Tectonic events, such as the 5.8 earthquake in California and a volcanic eruption in Washington, caught our attention. But they didn’t fit the New Madrid Quakes in December. 1811 February 1812, which forced the mighty Mississippi River to retreat briefly.
Think of witnesses testifying that Firmin La Roche is a French fur trader in St. Louis. Louie
The border west of the Mississippi was sold by France to the United States just eight years before the earthquake. Missouri was a territory, not yet a state.
The LaRoche bill — preserved in the archives of the historic review of the state of Missouri — was written in New Orleans on February 20, 1812, when shocks were still frequent. He had just made a catastrophic journey, which began with three flat boats:
Sound like thunder
“I was present at the earthquake that laavno occurred above and below the mouth of the Ohio River, along both banks of the Mississippi River.
“I took three boats to New Orleans with a bunch of furs bought in St. Louis. On the evening of December 15, we tied up eight miles north of New Madrid near my cousin John Leclaire’s house.
“I was with Father Joseph Mission to Osage, returning home to France - also Jacques Mener, Dominique Berges, Leon Sarpi, Henry Lamel, five more people and a Negro slave, Ben, who was killed in New Madrid,
"After dinner, we went to bed." The boat turned on its side, so that the Lamel, who was sleeping next, was thrown at me.
“We left the bank in half an hour, and I looked at my watch. It was 3 o'clock.
“Lamel cut the rope that tied us to the log. After a moment, such a wave hit the river, that I had never seen her at sea. The water scattered along the banks, covering three or four miles inland.
“It was a move back.
“There was noise everywhere, like thunder.
“We believed that we, of course, would die. The absence of a cave about. Joseph. We did not see any of the other two boats, horror, awaiting death.
“The trees were dropped. People talked about large cracks in the soil — some very deep — stretched 10 or 15 miles. ” We were told that a new lake had appeared in Tennessee (Reelfoot), and the waterways there had been changed. Yazoo River has a new mouth.
“I had severe pain with a broken arm. Of those who were with me, there is no, except father Joseph. My personal loss is $ 600 (about $ 12,000 in today's currency). ”
Remembrance of the priest
Father Joseph said in the appendage to the story of La Ruscha:
“I think there were two big shocks about an hour and a half apart and many small ones between them and after. The water rose so that a tree on the bank, the height of which must have been 30 feet above the level of the river, was covered everywhere.
“We saw two houses under fire on the left bank.
“We were attached to the shore near dawn, and the hickory tree fell on the boat - killing a negro, Ben, and broke the left hand of patron LaRouche.
“We made no effort to find out how many people were killed, although we were told that many of them were. We saw the dead bodies of several people.
"Fur loads were thrown into the river by people who gathered with us together until we could no longer."
Other account
Another eyewitness account (edited here for short) was deposited by Eliza Bryan, a resident of New Madrid, four years after the event.
“On December 16, 1811, at about 2 am, we were visited by a strong shock from an earthquake.
This was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere with sulfurous vapors, which led to total darkness.
“Truly terrible were the cries of grieving residents running to and fro, not knowing where to go, what to do — cries of birds and animals of every kind — cracking trees — and the roar of Mississippi, which was retrograde for several minutes.
“Residents fled in all directions, suggesting that there was less danger at a distance than near the river.
“Until January 23, 1812, there were several lighter shocks. Then one of them was cruel, as the strongest of the first.
“From now until February 4, the earth was in constant agitation - clearly wandering like a gentle sea.
“On February 7, at about 4 o'clock in the morning, the concussion occurred much more brutally than those who continued him, that he was nominated for a severe shock.
“The terrible darkness of the atmosphere, saturated with sulfurous steam, and the violence of violent rumbling noise, created a scene beyond imagination.
“At first, Mississippi seemed to recede from its shores — its waters were gathering like a mountain.
“Then the river rose 15–20 feet perpendicularly and expanded. Banks overflowed with retrograde current.
“The river, falling as fast as it had risen, took with it whole groves of flue trees.
“In all the severe shocks, the earth was terribly torn to pieces. Hundreds of hectares were covered with sand that came out of the cracks.
“LaTely was discovered that the lake (Reelfoot) was formed on the opposite side of the Mississippi in an Indian country (western Tennessee). This is a height of 100 miles long, one to six miles wide, and depths of 10 to 50 feet.
“For eighteen months, we were limited by the fear that our homes would fall from ongoing shocks and live like this in small, light camps.
Giant earth bug
The US Geological Survey estimates the three major earthquakes in the central Mississippi valley in the winter of 1811–12 as “the strongest in US history.”
Then there were no seismographs. However, the degree of change in the earth indicates three, closely related, earthquakes — magnitudes of 8 or more on the Richter seismograph scale tenfold.
Richter 8.4 for the Alaska earthquake of 1964 is the strongest earthquake.
The USGS says: “Earthquakes in the central United States affect much larger areas than earthquakes of similar magnitude in the western United States
“San Francisco, California, the 1906 earthquake (magnitude 7.8) was palpable 350 miles. The first earthquake in New Madrid rang the bells in Boston, Massachusetts, a thousand miles away. ”
New Madrid in 1811 consists of 400 log cabins. St. Louis and Memphis were small towns. “If a category 8 earthquake occurs today, these cities will be largely destroyed, and thousands of people will be killed,” says USGS
Last year, 470 measurable earthquakes were recorded in the Central Mississippi Valley.
USGS warning: "The probability of an earthquake of magnitude 6-7, occurring in the seismic zone of New Madrid over the next 50 years, exceeds 90 percent."
Question:
What is the worst of all - hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, forest fires, mud slides, volcanoes or earthquakes?
