FEMA Requests Information on the Availability of 140 Million Packets of Food, Bl

[dep190]

FEMA Requests Information on the Availability of 140 Million Packets of Food, Blankets, and Body Bags





http://theintelhub.com/2011/01/24/fema-requests-information-on-the-availability-of-140-million-packets-of-food-blankets-and-body-bags/

["Top" W. Kone]

The New Madrid zone has not had a major event since the 1800's. That time caused the Mississippi river to run backwards for a while.

FEMA got burned after Katrina for not following through with its dry run "events". People have been saying New Madrid zone is going to pop for years. And really smart people say that every day it does not go is one day closer to it going. But it could be years or this afternoon.

Since FEMA takes an "all hazard" approach to mitigation, requesting and stocking up on MRE's, blankets and et al stored in that area makes sense. They can be used for more than just an earthquake. We have seen more ice storms in that area. Tornados, flooding, etc. All situations that MRE's et al can be useful. And is the "big one" happens they avoid a lot of heat about failing to plan ahead.

One of the main worries is that the New Madrid zone buildings are not built to CA earthquake standards. We know it can have a major earthquake, it has in the past, but buildings are not required to resist falling down when shaken. Think about how bad that could be. (another reason to not keep all your preps in one building)

[mike77]

One of the main worries is that the New Madrid zone buildings are not built to CA earthquake standards. We know it can have a major earthquake, it has in the past, but buildings are not required to resist falling down when shaken. Think about how bad that could be. (another reason to not keep all your preps in one building)

I can't speak for other areas around New Madrid, but there is some consideration about it in the St. Louis area. MoDot has been working to improve a number of bridges and overpasses for this reason. I don't know if they're to CA standards, but any improvement has to help. Unfortunately I don't think building codes are following the trend. I'm sure that there would be cries of "It hasn't happened yet, why worry about it?" if CA style standards were implemented. If I ever have an opportunity to build a new house, I'll definitely be looking to CA for examples though. Wow, never though I'd say that!! 

[nkawtg]

Not wanting to make anyone wrong in this forum, but the headline of 140 million packets is incorrect.
The FEMA rfi quoted 14m for 10 days. In govt. speak 14m is 14 thousand, not 14 million.
So they are looking for 140 thousand meals.
It's not unheard of for FEMA to plan on 14 thousand meals per day. They are planning on two meals per day. That's provisons for 7 thousand refugees.

For background, the St. Louis area comprising 16 counties in two states has about 2.8 million people.
The New Madrid area is about 166 miles from St. Louis and 120 miles from Memphis with no major population centers in between.

[DeltaEchoVictor]

Not wanting to make anyone wrong in this forum, but the headline of 140 million packets is incorrect.
The FEMA rfi quoted 14m for 10 days. In govt. speak 14m is 14 thousand, not 14 million.
So they are looking for 140 thousand meals.
It's not unheard of for FEMA to plan on 14 thousand meals per day. They are planning on two meals per day. That's provisons for 7 thousand refugees.

For background, the St. Louis area comprising 16 counties in two states has about 2.8 million people.
The New Madrid area is about 166 miles from St. Louis and 120 miles from Memphis with no major population centers in between.

I'd only ad that I live in the New Madrid fault zone...& not if, but when it hits, it's going to be a shit storm here...period.

There may not be any major population centers between St. Louis & Memphis but my county alone has a service area of roughly 200,000 people.  That's folks who come in from surrounding counties to my town of about 16,000 people to go the local walmart, etc.  So, yeah...the population centers are going to have it bad, but so what?  Everyone else will too.  I can practically spit on the fault zone from my house, if the damned thing breaks loose I hope I'm dead first.

We just ran a state wide em comms exercise with Modot, the National Guard, state law enforcement, local law enforcement agencies, etc.  Basically everyone who needs to give a damn about this kind of thing was there.  Since my HAM club & SAR team have a lot of overlapping members, there are a lot of us who are interested in preparing for whatever....we had occasion to talk to the Modot guys & ask them what their plans were concerning this very thing.

The guy we talked to was from Springfield & was laying out what modot would be doing as far as checking out bridges, overpasses, highways etc.  Their plan is to leave Springfield & drive in their designated directions checking everything as they go.  Keep in mind that after an earthquake there are going to be aftershocks...after every aftershock whatever has been checked has to be re-checked.  That means turning around & going back to Springfield & starting over again after every aftershock.  They estimated roughly two weeks to be able to check everything between Springfield & Mountain Grove, & that's 60(ish) miles east of Springfield. 

We're completely unprepared for this event here.  Everything will be flattened & there will be a flood of refugees that will make Katrina look like amateur hour (heh,nevermind). 

[mike77]

A friend of mine and I were talking about this the other day and I realized that St. Louis, MO is basically an island. On the East we have the Mississippi River. To the North we have the Missouri River. To most of the West and South we have the Meramec River and River Des Peres (local storm run off to the Mississippi). Of those, only River Des Peres could possibly be crossed without the bridges depending on when it last rained or if the Mississippi is in flood. Other than one or two possible small routes threading between the Missouri and Meramec, I don't think there is a way in or out without crossing at least one of those rivers. It really made me realize that I either need to get outside of those rivers &/or make sure that I have a secure house and the ability to shelter in place long term. Unfortunately none of those are options for the near future. 

[TNVolunteer]

A New Madrid event could be really bad for areas far beyond the initial quake zone, impacting the entire nation.  IMHO, I think the national impacts could be worse than a major San Andreas event.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to minimize CA or the consequences to people directly in a quake area, I'm just saying the national impacts of a regional event are not often contemplated by the general public.

Here is why.  Transportation.  A significant New Madrid quake would cripple a large portion of transcontinental trade.  The number of bridges, and I'm talking just those spanning the MS river, could be down.  Not only does this impact road transport, but rail, maritime, and pipeline as well.  I don't think people understand how vital MS river traffic is to the national economy. The sheer volume of tonnage being moved on the river system is enormous and would stop instantly.  That's everything from grain and food stuffs to petrochemicals. Same goes for railroads.  A number of significant pipelines could be damaged impacting delivery of gasoline, heating oil, etc to the eastern seaboard.  That doesn't even count data.  A number of MS river bridges carry communication infrastructure, think fiber optic cables and the like.  One bridge alone is said to carry 60% of trans MS river data trafic.  When one starts thinking about the knock-on effects, it gets pretty gnarly.

Man, my apologies for being a downer.

[mike77]

A number of MS river bridges carry communication infrastructure, think fiber optic cables and the like.  One bridge alone is said to carry 60% of trans MS river data trafic.  When one starts thinking about the knock-on effects, it gets pretty gnarly.

I had thought about all of your other comments with regards to transportation but didn't even consider data. Which bridge is supposed to carry so much data traffic?

Man, my apologies for being a downer.

I would say more a realist than a downer. No apologies needed in my opinion.

[TNVolunteer]

A number of MS river bridges carry communication infrastructure, think fiber optic cables and the like.  One bridge alone is said to carry 60% of trans MS river data trafic.  When one starts thinking about the knock-on effects, it gets pretty gnarly.

I had thought about all of your other comments with regards to transportation but didn't even consider data. Which bridge is supposed to carry so much data traffic?

Quote from: TNVolunteer on Today at 01:04:14 PM
Man, my apologies for being a downer.

I would say more a realist than a downer. No apologies needed in my opinion.

My understanding is that it is one of the RR bridges in St. Louis.   As to rail, assuming St Louis and Memphis were down then that could mean traffic having to reroute as far away as Chicago to the north and New Orleans to the south.

[Freshman Preppy]

Not wanting to make anyone wrong in this forum, but the headline of 140 million packets is incorrect.
The FEMA rfi quoted 14m for 10 days. In govt. speak 14m is 14 thousand, not 14 million.
So they are looking for 140 thousand meals.
It's not unheard of for FEMA to plan on 14 thousand meals per day. They are planning on two meals per day. That's provisons for 7 thousand refugees.

For background, the St. Louis area comprising 16 counties in two states has about 2.8 million people.
The New Madrid area is about 166 miles from St. Louis and 120 miles from Memphis with no major population centers in between.

I think I read it wrong.  I thought it was they were looking to assist 7 million people per day, two meals per day.  14million meals.

[Tackleberry]

http://www.beaufortobserver.net/1FeedbackAllbody.lasso?-token.specificitem=21535.112112

[Hare of Caerbannog]

Maybe they'll use all that FEMA food to feed those Canadian troops from the other story.
 

[AtADeadRun]

Dupe topic, original here:  http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=24331.0

[AtADeadRun]

Take a look at the RFI, too:  https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=eaea338540a0aea155a48a650a077352&tab=core&_cview=0

It's been cancelled, as of 27JAN.

[gpd240]

Here's a link for the new Madrid Shake Out Drill. However in my state, Indiana, the schools will be doing it on a different day. I've been told that because of ISTEP testing they have chosen to have the schools do it on another date. Great planning, and of course an earthquake would never happen during a test.     

http://www.shakeout.org/centralus/

[Drill_Thrawl]

I recently attened a follow-up CERT class and one of the other attendees was ret. Army who specialized in disaster prep and used to do a lot of work with FEMA. He said the one event that scares the bejesus out of FEMA is a New Madrid quake. Besides the fact that the buildings in the area are not up to quake specs the geology of the larger area for hundreds of miles around is subject to liquifaction (soil acts like a liquid which causes violent shaking). This doesn't really happen in CA as most of the underlying geography is solid rock. The other huge issue is that the vast majority of gas, oil, electricty, transportation and telecomunication lines that serve the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic run through the fault zone. The effect being that the NE and M-A would be effectively "cut-off" from the rest of the country. No fuel-oil for the NE (try that in the winter!), no food from the Mid West and CA, no redundant power for the Eastern grid.

Dig deep in the FEMA site on New Madrid. What would happen there would make anything the CA has ever faced look like a minor inconvenience.

-- Drill

[nkawtg]

liquifaction (soil acts like a liquid which causes violent shaking). This doesn't really happen in CA as most of the underlying geography is solid rock.

Not quite right, liquefaction is a big problem in California earthquakes. I was in the '71 Sylmar quake. Numerous buildings including a hospital were destroyed because of liquefaction.

Notice this wing of the Sylmar hospital sank and fell away from the core.

[endurance]

Not quite right, liquefaction is a big problem in California earthquakes. I was in the '71 Sylmar quake. Numerous buildings including a hospital were destroyed because of liquefaction.

D'oh!  One of my earliest memories was that quake.  We were living in Tarzana at the time and I remember the paint cans all over the garage floor (Cool technicolor!) and cracks in the pool.  My dad was driving to work and pulled over because he thought he had a flat tire.

Regarding liquifaction, that's also why most of the damage was limited to the marina district in the San Francisco quake.

[Xavier]

I used to live RIGHT ON the New Madrid fault.

Now that I live in NC, I can scratch that one from the list.

 

[ncjeeper]

I used to live RIGHT ON the New Madrid fault.

Now that I live in NC, I can scratch that one from the list.

 

Good decision.

[eph2]

In NE Arkansas there is a park commemorating the site where a thriving town was before it was completely swallowed up by the famous New Madrid Quake.  I've been there many times and it makes quite an impression.

[KSDeputy]

I have earthquake insurance and my agent told me very few people have it, even though it is very cheap. I live in NE Kansas. If you are anywhere near a fault line you should have it.