and were easily pulling away. That was when the boys realized you can’t outrun a radio, as they say.
A roadblock appeared ahead, thwarting their escape and access to the causeway. “I’ve got this, bro!” his friend exclaimed as he gripped the wheel and slammed on the brakes. The rear end of the Camaro slid sideways as he cut the wheel, an expert maneuver he couldn’t reproduce if he tried to replicate it a thousand times while sober. He punched the gas and roared down a side street toward the intracoastal waterway.
Until he ran out of road.
Jack gripped the dashboard and closed his eyes as he braced for impact with the guardrail. His mind raced as he hoped for the best result— the muscle car floating on top of the water long enough for them to swim to safety or be rescued. His mind drifted away, recalling the common myth among teenagers to allow your body to go limp during a wreck to ensure your survival.
The next few seconds could only be described as surreal. It would be many years before Jack repeated his vision to anyone. Just above the hood, floating peacefully throughout the ordeal, Jack saw what he’d inwardly refer to as butterfly people. They weren’t butterflies per se, nor would he recall them as angels as might be depicted on television or in books. They were an indescribable presence that provided him a sense of comfort. Defying any scientific explanation, he focused on the two who stayed with the car as it whipped to the left and to the left again. Mentally, he felt protected. His body, however, suffered somewhat.
The tires screeched, and he was thrown against the passenger door, cracking open his head against the glass. The centrifugal force exerted so much pressure on him that his body was forced against the side of the Camaro in an effort to throw the locked door open.
Then he was tossed back toward the center console with such a kick that his eyes were forced open just as his head crashed into the windshield. Seconds later, the car was surrounded by Fort Lauderdale’s finest with their weapons drawn. And the butterfly people were gone.
Jack’s buddy had accomplished the impossible. He’d managed to control the Camaro through a hairpin turn under the bridge. Perhaps with a little help, Jack later surmised.
Initially, he didn’t look at the incident as if his life had been saved. In his mind, he’d almost been killed and vowed to never put himself in that position again. As he grew older and replayed the event in his mind, he became convinced the butterfly people played a role in his safety.
The near-death experience, coupled with the presence of the butterfly people, turned his life around. The hospitalization. The arrest. The lecture from his family. All contributed to a real game-changer in Jack Atwood’s life, one he’d never take for granted.
He stopped and gazed upward, taking in the six-hundred-thirty-foot-high Gateway Arch. The structure’s stainless-steel surface reflected the last vestiges of daylight as the sun set over the St. Louis skyline.
“I can’t believe we’ve never done this.” Tony Chandler, his brother-in-law and junior partner in his financial planning practice, interrupted Jack’s thoughts. “Naturally, I’d rather be throwing down some oysters and chasin’ them with the coldest beer Anheuser-Busch has to offer.”
Jack shook his head. He always had his hands full when he and Tony traveled alone to conduct financial planning seminars. Despite the fact he was married to Jack’s wife’s much younger sister, who happened to be seven months pregnant together with being saddled with the challenges of raising a three-year-old son, Tony couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of adulthood and responsibility.
After their second group of seminars in Chicago a year ago, when Jack busted his brother-in-law slipping his wedding band into his pocket while out drinking one night, he curtailed their social activities the best he could. He’d taken to visiting points of interest while they were away from home, like the Gateway Arch.
“Yeah, let’s do this,” said Jack, although he’d rather be settled in their corporate apartment in downtown St. Louis. After Beth and Tony had their first child, he’d promised his wife to take his brother-in-law under his wing to help him mature. On a business level, Tony was perfect for the firm. On a personal level, he was a handful.
The two men exited their car and were immediately hit with a blast of cold, damp wind. The temperatures had suddenly fallen, and a cold mist had overtaken the city as the afternoon wore on. Jack had watched the weather system that crossed the middle part of the U.S. He hoped the snow would hold off so he wouldn’t have to cancel the seminar. This was the last of five he’d been conducting in the cities where his offices were located up and down the Mississippi River.
St. Louis was one of his best producing offices, as it drew prospects from Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and Missouri. The cost and logistics of planning this seminar, especially prior to Christmas, were daunting. It was also necessary, as his prospective clients had just a couple of weeks to undertake last minute tax planning before year end.
The guys entered the attraction through the west entrance, and Jack ponied up the $26 fee to take a tour, including a ride to the top of the Gateway Arch. They boarded the tram that would take them upward along the famo
us monument along with three other passengers. At six feet four, Jack was slightly claustrophobic during the small tram ride. The ride was only four minutes to the apex, where the observation deck, a gift shop, and a museum were located.
For his part, Tony was enthusiastic. Or, perhaps, Jack thought, it was the attractive young woman who acted as their tour guide. Within seconds of their ascent to the top and the observation deck, Tony had abandoned Jack’s side and snuggled up to the tour guide to become her number one sightseer.
Once they exited, the group eagerly followed the young woman, who pointed out the sights as she explained the history of the Arch. Jack took extra effort to locate One Metropolitan Square, where his offices were located and the location of their four seminars that week. From there, he got his bearings to view the St. Louis area and took in the gorgeous sunset.
The tour guide began to take questions, when Jack’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. A smile broke out across his face, and his heart leapt. After ten years of marriage, the mere sight of his wife’s picture and name on his phone screen still gave him butterflies in his stomach.
Chapter Two
Monday, December 17
Gateway Arch
St. Louis, Missouri
“I miss my handsome husband,” Jill Atwood said sexily into the phone before Jack could say hello. “And, lest I forget, suave and debonair, too.”
Jack laughed as he stopped following the tour group. He turned away to whisper to his wife, “Well, maybe I should’ve stayed home. ’Tis the season to get lucky, you know.”