Nisstyre's Corner

If you live in California, then you don't need to read this. You guys along with too many others get yer asses kicked, what I get is minor. Have you ever had that trust in the earth shaken, literally. Is the ground really that solid, or can it just uproot itself. And when someone says Earthquake, no one ever thinks of New York.

THE SAINT LAWRENCE VALLEY RIFT

Maybe a little more today than in the past, but most people do not related earthquakes and New York State. I've read that in the past several years, a few have happened in New York City, so the earthquakes of New England are probably a little more known. Of course it is nothing so far that compares with what California and many other places around the world are force to face. In general these earthquakes are small, ranging from a 2 something as felt recently in the past 5 years in NYC, up to 5.5.

One area of major activity is known as the Saint Lawrence Valley Rift. The above picture (thank you BoR FAQ Section) shows a geological map of New York and surrounding areas. I'll guess that knowledge on how to read these maps is common also, this is the 21st century. If you cannot find this valley, then do the following, locate NYC, which I hope everyone knows where that is, and follow the map up the State Line. The Saint Lawrence River Valley is of course the massive green area, running northeast / southwest between the mountains in New York, Vermont and South-East Canada. The river itself dumps into the Atlanic Ocean from the St.Lawrence Gulf, which can be located on any world map. The river runs southwest to Lake Ontario, creating the angled northwest border of NY.

On September 5th 1944 a "major" New England Earthquake happened in the early hours of the morning. The quake itself measured around 5.6 on the scale, and was felt by New York, Vermont, Ohio, and detected into Maryland and Maine. The damage to the area was moderate, roughtly 2 Million in 1944 Cash. Some buildings were heavily damaged, most wide spread damage was chimneys which fell. It was reported head stones in some cemetaries rotated on their small foundations. Its epicenter was located to an area on the american side, between the US Town of Massena and the Canadian Town of Cornwall.

Earthquakes make people uneasy, it takes away that sense of solid earth. That suddenly with little warning, the ground can began to shake and vibrate, rattle to the point it could destroy everything if strong enough. It makes you nervous to think about, and I don't know how people live in California with the constant attacks of earthquakes.

And so, why the fuck am I going on about Earthquakes. For many reasons, lets begin...I am a resident of Massena, yes I don't tell people my town, and I"m sure people from my mud look at this thing, I've heard comments, but personally I don't give a shit anymore. Step on my land and you get a face full of 410 buckshots. So I live in the town of the great NY earthquake. But hey, lets throw another log on the fire. I'm less than a mile away from the epicenter, shit, I can go stand on the mother fucker.

I also take up residence in a almost 200 year old farm house, who foundation is made of rocks with a dirt floor, with the support beams of the underhouse actually trees cut in half, almost 2 century old bark still on them. The frame of the house is not nailed, but pegged. Its outter walls ancient brick, which sadly is turning into dust. Sadly more over the brick is stucko, so basically the outter walls are crumbling now. In 1944 the house recieved damage, the falling chimney, a massive crack on the east side of the house, and foundation damage to the southern wall. Several rocks fell from the stone foundation walls, causing the center beam to fall slightly. This has caused the western wall of the house to slowly "run away" from the structure. In almost a half of century, its only moved an inch. The house itself needs repairs.

I have witnessed about 4 earthquakes in my life. Of course many more have happened, there is at least 2 to 3 each year, but typically not in my area. Two of these earthquakes were basically un-noticable, what happen to catch my eye was my desk lamp swaying back and forth, a sign of a earthquake. And low and behold the next day the newspaper talking about the earthquake, cause in this area, nothing else happens.

On April 20th 2002 though, I got a good taste of an earthquake. 6:50am an earthquake, epicenter located southwest of a city in the northeast corner of NY State, a 5.2, was felt from Maine to Maryland. This was an odd experience, and sadly I knew almost instantly what it was. It was only 30 seconds, but I'll remember it. It started as a dull vibration, like a truck going by, and picked up speed and sound. It got intense for about 10 seconds and died out. And that was it. Yeah, people are laughing at me, but I grew up not knowing this area was earthquake prone. Also sadly at the time I was stoned and tired.

September 3rd 2004.......Yeah, lovely, and yes I was also stoned and tired. I'm still kind of freaked by it. This was not like the 2002 one, it felt as if a truck or car had smashed into the house. Quick 2 second blurp, a jolt. This is the second one we've had this year. Oddly enough, we do not feel them at my own house, I happen to be at a friends house when this occured. The previous one was also not felt at my house, but within the area of my friends house. Fun fun fun. And yeah, of course they're talking about how we are due for the next big one, and that these small jolts are just the intro to our doom.

So, if I wasn't paranoid enough. Lets get to another aspect of my area. This deals with the Saint Lawrence River itself. Unknown to most Americans, except people in the area, there is a series of Dams and Locks (those things that make boats go up and down) along this river. Since most the river is in canada, the american's part was smaller, but we still lent a major hand. Its known as the St.Lawrence Seaway, and if for some god unknown reason you are up here on vacation, unless you want to watch a boat float into a cement tank, get raised 50 feet and take off, avoid this tour trap.

The seaway allows large ships to travel between the atlantic and the great lakes. Before this seaway, only smaller ships could travel along the river, which in one section was major rapids. So in the 1950s as America got fat, we built this seaway. We also drowned about 20 towns, and a shitload of land. In my area a massive hydro-power dam was built, which gives a good deal of power to NYC and New York. The dam is split in half, 1/2 belongs to the United States, the other half belongs to Canada. On the American Side, exclusive to my town only, is our half of the power dam, a massive control dam which tamed the rapids, and created a man-made lake, and two locks. The lake itself is large, consisting of islands, many shoals, and even remains of ancient lands and towns. In Canada alone 10 towns were relocated. In areas you can find old roads that go directly into the water. Buildings and trees of course were removed, but some areas larger structures remains, such as sunken ancient dams and bridges. To flood this area they had to create a series of dikes, large mounds of work of hold back the water. A mixture of stone, gravel, dirt and clay was used to construct them. The clay used is a special type of clay, basically a major pain in the ass to remove from the ground, and unstable. Something my entire town sits on.

The Seaway, besides being a highlighted possible terrorist attack zone, was built with many flaws. The first fuck up was the locks were built to accomidate the size of the ships of the early 1950s. By the late 1950s the ships had become vastly larger, thus making ocean going vessals impossible to navigate the river. Included in this was the depth of the shipping lanes. Their third mistake was building the dikes out of clay. If shaken up, the clay will turn to liquid and the dikes will fail. And if they were not fucking complete morons yet, they built the power dam directly over the ancient fault line.

So after the earthquake tonight, and the fabled talk of the big one, do I feel safe. Not really. Luckly it has been studied and shown if the hydro-dam is to be blown up, or collapsed cause the fault line opened up and swallowed it, it was actually do no damage to my town. Sadly the neighboring city of Cornwall would, well, go bye bye. And it was cause destruction, even taking a large chunk of Montreal some odd 80 miles down river. But I must fear the failure of the dikes. A brief flood would destroy my home. And of course terrorist attacks. Sadly my town is somewhat a target. We have the locks, which if taken out would cause all shipping between the great lakes and atlanic to become impossible. Second we have the power dam, which if taken out would cause major blackouts and problems, since we sell part of our power to NYC itself. And no, we were not the cause of the blackout, that "NY-Canadian" suspect was someone down river.

So how am I going to die, you can pick from this list.

[1] Ye Olde Earth Opening Up, Swallowing Me and Closing Back Up.
[2] The Dikes will fail and I will be swept away by a small tidel wave.
[3] My house is ancient and wall cave in at the slightest tremor.
[4] They were wrong about if the power dam exploded/broke.
[5] Earthquake, hehe.

But this ends my rant. This entry has little meaning, except to settle my nerves after my small event tonight. Makes me uneasy, and it sucks. Mother Nature is a cunt sometime.....

Peace Out Fuckers