2024 is the year disaster movies make a comeback with Twisters, but another film that hit streaming this month is registering on a different Richter scale.
Tubi’s original Continental Split is more than a cheap cash grab. It touches on subject matter that could happen and is stirring some into a frenzy harkening back to the hysteria over the Mayan calendar, Y2K, and supervolcanoes.
The plot occurs in Missouri, which sits right on top of the notorious New Madrid fault line, when a massive landmass-splitting quake shakes things up for the whole country.
While dormant – technically or ‘to a fault’ you might say – the New Madrid fault has minor activity all the time, and had some quite recently. Small earthquakes shook a Tennessee town in 2023.
But that was localized. A major earthquake felt for miles and miles has a 25-40 percent chance of emanating from the area, if not greater.
As you can guess, it’s already happened once. A series of tremors that were detectable as far as the eastern US reached a magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter in 1811 and 1812.
There was a whole ‘lotta shakin goin’ on’ but Continental Split takes things to the extreme, Similar to the global disaster piece 2012, St. Louis and Jefferson City are hit with magnitudes upwards of 7.5 and 8.6, reducing them to ruin.
However, while buildings burn and crumble, and floods swallow everything, the film goes for a happy ending. The question is if there would be a similar resolution in real life.
The 25-40 percent chance of another earthquake along the New Madrid fault includes a risk of a shake-up in the next 50 years that registers six or greater. Any higher than seven is a risk of seven to ten percent.
Naturally, some view it as a higher and more immediate threat than that. Hidden among all the turmoil this year is a fear that New Madrid will let ‘er rip at some point in the next year, go off the Richter, and tear the country apart – literally.
We may be entering tin foil hat territory with this one, but between the release of Continental Split and coordinated drills preparing for the worst, there is a prediction something big will happen. And the New Madrid Zone will be the epicenter.
An expert – Jeff Briggs, Earthquake Program Manager for the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency – weighed in and found the whole thing slightly ridiculous. Other experts throughout history, he says on a Missouri radio program, have never indicated anything as big as seen in the movie.
Briggs adds, however, the sobering and chilling thought that there is no way to predict a large quake like the weather. It’ll happen when it happens and without warning.
Moreover, the most catastrophic damage will happen in southeast Missouri and the most vulnerable structures would be old and historic buildings not up to codes or modern standards. One exception is the St. Louis Arch, which no one is worried about.
Briggs also says to enjoy Continental Split as entertainment and not much else. You can do that currently on TUBI if you’re so inclined.
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