IL—Hard to believe…but once again, our great leaders at the state of Illinois’ second most-useless agency (right behind DCFS) is coordinating yet another useless event to “teach” everyone about ‘earthquake safety.’
That’s right…Jonathan Monken, the guy who couldn’t cut it as director of the Illinois State Police because he had no qualifications whatsoever to conduct the office so they moved him to an agency that NEEDS no qualifications (Illinois Emergency Management Agency; for examples, just look around at your local county EMA directors), has advised that there’s going to be another “Great Central U.S. ShakeOut,” and Illinois needs to “get ready!!!”
This of course is IEMA’s reason for getting more funds from the feds so they can perpetuate the ongoing ‘federalization’ of everything that runs each county…but that can’t be telling that openly, so they have to couch it by using Illinois’ seismic history as an excuse to work people up and get them to go along with an ‘exercise’ that no one who hasn’t lived through it could possibly know how to comport themselves. But hey, if they get folks to go along with this little stunt, the next little stunt will be easier, and the next and the next….until it gets to the point that if IEMA (or FEMA) announces that we need to turn over our weapons and foods in preparation for the next big ‘event,’ we’ll do it….willingly.
Supposed central location of the 1811-12 eqs....or was it?
So this time, it’s a pretty sure bet the feds are trying to capitalize on the fact that it will have been 200 years since the worst quakes ever to hit North America (that we’re aware of, anyway) just about split asunder the middle of the country. Between December 16, 1811 and February 7, 1812, several quakes just about wrecked the Midwest, many of them measuring over 7.0…quakes that would absolutely flatten just about everything in the area were they to happen today, and render the center of the Midwest largely impassable by road or rail….or even river.
However, for “everyone to get together and pretend an earthquake is shaking us” is the height of ludicrousness. Contrary to what the whole ‘exercise’ is all about—at a set time on a set day, with set conditions and everyone knowing exactly where they’re going to be at what time and what they’re going to be doing while they’re there—earthquakes are so unpredictable that it’s not a day-by-day basis of preparation, but a second-by-second basis. You simply cannot reenact what you did during your last “earthquake exercise” in order to survive the real thing should it occur. You can go about with a false sense of self-preservation that you can do this because you ‘practiced’ it….but those with that false sense will be the ones who will be most foolhardy and likely, victims of unforeseen occurrences during the real thing.
So the whole thing is really quite the farce.
As we’ve said before: the only thing that’s going to “save” you in an earthquake is MITIGATION. Because we live on one of the largest seismic substructures on the continent (so large that geologists don’t even know the true extent of it yet), it’s not foolishness to go about your business with the thought in mind that an earthquake can strike at anytime, when you’re anywhere: asleep, at home, at work, on the road, in the grocery, etc. If you go anywhere without a survival bag, for you AND your family, you’re at risk. If you don’t have a ‘go-bag’ for you and your family at your home or work, you’re at risk. If you’re not stocking up on beans and bullets so you can make it in the event of total cut-off, you’re at risk. If you’re living in a place where things will topple on you and kill you, and you can mitigate that but you haven’t, you’re a total fool, and this ‘exercise’ should give you that warm happy feel-good fuzzy….but it’s not going to save you in the event of a real earthquake in our region.
Come on, folks…this “Drop, Cover and Hold On” thing the website is promoting isn’t going to help anything…the word “mitigation” doesn’t even appear on the site; the closest they get is “prepare,” and that has only four steps you can take, all of them minimal. The focus should be on the mitigation part….not the distraction of a “drill”…because anyone with common sense can see when a colossal waste of our tax dollars this is, money that could be better spent preparing infrastructure for the eventuality of seismic activity in our region.