Jeff Grunwald looks toward the Mississippi River on Dec. 11 while standing outside of the New Madrid Historical Museum of which he’s the administrator in New Madrid, Mo. “I’ve experienced six earthquakes while living here, and I’d characterize them all as underwhelming,” Grunwald said. “I hope they stay that way” (Nick Sheaffer/Missourian).
NEW MADRID — The town of New Madrid seems obsessed with the fault lines that loom under its surface.
Signs with the slogan “It’s Our Fault” line the road into town, past the cotton fields and defunct factories that were once reliable employers.
The local businesses, the ones that still exist, aren’t shy about referencing earthquakes in their branding.
The town’s principal attraction is the museum that details the history of the 1811 earthquakes that made the bordering Mississippi River run backwards.
But for most people who live in New Madrid, the faults are an afterthought.
According to a 2022 report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, only 11.4% of residences in the region have earthquake insurance. And hardly any buildings are built to withstand a major one.
Jeff Grunwald is the administrator of the New Madrid Historical Museum and the town’s de facto expert on all things seismic. He tells tourists every day about the linked history between the town and the faults, and the reality that an earthquake could happen again at any moment is largely met with acceptance.
“If it happens, I guess we’ll just have to kind of deal with it and move on and hope for the best,” Grunwald said. “Fingers crossed, kind of thing.”
It wasn’t always like that. In 2000, 60.2% of residences in the region had earthquake insurance.
But today, the people of New Madrid say they have bigger problems.
More immediate problems
On a sunny, temperate fall day, what used to be a flourishing cultural and business center for New Madrid’s 2,800 residents is desolate. Hardly any businesses are still operating, and cracked, chipped and sometimes crumbling buildings aren’t an uncommon sight.
“When I was a kid, Main Street was booming,” said Malinda Dawson Grunwald, a 63-year-old married to Jeff, whose family has been in New Madrid for generations. “Every Saturday, you’d get a quarter and go walk down to Walgreens and get a soda for 10 cents and a candy bar for five cents. There wasn’t an empty place on Main Street.”
The town is surrounded by farms growing cotton. Residents say these farms used to be major employers, but technological progress has shrunk job opportunities.
“What used to take three people takes one,” said Latham Hunter, who was born and raised in New Madrid. “And that’s in less than the past decade.”
With shrinking retail and agriculture opportunities, New Madrid has become something of a monotown, with a large portion of its population relying on just a few employers. So it’s not surprising that far more present a worry than a magnitude seven earthquake is the effect of Magnitude 7 Metals, a nearby plant that employed more than 500 workers, closing in early 2024.
In the nearby town of Dexter, Tyson Foods shut down a plant the year before. It laid off around 700 people.
After putting food on the table and paying for flood and medical insurance, there just isn’t enough room in residents’ wallets to spend on earthquake insurance. That’s made worse by rising costs. Earthquake insurance in southeast Missouri is about eight times more expensive than it was in 2000, according to a report from the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance.
In addition, Missouri has no overarching building code, deferring that responsibility to local governments. New Madrid County only requires that large non-residential, non-public buildings be built earthquake safe. For a small town, that essentially means no buildings are earthquake safe.
“Just life issues, just standard, everyday stuff probably is going to interfere with you having a long-term vision about risks,” Jeff Grunwald said.
“Plus, people don’t like to think about scary things,” he said.
Tiny reminders
Most days the faults groan, sending small shockwaves throughout the region. The shaking is often slight, even unnoticeable. But for a three-month period 200 years ago, that wasn’t the case. The faults terrorized New Madrid across the winter of 1811 and 1812.
Thousands of small earthquakes unsettled the Mississippi River, flooding the sparsely-populated town and taking people’s homes with it. Hundreds of severe earthquakes crumbled stone buildings as far as St. Louis. The coup de grâce was three massive earthquakes, which made the Mississippi river run backwards, created temporary waterfalls and largely vanquished New Madrid from the map.
Since then, things have been mostly silent.
The peace that has followed the havoc makes the New Madrid Seismic Zone unique. The San Andreas Fault out West delivers punishing shakes far more often. There have been about half a dozen major earthquakes along San Andreas in the last century, while New Madrid has had none.
That helps keep it off people’s minds.
“Sometimes we’ll get a tremor and someone will say, ‘Did you feel that?’ That’s about it,” said Sandra Patton, who’s lived her entire life in the bootheel.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there is a 25%-40% chance of a magnitude 6 or greater earthquake in the next 50 years and a 7-10% chance of an 1811-1812 repeat.
There are efforts from state and national organizations to get people insured and buildings secure. But those haven’t gone far.
And the townspeople continue to share a faith that everything’s going to be OK.
“I know how the story ends, so I never worried much about the earthquake because I’m spiritually solid,” said Stacy Pikey, a retiree who’s working as a waitress at the New Madrid Country Club. “I know where I’m headed regardless. I know there’s not going to be a flood, because He promised He wouldn’t flood the earth again. So, I just don’t worry about that stuff.”
There’s also a pervasive sentiment that if something were to happen, insurance wouldn’t make much of a difference.
“If it ever happens the way they said it’s going to be, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Pikey said. “So just be prepared eternally.”
The residents of New Madrid are also relying on each other to weather what the future brings. Many native-born residents left town after growing up, but found themselves back in New Madrid later in life, missing the tight-knit community.
“You never feel alone or unsafe,” said Malinda Dawson Grunwald, whose family has been in New Madrid since the 1700s. “You always feel like, if you run out of gas, the next person by, you’re going to know them, and they’re going to stop and help you.”
The desire to help others doesn’t stop at city limits. Last fall, four members of the New Madrid County Ambulance District drove hundreds of miles to help victims of Florida’s back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton.
“There might be a day and time where there’s a major earthquake here in New Madrid County, where we’re going to need some assistance,” Director Patrick Garrison said. “So while we have resources and equipment available, let’s go ahead and send them down and provide those resources to their local community.”
The people in New Madrid do prepare in other ways. Some described having a “go bag,” in case they need to make a quick escape. Schools participate in the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut, an annual earthquake drill. And a local school has a safe room built to withstand severe disasters.
Though it might have limited utility in an earthquake.
“With a tornado, we have a warning that it’s coming, so we can move all of our students and staff over to that building,” said Anthony Roberts, the director of school safety and security for the New Madrid County R-1 School District. “On an earthquake, there’s no way, without a warning, to move all of them over there.”
This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.