By: redneck@txdirect.net (Redneck Gaijin)
Scientists have been warning that the fault line near New Madrid, Missouri was ready to go, but nobody ever imagined this...
Under the surface in the lowlands of southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, the tetonic plate of North America is attempting to tear itself apart. The result is the New Madrid fault, a series of stretch marks in the continental plate which, about once every 200 years, produces a series of massive earthquakes as the cracks work just a little bit wider...
... or, in the tumults of Armageddeon, a -lot- wider.
Earthquakes racked most of the planet during the Last Battle, destroying most of the Mediterranean cities, washing life from most of the Pacific islands, sinking much of southern and central California under a new ocean inlet... and in the American heartland, ripping a great ditch in the earth where the Mississippi flowed.
For over a week after the earthquake, the river flowed -upstream- between Baton Rouge, LA and what once was Memphis, TN. The St. Louis Arch, toppled in the great earthquake, now lies under a thick layer of sludge at the northern end of the newest Great Lake, which the survivors are calling 'Lake Madrid' after the fault line.
The lake tends to be very narrow- the eastern suburbs of Memphis overlook the eastern shore, while some twenty or thirty miles westward, the Arkansas landscape peeks out in a series of boggy, pine-ridden sandbars forming a doubtful, marshy west shore. At its widest point, where the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers flow into the lake, the shores run from Paducah (most of which remains above water) in the east to the Mark Twain Islands which separate the main lake from the St. Francis River branch, some 100 miles to the west.
Some fifty miles south of Memphis, at Helena, AR, the earthquake has thrown up a thick wall of sludge and rock, damming the great river and putting an end to cargo traffic north of Greenville, MS. For the moment, the river seems through and over the muck only fitfully, slowly carving out new exits as the water building up in the new basin. The northern end of the lake lies just north of what was St. Louis, where the Illinois River and Mississippi River meet.
Most of the people who lived in the basin survived the earthquakes and escaped the flooding. Most of the Missouri residents who could not afford river transportation have moved westward and southward, as far as Kansas City (a walled outpost on the hostile Plains), Springfield (a city divided between a US-loyal government, a radical conservative freedom movement, and thousands of refugees) and Little Rock, Arkansas (currently debating US loyalty, independence, joining Montgomery, AL's Confederacy, or joining Texas).
KANSAS CITY- independency, relatively isolated; suffering from velociraptor depradations and steadily dwindling supplies
SPRINGFIELD- divided between uneasy peace and guerilla warfare, as a 'militia' movement tries to take over from the USA-loyal county and city government
JEFFERSON CITY & COLUMBIA - virtually the only region still controlled by the old Missouri state government, weakly held by remnants of the Missouri National Guard; supplies very low due to destruction of transportation and huge numbers of refugees
ST. LOUIS - Disastered, more than 80% submerged due to subsidence and backing up of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
CAIRO - Disastered, totally submerged
PADUCAH - Only partially submerged, but badly damaged by earthquake; rebuilding as a river-port
MEMPHIS - Disastered, 70% submerged due to flooding and collapse of much of the limestone bluffs
JONESBORO - Growing as a terminus for refugees trying to salvage things from the submerged countryside and move on towards Little Rock
HELENA - Also growing as trucks and wagons use remaining roads to make the portage from the lake down to the Arkansas River
LITTLE ROCK - Torn between factions, unable to decide which way to go, but peaceful for the moment
--- Redneck (had to figure this out anyway, in case the DVPBEM group heads in that direction)
Kris Overstreet, web pages beyond belief
http://www.txdirect.net/users/redneck
- Redneck Gaijin Online
http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/wlp/
- White Lightning Productions
http://www.antarctic-press.com/
- Antarctic Press Web Site
http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/acupunct/
- Anatomical Acupuncture
http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/dvpbem/
- In Nomine: Dark Victory PBEM
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Elizabeth McCoy <arcangel@prismnet.com>
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