Your view: Are you ready?

Being a past Civil Defense director for the City of New Madrid, I would like to comment on how "ready" everybody is for a major earthquake.

As director for the City I spoke to the schools in the area on disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes and boiling liquid evaporation explosions (propane and contained gas explosions); showed films on what takes place and the damage afterward. The students and teachers were very interested on how and what causes these types of disasters, and were amazed by how much damage that can happen.

I also attended the town meeting that was put on by the City during the Iben Browning earthquake prediction several years ago. There were people from the state, SEMO University, and several different utilities talking to residents from New Madrid, Portageville, Howardville, Lilbourn, Marston and the rural areas.

The speakers talked about the same things: bolt things down, store water and food, how to shut off your gas, etc. As I looked across the theater from the stage, it seemed the people had been lulled into a sense of security that all these speakers were going to be johnny-on-the-spot when an earthquake struck - "wrong"!

In a recent article published about earthquake preparedness, the writer spoke of 47 counties suffering serious damage in the event of a major earthquake. It should be noted that small towns and rural areas would be the last ones getting federal and state help. All the large metropolitan areas will be number one on the list for aid, and then work their way down to us.

All the gas, water and electricity will be shut down at their main distribution points in a major quake. It will take several days, if not weeks, before a lot of small towns get any help.

Bolting and strapping everything down will not be the main concern, as it was proven in Japan a few years back - that all the strapping, bolting and building on springs didn't help much in a major quake.

Food, water and medical supplies should be your No. 2 priority, but the No. 1 priority is to sit down with your parents, wives, girlfriends and children and talk about what would happen if the earthquake should strike at 10 a.m. in the morning when everyone is either at work or school.

Most households have both parents working and in many cases they work in different cities. Think of who is going to get your kids at school or the daycare following a major quake. It might be several hours or even days before some parents can get back home due to the destruction of bridges and overpasses on the roads. Just count the number of bridges and overpasses you cross the next time you go to work or shopping. When these are destroyed, transportation by car or truck will virtually be impossible.

If possible, have someone at home who knows to gather up the kids from school, daycare etc. Talk to your kids on what could happen. Be blunt and tell them how serious this is and that it's not game, should we have a major quake.

Sadly to say, after an earthquake parents will make a mad dash to schools and daycares to retrieve their children and step over your kids, my kids, teachers and daycare employees to get to their children. Their instinctive behavior to survive will take over and people will be blind to everything until they get their families together before they think of helping others.

Living in an earthquake zone, we have to accept the facts of what will happen. It will not just be here or the surrounding communities, but the whole multi-

state New Madrid Fault area that will be in the instinctive "survival mode" until help arrives.

So, talk with all the relatives and close friends on what to do and where would be the best meeting place for everyone to gather after a major earthquake, and who will get whose children in the event that parents or relatives are trapped out of town due to impassable roads. And remember that everyone will be stretched to the limits for the first several hours, or even days, trying to get their families together.

If people would get ready for the seriousness of a major earthquake, then survival would be a lot easier for everybody.

People need to understand that the federal government will not be there the next day because a radius of 600 miles from the center of the New Madrid Fault will be affected if a 8.0 or bigger quake should happen. There are hundreds of thousands of people in this area and there is no telling how many industries and homes that would be damaged with a massive quake. The only way to get access to this effected area would be by helicopter.

Three major disasters that are talked about are a hurricane hitting New Orleans, a major earthquake hitting on the New Madrid Fault and a hurricane hitting New York City. One down - two to go.

William Kosky