The New Madrid Fault Is WAKING UP — The Quake That Could SPLIT America in Half, 11 Million at Risk

A doomsday rumor is spreading online. The story of a catastrophic earthquake that will split the United States in half. While that myth is a geological impossibility, the reality of the New Madrid Seismic Zone is far more terrifying. This 150-mile fault system in the heart of America produced three of the largest earthquakes in North American history in 1811-1812, shaking the continent so hard it rang church bells in Boston and made the Mississippi River flow backward for hours. Today, scientists are locked in a fierce debate. Is the fault dying, as some GPS data suggests? Or is it simply reloading for its next major release, following a roughly 500-year cycle of mega-quakes? The USGS gives it a 7-10% chance of a magnitude 7.0+ monster quake in the next 50 years. A modern event wouldn't split the continent, but it could sever it. Emergency planners, working from a massive simulation by the Mid-America Earthquake Center, project the total collapse of bridges, the failure of the power grid across eight states, and the liquefaction of soil beneath major cities like Memphis and St. Louis. An estimated 11 million people are in the direct path of this catastrophe, a disaster that could cause hundreds of billions in damage and become the single most devastating natural disaster in the history of the United States. This documentary explores the chilling history of the 1811-1812 quakes, the terrifying science of why Midwestern quakes are more dangerous than California's, the intense scientific feud over the true level of danger, and the catastrophic impact a modern quake would have on the 11 million people who live on top of America's most dangerous, and misunderstood, fault line. The ground is talking. Are we listening? ---