St. Louis hosts emergency military drills to deal with earthquakes

ST. LOUIS – Your favorite Cardinal player steps into the penalty box in front of a sellout crowd of 44,125 at Busch Stadium – only to have the moment interrupted by a massive 8.4 magnitude earthquake triggered by the violent awakening of the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

Bridges have been damaged, people trapped under rubble. Trains have been derailed, releasing a cloud of toxic chemicals that threatens the crowds of fans. Authorities must respond as the clock ticks down, and lives are at stake.

This is a disaster drill scenario that will be conducted in downtown St. Louis and other parts of the region on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hundreds of local emergency responders and military personnel will conduct drills to help prepare for this exact situation, two centuries after the Missouri fault system struck with some of the most powerful earthquakes ever to hit the contiguous United States.

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Military vehicles and helicopters will participate in the “urban emergency drill,” along with damaged vehicles, debris and airborne dummies. The drills will take place at Busch Stadium, the BNSF rail yard in St. Louis, and the Mississippi River crossing between Grafton and St. Charles County.

Local residents are asked not to visit the training areas, which will not be open to the public.

“It’s not a show,” said Nancy Cambria, spokeswoman for the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, which includes the St. Louis Regional Response System that will participate in the exercise.

Instead, Cambria said, it is a valuable opportunity to facilitate preparedness for situations where a disaster requires assistance on a scale that local authorities cannot handle alone, and requires military assistance.

“A big part of this is coordination,” she said.

About 500 people, including volunteers and hospital staff, will participate in the exercise. The exercise will be facilitated by the U.S. National Guard’s Task Force 46—a Michigan-based unit that helps respond to catastrophic events—in collaboration with the Missouri National Guard.

The New Madrid seismic zone generated three massive earthquakes from December 1811 to February 1812, estimated to have measured between 7 and 8 on the Richter scale—among the largest earthquakes in the nation's history and the strongest recorded east of the Rocky Mountains.

Experts consider the fault system a “sleeping giant,” and studies have found that over the past millennium or so, it has produced earthquakes of magnitude 7 to 8 on the Richter scale about every 500 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The possibility of the next major hurricane appears to be a regional tsunami event, inspiring regular planning summits between Missouri officials and emergency personnel.

But residents may not have to seek safety anytime soon, if ever. At an event in St. Louis in 2022, for example, experts said there was a roughly 7% to 10% chance of a major 7.5-magnitude earthquake occurring within the next 50 years.

Officials said this week's drills marked the first time St. Louis has hosted such a large-scale exercise. Similar drills were held last year in Nashville.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographers captured hundreds of photos for June 2024. Here are some of those images. Editing by Jenna Jones.

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