Tuesday, February 07, 2012
 
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Lincoln students to model earthquake preparedness dril today

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[February 07, 2012]  Classes at Washington-Monroe will have guests today when local and state officials visit to conduct earthquake drills for the Great Central U.S ShakeOut. Each class will begin the activity at precisely 10:15 a.m. The time was chosen to allow the monthly severe weather warning sirens to sound at their appointed time of 10 a.m.

The mantra for earthquake drills is "Drop, Cover, and Hold On." Students will practice dropping to the floor, crawling under their desks for cover and holding on to the legs or frame that can protect them from falling debris. Repetitive activity will reinforce the steps for reacting to an earthquake, just as repeated fire and tornado drills teach students the steps to take if those disasters occur.

"The first Thursday in February has been designated as Earthquake Preparedness Day, and this will become as familiar to the students as the tornado and fire preparedness drills," said Dan Fulscher, Logan County E911 and emergency services director.

"Alana (Sorrentino) has worked diligently to organize this event. She has worked closely with the schools, and especially with the regional superintendent, Jean Anderson, who is a big supporter of this program," Fulscher said.

"Alana contacted all 17 schools in the county and 15 are participating on Tuesday," Fulscher continued. "We are thrilled that those schools are going to run the drill and will be better prepared when they need to react to the real thing."

Sorrentino is the hazmat specialist with the Logan County Emergency Management Agency office and took on the earthquake preparedness project as a related activity. She contacted Sysco and Eaton, schools, colleges, Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, and established an email contact list to update participants on the procedure.

To launch the activities today, Sorrentino will announce on Washington-Monroe's public address system that the drill has begun. The classrooms will then begin the practice drill and listen to the officials from Logan County and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. After the drill, students will attend an assembly in the gym, where they will receive additional information and be asked for input about their experience.

Logan County was chosen to be the featured site because of the emergency management staff's reputation for taking a project seriously and following it to the end.

"Patty Thompson, IEMA's public information officer, recommended Logan County," Fulscher said. "She told me that she knew if my staff was asked to take this project, they would do it with enthusiasm and completely. That is something, to be known as an efficient and enthusiastic team by a state office."

In reference to the importance of learning the drill for earthquake preparedness, Fulscher said this about practicing and understanding the possibility of an occurrence: "In the emergency management world, the word is not 'if,' but 'when' will an earthquake happen. We can't wait until afterward and say we should have prepared. We need to do it now, before it's too late. The results may not be preventable, but we can save people and diminish the human casualties of a disaster."

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When what is considered the New Madrid earthquake occurred, there was actually a series of quakes over three months. The first came at approximately 2 o'clock in the morning on Dec. 16, 1811. A second major quake hit on Jan. 23, 1812. The final and most severe earthquake in the trio came on Feb. 7, 1812.

Evaluating the information on the damage the quake caused and other factors, seismologists from the United States Geological Survey estimate the earthquake measured right around magnitude 7 on the Richter scale.

Tremors were felt as far north as Quebec, Canada; as far south as the Gulf of Mexico; as far east as the Atlantic coast. Experiences were reported by the few inhabitants of the countryside, and newspapers that received reports repeated horror stories about people and animals disappearing into openings in the earth. The Mississippi River reversed direction, and deep fissures tore open and scarred the land. The sparse population kept casualties to a minimum, but today that would not be the case.

During this quake, log cabin structures weathered the shaking, but stone and masonry buildings cracked and were subject to damage. Today there are no log cabins and almost more people along the New Madrid fault than lived in the entire nation in 1811.

Results will be different the next time, and while there is no way to prevent an earthquake, it will save lives and initiate a more organized recovery if the public is informed and aware; because as Fulscher said, it isn't a matter of "if," but "when" it will happen.

[By MARLA BLAIR]

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