New Madrid Earthquake Read online

  NEW MADRID

  Bobby Akart

  Thank You

  Thank you for downloading NEW MADRID, a novel by Author Bobby Akart.

  Praise for Author Bobby Akart and New Madrid

  “New Madrid is a perfect melding of a fictional story taking on a real-world persona. Akart’s works make you stop and think, not if this could happen but when will this happen.”

  ~ Brian Alderman

  “Every time I thought the book was going to let me take a breath and relax, it took me right into another life or death punch to the throat. Bobby Akart is the King of Disaster Thrillers!”

  ~ Colt Payne

  “Action, adventure, excitement and heart. This book has it all.”

  ~ Carol Dyer

  “As with any of the best novels, this book really captures your attention and makes it hard to put down at the end of the day.”

  ~ Cody McDonell

  “New Madrid is not your run-of-the-mill disaster thriller!”

  ~ Karl Hughey

  “Bobby Akart again shows his flair for realistic scenarios, in-depth research and edge of your seat, hold your breath suspense. Definitely one of his best yet!”

  ~ Leslie Bryant

  “If you weren’t already familiar with the New Madrid Seismic Zone, you will be when you’re done with this book; and you’ll have a whole new level of respect, and possibly fear, for Mother Nature.”

  ~ Melonie Kennedy

  NEW MADRID

  Bobby Akart

  Other Works by Amazon Charts Top 25 Author Bobby Akart

  New Madrid (a disaster thriller)

  Odessa (a Gunner Fox trilogy)

  Odessa Reborn

  Odessa Rising

  Odessa Strikes

  The Virus Hunters

  Virus Hunters I

  Virus Hunters II

  Virus Hunters III

  The Geostorm Series

  The Shift

  The Pulse

  The Collapse

  The Flood

  The Tempest

  The Pioneers

  The Asteroid Series (A Gunner Fox trilogy)

  Discovery

  Diversion

  Destruction

  The Doomsday Series

  Apocalypse

  Haven

  Anarchy

  Minutemen

  Civil War

  The Yellowstone Series

  Hellfire

  Inferno

  Fallout

  Survival

  The Lone Star Series

  Axis of Evil

  Beyond Borders

  Lines in the Sand

  Texas Strong

  Fifth Column

  Suicide Six

  The Pandemic Series

  Beginnings

  The Innocents

  Level 6

  Quietus

  The Blackout Series

  36 Hours

  Zero Hour

  Turning Point

  Shiloh Ranch

  Hornet’s Nest

  Devil’s Homecoming

  The Boston Brahmin Series

  The Loyal Nine

  Cyber Attack

  Martial Law

  False Flag

  The Mechanics

  Choose Freedom

  Patriot’s Farewell (standalone novel)

  Black Friday (standalone novel)

  Seeds of Liberty (Companion Guide)

  The Prepping for Tomorrow Series

  Cyber Warfare

  EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse

  Economic Collapse

  Copyright Information

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  © 2020 Crown Publishers Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means including, but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the express written permission of Crown Publishers Inc.

  Dedications

  There is nothing more important on this planet than my darling wife, Dani, and our two princesses, Bullie and Boom. With the love and support of Dani and the never-ending supply of smiles our two girls give us, I’m able to tell you these stories. Also, on a special note, New Madrid is the novel Dani would’ve written had she not stepped up to wear every hat a traditional publisher might wear. Thank you for letting me bring your vision to print.

  Also, a special dedication to America’s first responders—the men and women of law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and hospital personnel. These are the underappreciated brave Americans who run toward danger rather than from it.

  Freedom and security are precious gifts that we, as Americans, should never take for granted. Thank you, first responders, for willingly making sacrifices each day to provide us that freedom and security.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Based on a True Story

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part II

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part III

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Part IV

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Part V

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Thank You For Reading New Madrid!

  What’s coming next from Bobby Akart?

  Author’s Note

  What Led Me To Write New Madrid

  A Brief History of the Historic Quakes of 1811–12

  What if Fiction Becomes Reality?

  A Few Insider Tidbits About the Novel

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author, Bobby Akart

  Other Works by Amazon Charts Top 25 Author Bobby Akart

  Epigraph

  Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice.

  ~ Will Durant,
American historian and philosopher

  A man who comes home to a stout safe cabin and all the ones he loves …

  he’s the luckiest man in all creation!

  ~ Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, 1812, near present-day Obion County, Tennessee

  Our earth is very old, an old warrior that has lived through many battles. Nevertheless, the face of it is still changing, and science sees no certain limit of time for its stately evolution.

  ~ Reginald Daly, Canadian Geologist

  The Mississippi River will always have its own way.

  No engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

  ~ Mark Twain, Eruptions

  Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

  ~ Carl Sagan

  A bad earthquake at once destroyed the oldest associations—the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, had moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid. One second of time had created in the mind a strong idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced.

  ~ Charles Darwin on the massive 1835 earthquake at Concepcion, Chile

  Man plans and God laughs.

  ~ Old Yiddish Proverb

  Merciful God! What a horrid situation.

  ~ Letter to the editor, Augusta Herald (Georgia) February 19, 1812

  I’ll be home for Christmas.

  ~ Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby, American Singer

  The following is based on a true story.

  It just hasn’t happened in the modern age yet.

  Prologue

  Sunday, December 16

  National Earthquake Conference

  University of Missouri’s Jesse Auditorium

  Columbia, Missouri

  Dr. Charlotte Lansing stretched her legs under the speakers’ table and shifted her weight on the chair. A seismic hazard and insurance risk specialist droned on about the potential losses to the insurance industry in the event of a catastrophic earthquake along the San Andreas fault. She tried not to allow her inner thoughts to manifest themselves in her facial expressions. Too often, the impact of catastrophic events was measured in terms of damage to structures or economic costs. Dr. Lansing understood there was much more at stake. Namely, loss of life.

  When she’d been invited to speak at this year’s National Earthquake Conference held at her alma mater, the University of Missouri, she readily accepted. The final day of the conference happened to fall on the anniversary of the first New Madrid earthquake of 1811.

  Her research into the timing of large earthquakes based upon mathematical patterns had finally received some recognition by her peers. While it was still a work in progress, especially as it related to the New Madrid Seismic Zone, or NMSZ, her speech at the conference not only gave her an opportunity to discuss the threat this underestimated fault presented, but she was also able to introduce her mathematical pattern theory to the audience.

  She looked around the Jesse Auditorium, where she’d spent many days as a graduate student at Mizzou. The doctoral program within the Department of Geological Sciences had enjoyed a reputation as one of the top ten in the nation. While many in her class focused on the environmental issues of the day, she’d sunk her teeth into rocks. She was a science nerd and proud of it.

  Unlike most of her classmates, Dr. Lansing was a traditionalist who looked at geology as the study of the Earth—its origin and developmental history together with its structure and composition. The planet was a living, breathing thing in a constant state of flux and evolution. The data derived from firsthand field observations and laboratory analyses of minerals, sediments, rocks and landforms fascinated her.

  Growing up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Dr. Lansing naturally learned about geology close to home. The small city located on the Mississippi River was an hour north of New Madrid and located within the New Madrid Seismic Zone, or NMSZ. Her high school science and history classes had delved into the subject regularly. Whenever there were extracurricular activities involving exploring caves or studying sediment, Dr. Lansing was the first to volunteer.

  She’d spent countless hours in the library, studying old accounts of the 1811 to 1812 earthquake swarm that rocked the region and much of the Eastern United States. As she got older, her fascination with the NMSZ and geology in general led her to a career path as a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. Now she was the director of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, commonly referred to as the NEIC.

  It was almost her turn to speak, so she sat up in her chair and glanced at her notes, not that she needed them. Dr. Lansing was passionate about her work. She was not shy about public speaking and fashioned herself a bit of a storyteller. Unlike loss-mitigation specialists or structural engineers extolling the virtues of constructing buildings to achieve vertical stiffness while allowing for counter-directional forces, she got to tell them about the drama unfolding beneath our planet’s surface.

  She helped the attendees understand why the pressure builds and what causes it to release. She left them with the warning that earthquakes can happen anytime, without warning, with deadly consequences. It was never her intention to scare the wits out of people but, rather, to scare the wits into them. To raise their awareness to the sleeping threat that could change the topography of America in an instant.

  After introducing herself, she drew in her audience by helping them visualize what was going on underneath their seats. As she spoke, she couldn’t help but notice the attendees look down from time to time, wondering if the heinous beast lurking beneath the ground was stirring. She oftentimes wondered that herself.

  “Every year, fifty thousand earthquakes are noticed by people without the need for seismic instruments. The ground shudders, swells, and stretches, leading to a massive tweet-storm that reads something like did you feel it?

  “Social media junkies flock to Facebook and mark themselves safe from the earthquake in X or Y location. Friends commiserate back and forth about how the wine in their glass rippled or Aunt Bessie’s vase fell off the mantel. What they really should’ve been thinking about is what is going on around our planet’s mantle.

  “Over two hundred years ago on this date, at around two o’clock in the morning, the first of three major earthquakes rocked the New Madrid Seismic Zone. An immeasurable pressure had been building along an ancient plate boundary. Born out of frustration, and feeling underappreciated, the New Madrid fault announced itself with a vengeance.

  “You see, five hundred million years ago, the North American Plate tried to form a plate boundary along the center of the continent, running from north to south. The struggle during these formative years was intense, but the splitting stopped before the new plates could be formed. What we have beneath us are the remnants of this struggle in which the North American Plate is still settling down. In other words, a seismic event that began five hundred million years ago is still in the process of resolving itself. There remains a jagged scar buried below the surface, evidencing this epic struggle. And it’s never healed.”

  She adjusted the wireless microphone attached to her headset and abandoned the podium, much to the dismay of the event coordinator. Dr. Lansing was in the zone, and she wandered along the front of the elevated stage so she could make eye contact with the attendees as she told the story.

  “So imagine, if you will, that it’s the early morning hours of December 16, 1811. Very few people lived up and down the Mississippi River. The United States had just purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. Our war with Britain in 1812 was brewing but not yet underway. The only means of navigation were canoes, flatboats, and rafts that were one-way in nature, as in downstream only toward the Port of New Orleans.

  “Underground, the North American Plate, at this ancient boundary, began to disintegrate in part. The vertical shelves that butted up against one another moved. Not much. Maybe half an inch. However, it was enough for the rock along the boundary to disintegrate.

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