Shake, rattle, and roll

released 11.17.08

By Trish Barker

When an earthquake shook southern Illinois this spring, many Midwesterners were jolted out of bed in the middle of the night. Among them were the developers of MAEviz, a tool to model quake impacts on lives, health, infrastructure, and economies that is used to improve planning and guide disaster response. For them, the relatively mild temblor was more than an early wake-up call, it was a valuable test case. The MAEviz tool is being used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a response plan for Memphis, Tennessee; the tool was adapted for use by the cities of Istanbul, Turkey, and Islamabad, Pakistan.

Quake Jolts Illinois

In the wee hours of Friday, April 18—at precisely 4:37 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey—a magnitude 5.2 earthquake shook southern Illinois. The quake originated in the Wabash Valley Seismic zone, a network of faults running through southern Illinois and Indiana.

Fortunately, the quake caused only minor structural damage to some nearby buildings even though it was reportedly felt as far as 900 miles away. No lives were lost, no bridges collapsed, no communities were thrown into chaos.

Impact Assessment in Action

Although Urbana-Champaign is more than 100 miles from the quake's epicenter, the Central Illinois earth shook, windows rattled, and many living in the vicinity of the University of Illinois were abruptly awakened—including several members of the MAEviz development team. MAEviz is a tool NCSA and the Mid America Earthquake Center have created to provide detailed predictions of the damage resulting from an earthquake. Which bridges, roads, and buildings would sustain damage, and how much? What impact would a quake have on gas, water, and electric services? How much and for how long would traffic be disrupted? How many people could be killed, injured, or displaced? What would the economic impact be? The information is presented visually so it's intuitive to understand, easily giving planners and policymakers a comprehensive view.

While the average citizen was trying to figure out what all the shaking was about, or was simply rolling over and returning to dreamland, the MAEviz developers were pulling information on the magnitude and epicenter of the Wabash earthquake directly from the U.S. Geologic Survey website into MAEviz. The team modeled the expected impacts from the real-world event and published the simulation results to a shared portal space. As new information became available—with ground sensors showing a significant difference from theory—the MAEviz analysis was updated.

"This was a good proof-of-concept run for us," said Jim Myers, the leader of NCSA's Cyberenvironments and Technologies Directorate. "No one was hurt and damage was minimal, but we got to go through the motions and validate that we could respond quickly."

Policymakers want the best science applied to these critical scenarios, and because MAEviz is guided by the work of the MAE Center it can do just that. "MAEviz can be updated on the fly with the latest research results, making sure research moves quickly from the lab to helping save lives and reduce costs from an earthquake," Myers says.

Preparing for the Big One

Fortunately, the April 18 quake left little damage in its wake. But not far from the Wabash zone is New Madrid, a major seismic zone covering parts of five states: Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. This fault has a history of producing hugely destructive earthquakes—two temblors in 1812 demolished the small frontier town of New Madrid, Missouri—and the capacity to generate damaging quakes every 300 to 500 years.

A major New Madrid quake today could be more destructive than Hurricane Katrina in terms of loss of life, population dislocation, immediate costs, and lasting economic impact. Because of that catastrophic power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to develop a response plan based on a 7.7 quake on the New Madrid fault. The MAE Center will use MAEviz to model the effects of this (so far) hypothetical earthquake in order to guide the planning process.

MAEviz development team
Jim Myers, NCSA
Bill Spencer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Shawn Hampton, NCSA
Jong Sung Lee, NCSA
Terry McLaren, NCSA
Chris Navarro, NCSA
Nathan Tolbert, NCSA