Early December 16, 1811, the destructive New Madrid Earthquakes began. For more than two months people in southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas, and western Kentucky and Tennessee endured fear and privations from three major earthquakes (above 7.5 on the Richter Scale) and another 20 almost as bad. Many of the roughly 2,000 smaller ones disturbed their days and nights.

Eighteen of the quakes were so strong that they caused church bells to ring on the East Coast and made dishes fall from shelves in such places as the Executive Mansion.

Seismologists still monitor the New Madrid Seismic Zone. They have detected 145 tremors scattered around the Zone so far this year. The majority do little more than knock loose items off a shelf, but the late November the frequency increased. The biggest one in the last week was a 2.3 near Tiptonville, TN, and Reelfoot Lake, formed during the 1811-1812 quakes.

For updates on what’s happening in the Zone, go to https://earthquaketrack.com/us-mo-new-madrid/recent. The site’s map shows where the tremors occur. Other online maps show where the most serious damages will be when powerful quakes come. Bridges, railway lines, and roads will be hard hit, as will brick and stone buildings, both residences and other buildings, including those on the college campuses in my central Missouri city.

No one knows when another catastrophic series—or even a big quake with a few aftershocks—will hit again. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources accepts an estimate of a 10 percent chance of big ones (at least 7.7) in the next 50 years.

Insurance companies see much higher odds, perhaps because some calculate a 25 to 45 percent chance of quakes 6.0 and above in the next 50 years. According to reporting in the Columbia Missourian May 22, 2025 edition, home insurance in the New Madrid area went from $57 in 2000 to $569 in 2023. Many of the 3,000 residents and the businesses can afford neither the insurance nor the retrofitting to protect their buildings.

Major quakes today would be bring huge human and property losses. A 2008 report from the Mid-America Earthquake Center estimated that, in Missouri alone, 15,000 would be killed and 120,000 displaced. The Center placed damages at nearly $40 billion. That would surely be much more now.

Today we remember the terror and pain during the New Madrid Earthquakes and hope we don’t see that bit of history repeated.

—Carolyn Mulford