Our disasters include tornadoes, quakes
Visiting last week with my sister, Sandy, our conversation turned to earthquakes.
Sandy left Illinois, and its accompanying earthquakes and tornadoes, when she was 18. She married James “Zeke” Sampson, a Navy man, and he took her to the world of hurricanes and rapid deployment.
After living in Norfolk, Va., where she witnessed several hurricanes and had her first son, the family was stationed at Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, Puerto Rico, with its tropical depressions and daily 3 p.m. deluges.
Because Jim was a helicopter mechanic, he was deployed to the mainland with the helicopters and jets during any dangerous tropical storm or hurricanes, leaving Sandy behind to ride out the gale force winds.
Leaving Puerto Rico, their next assignment was to Catania, Sicily. The family turned their backs on the fear of hurricanes and gale force winds to greet Mt. Etna, a living volcano.
Jim and Sandy chose to live off-base on this posting, settling in the town of Mode St. Anastasia, located about 25 miles from the Naval Air Station. “Moda,” as it was called, had a population of about 11,000 and sat at the base of Mt. Etna.
During the three years they were stationed there, there were several times that Sandy, Jim and the two boys, Mike and David, camped out in a field about the town with other villagers when Mt. Etna began to spew lava. One time, they were away from home for three days.
Their last station was Pensacola, Fla. By this time, Sandy had her nursing degree and more than once was required to stay at the hospital for days at a time during weather emergencies.
Anyone who has lived in Illinois for any length of time has felt a shake. A long fault, an anticline fault, enters Fayette County from just inside Effingham County and slashes through Loudon, Avena, Wheatland and Lone Grove townships before entering Marion County, cutting that county in two.
There are two types of geologic faults – anticline and monocline. The Wikipedia website explains that an anticline fault “is a fold that is convex up and has its oldest beds [of rock] at its core.” This is also where oil and natural gas deposits are found.
The most recent earthquake (over 1.5 on the Richter scale) in Illinois happened 11 months ago and had its epicenter at LaGrange in Southern Illinois. It measured 3.2 and accompanied one in Cape Girardeau at 2.6.
In fact, when I checked the occurrence of earthquakes in Illinois over the past year, this was the only one with its epicenter in our state.
Eight months ago, there was were two felt in Illinois, centered at Cape Girardeau and Paducah; 10 months ago, there were two, Cape Girardeau and Farmington, measuring 2.2 and 2.6 on the Richter; 11 months ago, Cape Girardeau and LaGrange – 2.6 and 3.2; and one year ago, a shaking at Oakville, Mo., measured 1.9.
The granddaddy of them all was the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811, felt all the way to Boston, where it caused the Liberty Bell to ring. The Mississippi River ran backward for a time, the ground opened up and Reelfoot Lake in Southern Illinois was formed.
Isaac Hill, a surveyor, was in the area of Fayette County at the time and wrote in his ledger, “2 moon Nov. grond shook, springs roiled.”
Henry Schoolcraft wrote a poem about the 1811 quake where he said nearly the same thing. “The rivers they boiled like a pot over coals, and mortals fell prostrate and prayed for their souls.”
Sandy moved back to Illinois in 2006 and once again gets to share with us the tornados and earthquakes. I personally have never seen a tornado, but have felt the earth shake.
After what she had become accustomed to while near the ocean and at the foot of Mt. Etna, I think Illinois weather is fairly calm in comparison.