Missouri’s State Emergency Management Agency brought experts from across the state and beyond Thursday, March 21, to the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau to give presentations about what government agencies are doing to prepare in case of a major earthquake.
The conference also featured other presentations around the topics of earthquakes, including myths surrounding the New Madrid earthquakes, Turkey’s earthquakes, earthquake insurance and communicating during a crisis.
The audience consisted of professionals from government agencies, such as Federal Emergency Management Agency, but also civilians looking to learn more about their communities’ disaster planning methods.
Dams
Lucas Krumwiede, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam safety program manager, and Ryan Stack, Missouri Department of Natural Resources chief engineer of dam and reservoir safety program, presented information on the status of dams in Missouri and how their safety is measured.
Krumwiede said dam safety has evolved over the years, but dam safety has had a shorter history than its construction. Governments passed legislation over dam safety after disasters happened.
“There were really only in a limited number of states that had dam safety programs in place prior to 1900,” he said. “These failures led to the passing of the federal guidelines for dam safety. This is also when (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) was created.”
Krumwiede said that there are nearly 92,000 dams in the U.S. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns 748 of them. The Corps of Engineers is a self-regulated dam owner. He said they do consider earthquakes when designing and evaluating dams.
Krumwiede said Corps teams have inspected their dams throughout their history, but that can change if an earthquake were to happen.
“In situations such as the New Madrid (Fault), we’re very likely going to have multiple impacts or multiple projects (dams) that may be impacted. So we’ll need to prioritize when and where we’re going to be able to perform those inspections and we would prioritize that based on risk,” he said. “If there’s a large amount of consequences associated with a dam or if it’s already in disrepair, we’re certainly going to get there as quickly as we can.”
Stack said the State of Missouri has more than 5,000 dams, with 4,899 being unregulated and 732 of them regulated.
“Across the nation, we were ranked No. 3 for the most dams,” Stack said. “Missouri was No. 1 in the most unsafe dams in the nation.”
He said the qualifications for a body of water to be considered for a dam is it either being 6 feet in height and 50 acres of feet or 25 feet in height and 15 acres of feet.
Hospitals and healthcare
John Whitaker, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ Public Health emergency response coordinator, described examples to the audience of what hospitals could expect of a higher magnitude earthquake situation. He also explored how it could affect hospitals’ ability to transport patients.
“So many buildings will be damaged and unsafe. That will probably include a lot of health care facilities,” Whitaker said. “We also know that aftershocks will likely continue if there’s a big earthquake, and then imagine they will probably continue for weeks or months. So it’s not like it’s one event and it’s done.”
He said he didn’t know how many people could be affected but he gave estimates in this area.
“I think the estimate for fatalities is around 700 for just the Southeast Missouri area, and we expect injuries that will need some sort of treatment, probably around 10,000. The population ... as you go further north towards St. Louis is a lot greater,” Whitaker said.
He said in this situation, state assets would be deployed as quickly as possible but with the amount of states asking for federal assets at the time, there would probably be a delay.
Kara Amann-Kale, Missouri Hospital Association’s director of hospital preparedness programs, also presented on the state of the hospitals at the time of disaster, but focused on transportation of patients in the time of crisis.
“So, once the earthquake happens, hospitals will be doing a lot of damage assessments, assessments and some supplies they have on hand and they’re going to be deciding, ‘Can we continue to operate?’” Amann-Kale said. “There are requirements for plans for having supplies on hand, but that may be used quicker or it may not be able to be resupplied, especially in this situation. So it’s an important reason. So a hospital may be able to shelter in place, keep operations going, but if supplies aren’t coming in, it’s going to turn into an evacuation situation pretty quick.”
She said that in the time of crisis, evacuation could look different for patients with certain needs.
“Psychiatric patients, there are a lot of considerations. There’s a psychiatric bed shortage every day that goes on in Missouri,” Amann-Kale said.
Each patient will have specific needs that will need to be taken into account and will need to be planned for, according to Amann-Kale.
She said continuing elective procedures could also be in question and have to be evaluated after the disaster.
“Do we continue with these elective surgeries? Do we pull back on them? Do we stop them? They potentially could open alternative space, if they have that ability,” Amann-Kale said.
She said staffing would be a consideration, understanding that staff is already short now.
Transportation during a crisis
Managers from the Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri departments of transportations discussed how they’ll approach a crisis after an earthquake. They talked about what their specific plans look like in a crisis.
Most of the conversation focused on what resources the transports would need and also understanding what their routes would need to be like or change to.
INDOT statewide director Mike Nichols said since Indiana has large mining industry, they’ll have issues with the mines. He said they would look at interstates as primary routes.
“Prioritization will be going to bridge inspections. They’re opening those so we can get resources in the affected areas,” Nichols said.
MoDOT assistant director Michael White said Missouri has different levels of priority routes in times of disaster.
ARDOT emergency management coordinator Jamie Belcourt also outlined the routes they would have in different types of priority.
White said a challenge for them will be making sure they have enough fuel, as well as transporting fuel.
“Their fuel tanks are going to run out pretty quickly within a few hours, probably on the initial response. So we’re either going to have to find other ways to get fuel to them or know that those are no longer available to us,” White said.
White also talked about MoDOT creating an analog process for communication to give them something to rely on in case of emergency if online communications go down.
“It’s that critical. You want to use the ABS and the technology that we have, but the reality is, I think we have to have both,” he said.
Speakers also gave presentations on Missouri’s air operations plan for earthquakes and the crisis’s impacts on pipelines, utilities and hazardous chemicals.