Your Favorite User
My Street
My Town
Dear Mr User:
I am writing to request your support and endorsement for the Advanced National Seismic Research and Monitoring System (NSS) as authorized in HR1184. This system, as proposed in U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1188, will employ modern technology and methods to improve the understanding of earthquake hazards, better plan disaster resistant communities, and improve the knowledge base needed to design building codes intelligently, deploy emergency services strategically, and inform the public rapidly. The current 1970's system was designed at a time when the almost exclusive purpose of it was scientific research. We now have the capability to provide near-real-time information of value to the public, emergency managers, structural engineers, scientists and others. The position statment of the Seismological Society of America (SSA) states: Our aging networks were designed simply to locate earthquakes. For building and zoning, we not only need to know where earthquakes occur but the intensity of shaking in various locations affected by the earthquake. Unfortunately, old instruments go off-scale at a very low intensity of shaking. Newer instruments will be used both to locate the earthquake and to record accurately the level of shaking. These digital instruments can communicate automatically with computers that, within minutes after an earthquake, generate a map of how the shaking is spatially distributed. This rapid alert would allow managers of emergency services, utilities, insurers, and others to deploy, in the most effective manner, their limited resources to the places where damage is expected to be greatest. Students and the public (and the scientists themselves) become involved in the science when they are able to observe the small vibrations from earthquakes around the globe as they happen. This leads to animated discussions of geoscience, chemistry, physics, engineering, psychology, and sociology, and motivates people to prepare for emergencies.
The New Madrid and Southern Appalachian seismic zones place the Memphis-St Louis and Blacksburg-Atlanta corridors, respectively, at risk. The Wabash Seismic Zone threatens southern Illinois and Indiana, and Kentucky. The Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI) is a Tennessee Board of Regents Center of Excellence at the University of Memphis, operates over 100 seismic stations in 8 states, and is a core institution of the Mid-America Earthquake Center. CERI and its partners have recently put significant resources into our monitoring efforts in these areas but available resources limit what is possible, and our obsolete hardware would not provide the necessary data in the event of a large earthquake. The House Bill authorizes $38 million for FY2001 yet the President's budget only includes $2.5 million. While the $2.5 million can be used to improve the some existing hardware, without full funding the necessary infrastructure to provide the intended products can not be realized.
Additional funds will be required to upgrade and integrate the many independent seismic monitoring networks in the central and southeast U.S. We request that you contact your legislators to support the NSS. Please contact us if we can be of service or provide further information on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Your Favorite Lobbyist