The idea is to test the speed and widen the scope of responses to a major disaster, focusing on how social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can be used. ”Ultimately, the goal is to get there faster, respond more effectively to save lives, communities, businesses, etc.,” read a written release on the drill. Organizers said that all messages about the fictional disaster would be marked clearly as fake on the Web.

Shortly after 12:30 p.m. ET, organizers began sending fictional messages from an account on Twitter reporting the disaster.

“#X24 IS A TEST, NOT REAL [link] CNN.com Earthquake strikes coast of Southern and Baja California http://bit.ly/Exer24 1 …,” was the first mention.

Instead of a CNN story, the link went to a Web page explaining the drill and how users can participate. As time went on, details included reports of snapped bridges, severe flooding and a tsunami on the way.

“#X24 IS A TEST, NOT REAL TV said large wave headed toward coastline! Everyone get out! http://bit.ly/Exer24 3-9 …,” read a later post.

For more information and to participate in the ongoing exercise, check its Twitter and Facebook sites.

The Great California ShakeOut began in 2008, as the Great Southern California ShakeOut, an effort to educate the public about emergency management during a large earthquake. It was the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history at the time with a total of 5.4 million participants spanning eight counties in the southern part of the state.

In 2009, the ShakeOut expanded to include the entire state of California — all 58 counties, divided into 11 areas. More than 6.9 million Californians participated, practicing Drop, Cover, and Hold On and other aspects of family, school, and organizational emergency plans. The 2010 ShakeOut will be on October 21st. To get more information and/or register for that event, click here.

According to one of the Midwest exercise organizers, the Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC), the event is to bring more attention to — and improve preparedness for – the earthquake threat in the middle of the country:

The Great Central U.S. ShakeOut in April 2011 will involve more than 1 million people through a broad-based outreach program, partnership with the media, and public advocacy by hundreds of partners. This event is being organized by CUSEC and our Member States: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. The ShakeOut will be centered around a simultaneous drop, cover, and hold drill that will be held at 10:15 AM CDT on April 28, 2011. The drill is designed to increase awareness and be a simple thing that can be done easily by many people…

The 2011 ShakeOut drill will be the largest earthquake preparedness event in central U.S. history. Soon, a website detailing ShakeOut drill procedures, registration, and promotion, will be ready at www.ShakeOut.org/centralus. At this website, you will be able to pledge your family, school, business, or organization’s participation in the drill. Registered participants will receive information on how to plan their drill and how to create a dialogue with others about earthquake preparedness. All organizers ask is that participants register (so the can be counted and receive communications), and at the minimum practice “drop, cover, and hold on” at the specified time. It is only a five minute commitment for something that can save your life. It all begins with registering, which is free and open to everyone.

To register for The Great Central U.S. ShakeOut click here. To register for The Great California ShakeOut, click here.

The ground is shaking violently. Family heirlooms and knickknacks are flying like projectiles off walls and shelves. Glass is shattering, and the rolling motion seems to go on forever. When the “Big One” strikes, residents could find their homes uninhabitable, and figuring out how to live in the hours, days and weeks after a major disaster will become their No. 1 concern.

The scenario is the focus of a Sept. 11 disaster drill planned for Barron Park residents, who will erect a tent city at Juana Briones Park. It won’t be a neighborhood picnic. People will have to bring their own tents, water and food. Grills won’t be allowed. There will be no electricity for the duration of the event, which runs from 3:30 p.m. till 10 a.m. the next day.

Some surprise incidents, mimicking possible real-life disaster scenarios, are planned to test people’s responses, according to event coordinator Lydia Kou. Dubbed “Quakeville,” the drill is designed to shake people out of their denial.

Quakeville will kick off a series of citywide disaster-preparedness events throughout September and October. Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt and the Palo Alto/Stanford Citizen Corps Council have declared September as Emergency Preparedness Month citywide….

This is the first year that citizens will be involved in the “Quakeville” drill which may take on even more seriousness after a report this week that revised up the risk of earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault:

Quakeville will put disaster preparedness into the hands of the citizenry, who will be the first on the ground to deal with neighborhood emergencies, Kou said. ”It’s exciting because it involves all citizens. In the past, drills involved emergency volunteers only,” said Kou, who also is co-chair of the Palo Alto Neighborhoods block-preparedness-coordinator program and is a Barron Park Neighborhood Association disaster-prep leader.

Kou said Quakeville will help give residents a sense of what they might encounter, and need, when forced out of their homes and into close contact with many other people. ”Will you need earplugs in case the person sleeping in the tent next to you snores? Will you need hay-fever medicine? How will you entertain yourself and your kids?”

It’s funny that she mentions earplugs, because that is exactly the item I added to my ‘go-bag’ after spending a noisy day in a shelter during a hurricane drill in Brooklyn.

I am also supportive of the decision to undertake the drill on 9/11, which I think should be an official preparedness day in which exercises like the one in Palo Alto would be done throughout the U.S.:

“Sept. 11 is a very appropriate day for people to come together to commemorate friendships and lives lost,” she said, adding that the city is encouraging other neighborhoods to hold block parties on Sept. 11 to build community connections. ”It’s an act of remembrance,” she said…

One area she hopes to resolve is what to do with pets. For the Sept. 11 event, organizers are encouraging people not to bring their animals. But at tent city they’ll look for ways to resolve that concern, she said.

The Palo Alto Office of Emergency Services headquarters

That’s the question addressed in an interesting piece on ForeignAffairs.com, “Disaster Politics: Why Earthquakes Rock Democracies Less,” by Alastair Smith and Alejandro Quiroz Flores.

The authors conclude that a nation’s political system may be the most important indicator of disaster preparedness and response success:

The recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti are illustrations of this dynamic. Given the extremely high magnitude of the earthquake in democratic Chile, the resulting 500 casualties were relatively few, and the government has been rightly praised for its effective response. Though Bachelet was nearing her term limit at the time of the earthquake, her management of the crisis helped her party and is expected to benefit her if she runs for reelection in 2014. On the other hand, the more autocratic Haitian government has failed to provide even basic recovery services for the 230,000 victims buried in rubble. Elections in Haiti are notoriously corrupt, and the regime has already used the earthquake as an excuse to postpone even these half-hearted contests. Although there have been a few protests, the regime seems likely to endure despite its abject failure to help its people.

Political survival lies at the heart of disaster politics. Unless politicians are beholden to the people, they have little motivation to spend resources to protect their citizens from Mother Nature, especially when these resources could otherwise be earmarked for themselves and their small cadre of supporters. What is worse, the casualty count after a disaster is a major determinant of the amount of international assistance a country receives. Relief funds can even enhance a nondemocrat’s hold on power if they are used to buy off supporting elites. Given such incentives, autocrats’ indifference to disaster-related deaths will continue. The fix can only be political — leaders will not use the policies already available to mitigate the effects of natural disasters until they have the incentives to do so.

The full article can be found here.

Repair efforts in Chile after this year’s earthquake.

The “Report On The Transparency of Relief Organizations Responding to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake”, according to DAP, is the result of an investigation aimed at determining whether those non-profit and non-governmental organizations that solicited donations for Haiti disaster relief produced situation reports on their activities, and if so, how comprehensive and publicly accessible such situation reports were.

According to its press release, DAP found that of the 197 organizations identified as soliciting money for their activities in Haiti following the earthquake:

• Only 6 had publicly available, regularly updated, factual situation reports detailing their activities.

• The vast majority, 128, did not have factual situation reports available on their websites, relying instead upon anecdotal descriptions of activities or emotional appeals.

• Only approximately ten percent, 21, were responsive to a survey requesting more information, and of those, a number provided incomplete answers.

“It is infuriating that so many groups continue to violate the public trust with so much cash-on-hand donated to alleviate suffering on the ground. Shouldn’t we expect more from groups that are raising hundreds of millions of dollars from a public asked to generously donate, immediately after the earthquake?” said Ben Smilowitz, Executive Director, Disaster Accountability Project (and a friend of this blog.)

The full report can be found here. It was released at the Natural Hazards Workshop.

These public reporting can be very helpful according to the USGS:

This web site is intended to tap the abundant information available about earthquakes from the people who actually experience them. By taking advantage of the vast numbers of Internet users, we can get a more complete description of what people experienced, the effects of the earthquake, and the extent of damage, than traditional ways of gathering felt information. And best of all, with your help we can do so almost instantly.

By contributing your experience of the earthquake, either immediately afterward, or whenever it is possible for you to do so, you will have made a contribution to the scientific body of information about this earthquake. You will also ensure that your area has been represented in the compilation of the shaking map. This is a two-way street. Not only will you add valuable information on the extent of ground shaking and damage, but in the process we hope you will learn more about how other communities fared and gain a greater understanding of the effects of earthquakes.

For more information on the “Did You Feel?” program or on reporting an earthquake, you can find the web site here.

CERT team members along with their Haitian students

Herman Schaffer, the NYC team leader, kept an interesting journal of the experience and posted it on the City’s Office of Emergency Management’s Facebook page (photos are here.) Below is an excerpt:

We have just under 100 trainees today, including 18 women. The trainees are organized into two companies, A and B, each with four sections. Each section is composed of 14 people, including one Rapid Responder. These Rapid Responders had previous leadership roles in the camp and manage all administrative duties in their sections, like taking attendance, selecting volunteers, moving groups from one place to another, taking questions, etc. Their assistance allows the fire and health trainers to focus purely on instruction.

The class portion is conducted with two instructions using a PA system to speak to all 100 students seated in bleachers. The practical sections are broken down by sections (14 people). Each day, every trainee gets an MRE (Meals Ready-to-Eat) for lunch. I had to bring my own sandwich today, because the MREs are too salty for me.

On June 8, we trained the volunteers in fire safety. The course was interrupted by an hour-and-a-half monsoon and we had to move into two large tents to finish the classroom portion. When the storm passed, we practiced putting out different types of fires: five charcoal fires, one wood fire, and one plastic fire. The plastic fire helped highlight the different health threats and firefighting techniques required by various fires. The trainees felt empowered by the lesson and decided to collect all the plastic trash in the camp to reduce the threat it could add to fires.

The full journal can be read here.

During rain storms, CERT classes were forced inside

A Haitian trainee receives fire safety guidance from two CERT instructors

According to a Chicago Tribune article on the study:

“I think everybody knows, as we saw things unfolding (in the study), that there are significant gaps in the preparedness for this type of earthquake,” the study’s lead author, University of Illinois professor Amr Elnashai said Friday. “FEMA will have a very clear idea of what is missing, and hopefully they will have some type to fill some gaps.”

FEMA is working toward holding a national-level disaster drill next year that simulates a big New Madrid quake. ”This comprehensive study has not only assisted in our planning and preparedness efforts, but should serve as a reminder to the public that disaster can strike at any time, and we all need to be prepared,” FEMA spokesman Bradley Carroll said in a statement.

The study was completed late last year but was just recently released. It focuses on Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee, where the New Madrid seismic zone lies deep underground, as well as Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Indiana and Alabama.

The Tribune article continues:

The fault zone has a long history of big earthquakes, including four in 1811 and 1812 estimated to have been magnitude 7.0 or greater. The region was sparsely populated but the quake caused land slides and waves on the Mississippi that swamped boats; it also opened deep fissures in the ground. The shaking was felt as far away as New England.

The Illinois study assumed a magnitude-7.7 quake based on recommendations from the U.S. Geological Survey, Elnashai said. About 7.2 million people wouldn’t be able to live in their homes, at least not within a few days after the initial quake, and 2 million would temporary shelter.

“Many, many, many — maybe 80 percent — of the numbers you are seeing in the report would turn into long-term dislocation,” Elnashai said. The study also concluded that nearly 715,000 buildings would be damaged and 2.6 million households would be without electricity.

The study predicts extensive damage in both St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., the two largest cities near the fault zone. ”There are also disruptions of the transport system that we think will be debilitating,” he said. “(State and local governments) will need to fix and repair lots of bridges, more than we’re ready to handle.”

Utilities also are likely to struggle to find enough contractors to quickly repair what could be many substantial natural gas leaks, the study predicts.

The study urges state and local governments to retrofit hospitals, fire stations, police stations, nuclear power plants and other essential facilities to improve their odds of holding up in a big quake.

The study should be a planning tool for the affected states, Elnashai said. But he said it should also help convince state officials and the public that preparedness is worth considering and paying for, particularly during a recession.

Jordan is a top local public emergency communications official and has been pushing preparedness in Seattle so long she’s called “The Earthquake Lady”. It’s a nice, compact earthquake preparedness review, which includes both “Drop, Cover & Hold” as well as “Beneath, Beside, Between.” It can be heard on the KUOW website here. Thanks to the Seattle Red Cross Twitter feed for bringing this to my attention.

JoAnn Jordan, “The Earthquake Lady” (Photo: Deborah Wang)

QuakeHold straps, fasteners, and putty to help keep your heavy stuff (bookshelves, vases, water heaters…) safely in place.

Safe Hold Security Picture Hangers. Yet another system for keeping those heavy frames from swinging off the wall.

The earthquake-resistant bed. With a hard, carbon-fiber canopy, it looks a little more like a futuristic pod car than a bed. We don’t know if it has had any real-world test runs, but it is an intriguing concept. And if you’re already into ultra-mod decor, hey, why not?

Another heavy (and expensive) thing you don’t want toppling in a quake? Wine bottles. A company called Newood has designed the “earthquake-proof wine rack,” made of laminated layers of Oregon pine, which results in the flexibility of wood with the strength of steel. It was tested by the earthquake engineers at Oregon State University and is said to be able to withstand a 7.1 magnitude earthquake.

Of course a basic emergency kit is a must to have on hand for any disaster. If you have a starter kit, great. You could augment it with treats like canned cheese, canned curry, canned bacon, or even canned cheeseburgers! It may sound silly , but tasty food can be a major comfort in times of disaster.

And last but not least, we can’t forget the pets. For the little Fido or Felix in your life, a company in Japan has come up with wearable earthquake kit vests. Maybe more cute than practical? We’re not sure. In any case, you should probably brush up on both your human and pet first aid skills in case one of you gets injured in either the quake or just the struggle of trying to get a cat to wear a vest!

More prepare-aphernalia can be found on the Oregon Trail Chapter’s blog.

They’re also holding an “Let’s Get Ready To Rumble” Earthquake Preparedness Contest. Just take a photo of your emergency kit, and you can enter to win for a $50 gift certificate.

“Earthquake-Proof Wine Rack”

It’s true that more earthquakes are recorded than used to be the case, but that’s simply because there are more monitoring stations that are able to pick up minor earthquakes that once went undetected. If we compare the average global rates of large earthquakes, we find that these are stable as far back as we can trace them. On average, we record an earthquake with a magnitude over 6 every three days or so, and over 7 at least once a month.

Basic geology explains why the number of earthquakes remains relatively constant. Quakes release a lot of energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. Ultimately, the source of it is heat released by the steady decay of radioactive material deep inside the earth. For a real long-term increase in earthquake activity, there would have to be an increase in that energy supply, and it’s hard to see how that could happen.

But he explains why the concern if not the volume is now greater:

One problem that we do have to face is that our exposure to earthquakes is increasing. As the world becomes more populated and cities grow ever bigger, the potential for quakes to become disasters rises. Tehran, for instance, has been destroyed by earthquakes several times, but it was still quite small at the time of its last damaging quake, in 1830. Now the city is home to millions, and when the next major quake hits, the results will be catastrophic.

Unless we devote more effort to protecting communities, the number of earthquake disasters will grow, even if the number of earthquakes stays the same.

Thanks to the Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapter’s Twitter feed for flagging this story. The United States Geological Survey today also put out a release on the subject of earthquake frequency.

[There] may be good reasons to get earthquake insurance, but there are reasons why most people decide to just take their chances. Those reasons boil down to the rarity of severe earthquakes, the cost of insurance and high deductibles.

If your house is totally destroyed by an earthquake, insurance is great. However, a typical earthquake policy has a 15 percent deductible. If you have earthquake insurance on a house that would cost $200,000 to replace, and an earthquake does damage to your home, you will have to pay $30,000 before you get your first dollar of coverage. The temblor that hit El Centro and Calexico this week will result in few insurance payouts, in light of those deductibles.

The KPBS piece continues:

State Farm insurance agent Steve Seibert works out of El Centro. He said many of his customers were upset to learn that they weren’t covered because their earthquake damage was not catastrophic.

“So when you actually have a policy and it turns out that, wow, I have to reach this deductible or certain things in the policy aren’t covered when I thought they were,” said Seibert. “That’s where it leads to the frustration.”

Seibert says that in Imperial County, a place riddled with fault lines, earthquake insurance is expensive, often in the neighborhood of $1,000 a year. For many customers that can double the amount they pay to insure their homes.

Pat Abbott is professor emeritus of geology at San Diego State and he focuses on natural disasters. He said he does not carry earthquake insurance on his home, even though coverage in San Diego can be as little as $300 a year. He said if you live in a new house that was built to code, the cost of insurance may not make sense.

“For most people they are better off spending even a few thousands of dollars strengthening their existing homes, and remove problems they have, at a cost less than the deductible on their insurance policy anyway,” said Abbott.

Pomeroy, the CEO of the California Earthquake Authority, said he recognizes the cost of insurance and the size of deductibles discourage many people from getting covered. But he said there is a move in Congress to pass loan guarantee legislation that would make it much cheaper for the earthquake authority to provide insurance, and that would make it cheaper for California homeowners to buy earthquake insurance.

Thanks to Carol Dunn for bringing the piece to my attention.

IN SAN FRANCISCO, ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY STUDENTS LISA ALLEN AND SHAOFU ZHANG DROPPING AND COVERING AS PART OF THE GREAT CALIFORNIA SHAKEOUT (Photo: Associated Press)

Schools, businesses, emergency responders and hospitals across the state took part in the drill which came two days short of 20 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake that killed 63 people in the San Francisco-area. To get a sense of how individuals throughout California readied for the simulated 7.8 quake, some participant photos are here.

The ShakeOut offers many lessons for citizen preparedness, including the value of picking one day to focus on, involving adults and children together, as well as making things fun. This is the type major civilian preparedness drill that should be replicated in states and localities around the U.S., tailored of course to the particular risks in that area. But I would argue that taking events like these — and other local preparedness models —  and spreading throughout the nation would be made far easier if there was a federal citizen preparedness person/office responsible for helping coordinate the issue.

By the way, I checked the three cable news channels at 1:15 ET, and none of them picked up the ShakeOut live. As they weren’t covering any other breaking news (the boy in the flying balloon coverage would not start for a couple more hours), it would have been nice had they given this great preparedness event live national exposure. But there’s another chance: on Saturday, another major earthquake preparedness drill, ‘The Big Rumble,” will take place in San Francisco.

Organized by the Ojai Valley CERT, the “OK Drill” aims to improve the community’s emergency readiness. Beginning at 7pm on October 14th, residents will be asked to: review their disaster plan and check their emergency supplies; tune into their local AM Emergency Radio stations for instructions; ‘check’ on their neighbors; and post a yellow and black “OK” sign in a window facing a street or mailbox.

In an interview on Radio Ojai last month, an “OK Drill” organizer Paul Garth provides more information about the exercise. He also makes the good point that despite the big drill “preparedness is not a single event but an ongoing conversation”. In the interview, Garth discusses the impact of his CERT training — noting the level of empowerment that can come from just pulling a fire extinguisher for the first time during training and explaining his involvement in ‘Ham Radio’.

The OK Drill is a terrific example of individual citizens working with officials to create a significant preparedness event involving all stakeholders. If you would like more information, go to okdrill.blogspot.com.

OJAI VALLEY CERT MEMBERS DURING FIRE SAFETY TRAINING (ABOVE)

“To commemorate the Loma Prieta anniversary, we invite you to participate in The Big Rumble, a week-long series of special events designed to connect our communities with preparedness resources. From October 13th-17th, these events will take place at large City venues and at smaller venues in various neighborhoods, as well as in other parts of the Bay Area.

The week will begin with a panel discussion on the 1989 earthquake on October 13th. On October 15th, San Francisco will participate in the Great California ShakeOut. This event consists of a statewide Drop, Cover and Hold Drill. City departments, businesses and other partners will also test aspects of their emergency plans during the ShakeOut event.

A series of neighborhood events will take place on October 17th, including block parties in San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area. These block parties will serve as localized gathering spots for neighbors to rally around the important topic of preparedness. ‘Block Party Toolkits’ will be provided to assist in the development and promotion of the parties. In addition to a “how-to” guide for planning your block party, the toolkit includes:

*Pocket-sized map of San Francisco full of potential resources and emergency tips
*Map Your Block workbook to integrate neighborhood capabilities into your plan
*Activities, helpful hints, and information to assist you with hosting a successful block party

As residents of an earthquake-prone area, it’s our responsibility to ensure that we are prepared. Our goal is to enhance preparedness not just at the individual or household level, but also at the community level. That’s why we encourage you to hold a block party on October 17th. It will be a great way to get to know your neighbors and put measures into place that will help you support each other following an earthquake or other emergency event.

For more information about the upcoming events, and to download the “Block Party Toolkit,” go to www.TheBigRumble.org.

Last year, nearly 5.5 million Southern Californians participated. It is being expanded to northern California and has a goal of 10 million participants in 2009 making it the largest earthquake drill ever. On the ShakeOut Twitter site, they announced a friendly competition between the two regions with SoCal ahead of NoCal by 1.8 million registrants. If you would like to participate, click here.

At the Workshop, a four-and-a-half minute video about the ShakeOut, titled “Preparedness Now,” was shown. (It can be viewed below). Key personal preparedness sound bite:

“How quickly life gets back to depends on your and others around you. Your level of personal preparedness will determine your quality of life after the quake.”

The site also has a Beat The Quake game which tests your residential earthquake preparedness.

Quake Quiz is an engaging and informative interactive test that asks users what they would do if an earthquake occurred when they were at home, the office, in the car, the beach, commuting or dining out. The Quiz also offers preparedness tips (some of which will be helpful no matter what the disaster). Particularly striking is that the screen shakes like an earthquake before every question. I will admit to a missing a few answers, but I definitely learned some things. I recommend checking it out both as resource and as a creative way of delivering preparedness information.

But the question is whether this warning will actually spur civilian preparedness. That’s why I was happy to see the Los Angeles Fire Department quickly take advantage of the small post-event window today. In fact, just hours after the earthquake damage was judged to be minimal, the Department sent a link to its citizen preparedness guide to its entire email/text message list. But I am not surprised that LAFD acted so quickly and directly since, as I have mentioned before, the Department is a (if not ‘the’) leader in government Preparedness 2.0 communications. 

Below are the two emails that Los Angeles residents (who had signed up) received earlier today. The quake occurred just before noon local time. Less than two hours later, LAFD sent this out:

From: lafdlistmaster@lacity.org
Subject: [LAFD ALERT] No Significant Eathquake Damage in LA
Date: July 29, 2008 4:48:46 PM EDT

Other than a flooding situation inside one department store in Woodland
Hills, the LAFD has not discovered any significant event (no loss of life,
no serious injury and no major infrastructure damage) IN THE CITY OF LOS
ANGELES following today’s earthquake . The LAFD is now in a normal operating
mode; 

So within two hours, the Department was communicating directly to the public with clear and complete information. And then just 10 minutes after the all clear came this helpful — and very timely — reminder:

From: lafdlistmaster@lacity.org
Subject: [LAFD ALERT] Earthquake Preparedness
Date: July 29, 2008 4:58:58 PM EDT

The Los Angeles Fire Department’s free 40 page ‘Disaster Preparedness 
Manual’ is available at: WWW.LAFD.ORG 

If you are in the Los Angeles area or just want to see the state of the art in governmental electronic communications, you can subscribe for free to the LAFD email/text list at http://lafd.blogspot.com/2007/10/lafd-breaking-news-alerts-debut.html

The Great Southern California ShakeOut is a week of special events featuring the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history, organized to inspire Southern Californians to get ready for big earthquakes, and to prevent disasters from becoming catastrophes.

At 10 a.m. on November 13, 2008, millions of southern Californians will “Drop, Cover, and Hold On.” Why? An enormous earthquake is our future, and the ShakeOut Drill is our chance to practice what to do when it happens. Individuals, families, businesses, schools and organizations will join firefighters, police officers, and other emergency responders (involved in the statewide “Golden Guardian” exercise) in our largest-ever earthquake preparedness activity. Don’t miss out!

The Shakeout will use a hypothetical 7.8 earthquake scenario recently developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Geological Survey. It was described in an article in Science Daily: 

In the Scenario, the earthquake would kill 1800 people, injure 50,000, cause $200 billion in damage, and have long-lasting social and economic consequences. This is the most comprehensive analysis ever of what a major Southern California earthquake would mean.

As someone who has advocated for more extensive civilian emergency drills, I think the public’s involvement in this large-scale Shakeout event is a very promising development not only in increasing the preparedness of Southern Californians but also in providing a civilian drilling model for other parts of the country to follow.