Ok, for everyone that has followed this thread...
We have an big UPDATE.
Did FEMA Expect Midwest MegaQuake by 2014?
Is an earthquake the size of the 1811 New Madrid quake, the largest ever to hit the eastern United States, imminent in the next 3 years? Most
seismologists believe that the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), which runs along the Mississippi River and stretches across eight states, has the
potential to shift again but they can only predict a low probability of it doing so at any given time. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency
issued a request for information (RFI) to vendors last week for 140 million meals ready to eat (MREs) for a projected 7 million survivors in the event
of an NMSZ earthquake. Then they pulled the request, saying it was a bureaucratic error. .....................................................
......................Seismologist Seth Stein of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, author of a new book skeptical about the dangers posed
by the NMSZ, said that such a purchase would be a "horrible waste of public money." (Two related RFIs are still active, for 7 million emergency
blankets and 550 million gallons of water in individual 1-liter plastic bottles.) Stein suggested that the posting was a part of the "PR blitz" for
FEMA's upcoming 2011 National Level Exercise, in which eight states will simulate a response to a magnitude 7+ earthquake on the bicentennial of the
1811 quake.
news.sciencemag.org...
Interesting!