NAME:
BEAU 
Location:  Paducah, KY
 
 
 

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Beau's Weather Photography
 

Beau's Tower Cam

 

 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 

  

 
 

June 2007
 
 

June 19, 2007 
 

7.7 EARTHQUAKE STRIKES THE
NEW MADRID FAULT
 

REGIONAL EARTHQUAKE DRILL
 

UNIMAGINABLE CATASTROPHE
 
All communications are down...area is cut off from all outside resources for days - some areas for weeks.  Complete loss of transportation system - all of our bridges are damaged or destroyed.  Roads have buckled.  Most brick buildings have failed.  Large chemical spills.  Death toll in the thousands.  Many residents camping out in open areas - fearful to enter buildings because of hundreds of aftershocks.
 

2007 NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE DRILL
 
WASHINGTON — Officials in the St. Louis area will wake up June 19 to hear about oil and toxic chemicals leaking into the Mississippi River from a barge collision, a broken oil pipeline just north of the city and four oil spills across the river in Illinois.

At least, that's what simulated federal earthquake response exercises will be imagining.

The drills are the fruit of two years of planning led by the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. About 3,500 officials will take part during the three-day event.

At the same time, Missouri and three other states along the New Madrid fault will run earthquake drills of their own, pretending that a massive 7.7 magnitude quake — similar in strength to the epic quakes of 1811-12 — has just struck. The drills will deal with such potential problems as housing emergencies.

 
 
Glenda, our new director, Tracie, and myself will be at the Emergency Operations Center in Paducah responding to the disaster.  We will be in charge of opening shelters and feeding people.  Most of our shelters will have been destroyed or damaged in the quake.  We figure it will take several days for national to bring in outside resources.
 

AMERICAN RED CROSS RESPONDS...
 

7.7 — 'a big one'

In the state exercises, Missouri officials would prefer not to succeed.

"This is designed, probably, to fail. This is designed to push the envelope to its outer limits and try to break our system. We didn't want a low bar to jump over," said Mark James, director of Missouri's Department of Public Safety.

State officials will spend half of the three-day drill addressing response issues that would arise in the first week after a quake hit — such as setting up supply lines and assessing the stability of roadways and bridges.

Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky will hold drills at the same time.

As part of their drills, Missouri officials also will practice what they are calling the recovery phase, simulating the 15th, 30th and 45th days after the quake. Tasks will include getting schools reopened and addressing housing needs for the thousands that an earthquake would likely displace.

The planning has been intensive, but the exercises won't be too predictable. The state has hired Tetra Tech Inc., a California-based engineering firm, to design surprise roadblocks.

For instance, a key planning figure suddenly might turn up missing. Or, officials might decide to evacuate people to a new location only to learn that it had been reduced to rubble.

None of the drills will involve physical evacuations, as Emerson and Talent had initially recommended.

The drills will involve more than 40 percent of Missouri's counties and a host of state departments, ranging from the mental health and higher education offices to the Highway Patrol.

Still, James said the average person probably won't notice the activity. But that shouldn't mean it's insignificant, he said.

"The scenario is a 7.7 — that's a big one," he said. "If we can put into place everything that we can conceive with a 7.7, then we're well-positioned to handle anything."

 
Earthquake Damage Reports

http://sons-program.org/SONS/SONS_07.nsf/Hazus?OpenForm

 
 
Press Release Date: June 18th, 2007  

MAJOR OIL SPILL EXERCISE PLANNED SPANNING 11 STATES, INCLUDING PADUCAH
 
PADUCAH, KY -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) are co-sponsoring a full-scale exercise to test the National Response System as a result of major oil and hazardous substance releases in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, as well as separate oil and hazardous substance releases in the Great Lakes as a result of a tornado.

"Timely, effective response to emergencies requires constant practice and preparation. The SONS exercise provides us with an excellent opportunity to test our capabilities and those of other responders before a real disaster occurs," said Mary Gade, Regional Administrator for EPA Region 5.

The Spill of National Significance (SONS) oil spill response exercise will last three days, span 11 states, and include the participation of USCG, EPA, National Response Team/Regional Response Teams (NRTs/RRTs), state and local agencies and private industry.

The exercise will involve the mobilization and deployment of response personnel and equipment, and the establishment of incident command organizations in response to numerous simulated spills of gasoline, oil, diesel and other hazardous materials.

"Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that any major disaster calls for effective, coordinated responses across many agencies and their plans. The lessons we learn during SONS will be incorporated into the plans and systems that work in concert to allow the most effective response possible to a complex real-world disaster," said Rear Adm. Wayne Justice, the Coast Guard's Director of Enforcement and Incident Management, who will be role-playing as the Commandant during the exercise.

The SONS exercises, mandated by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, have established common goals and improved the oil spill preparedness and response capabilities of the government and petroleum industry.

A media tour is slated for Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. at the Executive Inn on One Executive Blvd.  Tour participants will have the opportunity to view on-water response equipment from shoreside, and a tour of the Unified Command. 
 

 
 

Beau and Tracie working on some solutions for opening
Red Cross Shelters.
 

Kent King and Glenda Adkisson (our new director at the Red Cross)
 

All the different agencies from our county...working on solutions.  Most of Paducah
was destroyed in the quake.  The downtown area is a wreck.  Two major chemical
spills in the downtown area.  Also evacuations across the western part of the county.
 




Katherine from Emergency Management on the left...our new director
in the middle - Glenda - and Tracie Deaton on the far right.
 



 


 

Tracie Deaton from the Red Cross and Katherine from EM
 
 
 
 

June 20th 2007
 
HUGE thunderstorm complex over the Central United States last night and this morning.  Looks like we could have something similar in this region by Friday or Saturday.
 
Dylan caught some BIG FISH!!!!!
 
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