B-Sides: When the house starts shaking, Valley residents don’t first think quake

By Mark Bennett
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE April 23, 2008 10:11 pm

— There probably haven’t been that many people standing outside in their underwear since those Madonna concerts in the 1980s.
But earthquakes call for extreme measures here in the Midwest.
When Friday’s 5.2-magnitude temblor shook the Wabash Valley at 5:37 a.m., most of us, frankly, could not figure out what was happening. Personally, I was asked by my wife and our daughter, “What’s happening?” I listened, felt the house trembling, heard a few things fall to the floor, and then, of course, stepped out the front door to solve the mystery. I’m sure others did, too.
I expected to find some disoriented backhoe operator mistakenly banging into our limestone walls. Instead, I found silence and darkness, a peaceful Indiana morning.
So I wiped off my dew-covered feet, walked back inside and answered the ladies’ question with a firm “I don’t know.”
My wife alertly, and rightly, suspected we’d just experienced an earthquake. I concurred.
When all hell breaks loose in these parts, earthquakes don’t usually come to our minds first. Tribune-Star readers verified that reality when they shared their quake experiences through our Web site, www.tribstar.com.
Ruth Bro of Terre Haute once witnessed Chicago skyscrapers swaying in high winds, and initially concluded her house was swaying Friday “because of a massive windstorm.” Carol Corsi of Terre Haute said, “In the fog of sleep, my half-awake, frightened mind thought erroneously that some huge, wild animal must have hold of the side of the house, shaking it wildly.”
Greg (who didn’t share his last name) of Indianapolis was awakened while sleeping on his couch. He first deduced the cause was a ghost. Those fears subsided, though, when a TV news report confirmed an earthquake had emanated from West Salem, Ill., along the Wabash Valley seismic zone. “I was relieved that I was neither crazy nor possessed by a demon, causing the couch to levitate,” he wrote.
Howard Lee McLean, a Rose-Hulman chemistry professor, said he and his wife “first thought a tractor-trailer truck hit our embankment out front” of their home. But McLean earned a geology degree from the University of Wyoming, and he and his wife also formerly lived in southern California and Japan, so within seconds, they knew this was an earthquake.
Startled by the jolts, Jamie Clark of Terre Haute said the quaking “felt like two grown men jumping up and down on my bed.”
You have to wonder what Iben Browning would’ve thought of all this hubbub.
Browning was the New Mexico climatologist who predicted a “50-50” chance of a major earthquake along the New Madrid fault on or around Dec. 3, 1990. Word of his ominous prognostication, made during a speech, spread through a Memphis newspaper report in November 1989. Browning based his theory on “earth tides,” a concept involving gravitational pressure on Earth from the moon and other planets. His forecast gained validity because of an erroneous report that Browning had accurately foretold the catastrophic San Francisco quake of October 1989.
History added to the saga. The strongest-known earthquakes in North American history occurred in the tiny Missouri bootheel town of New Madrid in December 1811 and February 1812. As the legend goes, that series of quakes caused church bells to ring in far-away Boston, and changed the course of the Mississippi River. So talk of another big one caused a buzz among residents of states along and around the New Madrid fault, which bisects Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Geological experts discounted Browning’s projection on scientific grounds, but were encouraged by the wave of earthquake preparedness it triggered.
Indeed, here in the Wabash Valley, people listened to lectures on Midwestern seismic activity by true geologists. Some folks stockpiled water bottles, food, matches and survival equipment, just in case.
As Dec. 3 drew near, the Tribune-Star dispatched reporter John Wright, who knows how to document unusual stories with deft cleverness, to New Madrid. That community of 3,200 people was awash in media. Nearly four dozen TV satellite trucks lined the main drag. News reports noted that some New Madridians were more startled by the media invasion than the predicted earthquake, and hid from reporters. Nonetheless, John found everyday people willing to talk. Some were skeptical of Browning’s call, but plenty of others believed it just might happen.
As a precaution, New Madrid and other communities around the Midwest closed their schools on Dec. 3 and 4. (Vigo County schools remained open, and reminded students that quake fears would be considered an unexcused absence. School officials vowed to investigate rumors that Vigo County high-schoolers were planning to skip class to have “earthquake parties.”)
Finally, the big day arrived. What unfolded at that moment in history will long be remembered as, well, nothing. No New Madrid quake. Seismic equipment owned by Terre Haute expert Gerald Shea indicated about a dozen minor quakes in other parts of the world, but in the Midwest, Dec. 3, 1990, became known as “the day the earth stood still.”
Late in the day on Dec. 3, New Madrid police officer Denson Taylor told John and the other remaining reporters, “I’ll sleep better knowin’ you all won’t be here tomorrow.” Life got back to normal there and elsewhere. Browning endured ridicule and died in Albuquerque of a heart attack the following July at age 73.
Despite the non-event, some lessons were learned. One piece of advice that emerged would’ve benefited many of us last Friday morning. On the eve of the expected quake, a young New Madrid woman, Angela Summons, told John, “I used to sleep in my underwear. Now, it’s my sweats.”

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.