Defense personnel plan for midwestern earthquake - Jan 30, 2010
Nothing troubling about the timing or location at all.
You probably didn’t notice, what with the disaster in Haiti, but a 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Illinois at 10 a.m. last Tuesday, at least in the cyber-world.
Cairo was the epicenter, but the Crowne Plaza hotel on South Dirksen Parkway in Springfield was the nerve center, the place where more than 30 Department of Defense personnel gathered to practice how they would respond in case of real disaster.
While it’s Weimar’s job to design catastrophes, he is reluctant to go against the laws of science. Fulton knows full well the geography of the New Madrid fault, so buildings crumbling too far afield would raise his eyebrows. No problem — there are plenty of faults to play with.
“If I want to give him some more problem sets, I’ll bring up the Wabash fault,” Weimar said. “If we say that building collapsed, it collapsed. If we need to, we will create some aftershocks to create more problems.”
With a playbook that includes plague, chlorine tank explosions, terrorist attacks and myriad other badness, things could always be worse. Take the 10-kiloton nuclear device scenario, complete with a 40-mile radius of destruction and radioactive fallout.
“We’ve blown up Kansas City and Indianapolis twice,” Weimar said.
