Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On!

During the last couple of months, our state has experienced several earthquakes, almost all of them unfelt except by the most motion-sensitive people and the seismologists' seismographs.

Most of the quakes in South Carolina tend to be centered in either the coastal plain near Charleston or, more recently, around the area of Columbia, the state's capital. About 70 percent of them occur in the central part of the state. Even the most powerful movers and shakers in the statehouse can't come close to matching that power of nature.

The entire state--in fact, much of the Southeast--exists on a series of northeast-to-southwest-running fault lines. South Carolina is allegedly the most seismically active state on the eastern seaboard. As the map from the South Carolina Emergency Management Division shows, most of the faults run across the Midlands of the state. (Does this mean that most of the problems of our state are the fault of Columbia?)

The most recent quakes in the state, however, have occurred closer to home, nearer the Upstate and across the border in Western North Carolina. They were measured as from 1.7 to 2.84 in magnitude. (In fact, while I was writing this post, a 3.0 quake rattled Lexington, in the Midlands!)

I didn't feel that 3.0 quake, but I have felt a few of the quakes that have shaken our area of the Upstate. One, in particular, got my undivided attention. My wife and I were sitting at breakfast one Sunday morning when we noticed the tall tropical plant near the table vibrating. Then we felt our chairs moving and noticed the milk in our cereal bowls rippling. If we weren't fully awake before, we certainly were then!

I also remember feeling two earthquakes when we lived in East Tennessee. I was in the kitchen when one hit, and it rattled the dishes in the dishwasher. When the other one hit, we were sitting outside in lawn chairs when it felt as though someone had suddenly dropped a heavy concrete block behind me with a heavy thud. That one I not only felt but also heard! Whenever they are powerful enough to feel and hear, they get your attention!

But no one feels, let alone hears, most of the quakes that occur here. They're just too small and weak. Relatively speaking, of course. Any quake that moves the earth at all is powerful. But ours are nothing like those experienced in California, Alaska, or along the Pacific rim, the so-called Ring of Fire, a 25,000-mile horseshoe-shaped arc of volcanic and seismic activity. Those quakes cause massive damage and trigger tsunamis.

Damage from the 1964 Alaska earthquake

I remember as a kid reading in either My Weekly Reader or Current Events student paper about a 9.2 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on this date in 1964. It killed 139 people and left massive damage in its wake. Estimates at the time were that the damages amounted to $400 to $500 million ($4.1 BILLION in today's money).

A quake occurred on December 16, 1811, along the New Madrid fault that caused the Mississippi River to flow backward for a time. It supposedly was felt all the way in New York and Boston. That's powerful! Of course, we have no photographic evidence of that one and no estimate of damages.

An estimated 6.9 to 7.3 magnitude quake hit Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886. It was said to have been felt in such far-away places as Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and Bermuda. It left 60 dead and damages to around 2,000 buildings amounting to $5-6 million ($197 million in today's money). It was one of the most powerful quakes to hit the east coast.

Damage from the 1886 earthquake in Charleston, South Carolina

Such historic quakes help put our recent puny South Carolina tremors into perspective. Sort of like the feeling one who's used to seeing "huge" oak trees here in the Southeast gets upon visiting the giant Sequoyahs of Yellowstone. Or the feeling that one who is awed by the Smoky Mountains gets when he sees the Rockies of Glacier National Park for the first time. Or when one who thinks Norris Lake in Tennessee or Lake Keowee in South Carolina is big until he sees the ocean.

Earthquakes are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in revealing the unfathomable and immeasurable power of God. The Bible says that in the last days there will be "earthquakes in diverse places" (Matt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11). We can expect them. We often hear about them hitting elsewhere, but lately more of them seem to be hitting closer to home!

Yep, I believe we're in those "last days." As Winston Churchill said following the Allied victory at the Battle of El Alamein, "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." And that end is getting closer every day.

Are you ready?