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Seismic St. Louis

Emily Sekine

I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.

On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.

On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.

For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius. 

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Alexi Martin

The article addresses emergency response because it talks about the dark of helping people. The side people never hear about, those who do not want help or those who do not trust the help they are recieving. The volunteers (emergency response) that is provided is not recieved well, it says how the structure of helping these people needs to be changed so people believe that prevention will not bring diease.

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Alexi Martin
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I was not convinced by some of the doctor's attitudes towards the patients. I understood that such a busy ER could be hetic, but it is their responsibility to help those in need. I felt that not finding a way to help the man who was on dialysis to stop bouncing back and forth was not fair. I thought there was a way it could have been remediated better than how the doctor decided to fix the task.

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Alexi Martin

The policy was an amendment of an earlier policy that guarenteed compensation and healthcare to those affected by 9/11. This previous bill, however would stop providing help in Fall 2016. An amendment to reauthorize the bill was posed in 2015 and the bill was renewed and made permenant to remember 9.11. The originial policy had a difficult time getting passed due to an uneven vote in congress and negative opinions. 

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Alexi Martin

This organization has invesitgated ad exposed the use of chemical weapons on civilazations in Iraq, exhumed mass graves in Bosnia and Rwanda. They seaked to expose government torture and abuse of civial rights in many countries including-Columbia, Mexico, Peru, Sierra Leone and others. They approach disaster and emergency response through trying to stop them by exposing abuses to human rights. They investigate using human accounts and first hand experience. Through using their resources to expose injustice. They have won a noble peace prize for documenting landmine injuries and calling to ban them.

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Alexi Martin

The report addresses matters of disaster and health through describing the failures that the government and other organizations had on the people. Hospital's refused to evacuate (executives) leaving people stranded without power (poor planning, generators were located below sea level), and medicines. It tak=lks about the failure to evacuate and help people who have disabilities and/or who have medical problems. This led to people dying for preventable reasons. Health preperations were delayed due to the governent not allowing food and medical supplies to be delievered on time creating a discrepancy and improper treatment of people/ The shealthers that they provided were also inadequate, water systems were nonexistent after the power went out, there was rationing- the people rioted.

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Alexi Martin

The authors are Emily Goldmann and Sandro Galea. Goldmann is an epidemiologist who has a desire to understand the causes and consequences of mental illness. Galea is an emergency physician and epidemiologist who is interested in the social production of health of urban populations.