National Level Exercise 2011.

National Level Exercise 2011 (NLE 2011) is scheduled for May 2011. The purpose of the exercise is to prepare and coordinate a multiple-jurisdictional integrated response to a national catastrophic event. The Myers Park area in Carthage may be used as one staging point for the exercise.

NLE 2011 will simulate the catastrophic nature of a major earthquake in the central United States region of the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ). The year 2011 is the bicentennial anniversary of the 1811 New Madrid earthquake, for which the NMSZ is named. NLE 2011 will be the first NLE to simulate a natural hazard.

NLE 2011 activities will take place at command posts, emergency operation centers and other locations to include federal facilities in the Washington D.C. area and federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in the eight member states of the Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC). The eight member states of CUSEC encompass four different FEMA regions that include the states of: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee; Illinois and Indiana; Arkansas; and Missouri.

NASCAR THIS WEEK

By Monte Dutton

Martin’s Been There Before

When the Sprint Cup Series moves from one track to another -- oh, say, Martinsville to Ft. Worth to Talladega -- a lot changes and a lot doesn’t.

Or said Mark Martin, who has seen them all innumerable times.

"Texas has its own personality," said Martin entering the Samsung Mobile 500. "It’s fast, and it’s flat for as fast as it is. It doesn’t have a lot of banking in relation to the speed that you’re able to make around it.

"It’s amazing. It’s a great place to race, the location as well as the facility. They put a lot of money into this place, and I think it represents our sport well."

But it’s just another track, which, in that rather general sense, makes it like ... Martinsville, where Martin, 52, finished 10th on April 3.

"It’s the same as Martinsville," he said. "You’re almost a wreck at Martinsville, and you’re almost a wreck here. If you’re not almost a wreck, then you’re not driving fast enough. The miles an hour [aren’t] what scare you. It’s the loss of control."

Martin knows what it’s like to finish first, second, third, fourth and fifth at Texas Motor Speedway ... and at most every other track. He’s taken his lumps, too, which proved to be the case in the Samsung Mobile 500, where Martin found his No. 5 Chevy collected in a crash. He wound up 36th.

In the season’s first six races, Martin finished no better than 10th (twice) and no worse than 20th. That consistency was good enough to rank him 10th in the point standings ... until the Texas catastrophe dropped him to 15th.

Martin said the difference between first and 20th isn’t as great as it seems.

"There’s a little bit in speed and a little bit in track position, but the cars are relatively close nowadays," he said. "You squeeze every ounce of time out of every single component in the whole sport. You can’t leave anything alone. You’ve got to squeeze every bit of it from pit-road speed to pit stops to restarts to handling and everything."

As such, Martin believes victory, not to mention the finishes better than 10th, will come in its own sweet time.

I read where the mental health experts are seein’ a lotta folks who feel things are just movin’ too fast. Cell phones, pagers, fax machines bein’ toted around. They can’t seem to take an hour or two to get away from the constant barrage of information. They complain of too much pressure.

I wonder if the fast pace is really increasin’ the pressure factor. The settlers in the area who’s livelihood for the next year depended on gettin’ in a crop prob’ly weren’t concerned about communications equipment. The thunderstorm rollin’ in or the locus were most immediate pressures to be considered.

Life and death decisions aren’t anything new, only the implements of destruction.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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Weekly Column

CLICK and CLACK

TALK CARS

Dear Tom and Ray:

Last week my fiancee’s father was driving his 1987 Buick from the farm into town. A couple of hundred yards away from the house (and about .1 mile from the highway) on the gravel road, the car caught fire. Her dad, instead of using his cell phone to call the fire department, left the car on the road and walked home to tell his wife. He told her it’d burn itself out. A short while later, they were surprised to see the fire department outside putting out the blazing car. So, (1) what the heck kind of family am I marrying into? And (2) would the car actually have pulled a "movie moment" and exploded? Or, like her father says, would it have burned itself out? -- Seth

TOM: I think Pops REALLY wants a new Buick, Seth. He was afraid that if he put out the fire, they’d somehow be able to patch up his car, and he’d have to drive it for another five years. So he walked away to make sure it had ample time to caramelize.

RAY: That’s a very dangerous thing to do. It certainly can explode. Sometimes they can burn themselves out, if they run out of nearby materials to combust.

TOM: But lots of times they keep burning. And then they spread to the undercarriage, and then the tires, and the interior. Once a fire spreads, it easily can melt the fuel lines, or cause the pressure in the fuel tank to rise so much that the tank breaks.

RAY: So, whenever you have a car that catches fire that you can’t address immediately with the proper fire extinguisher, you should move away from the car and call the fire department.

TOM: What kind of family are you marrying into, Seth? One that needs to work on its communication skills.