For those of you in and around So Cal, this might interest you:

http://shakeout.org/

10:00 am tomorrow, the biggest earthquake drill yet undertaken? Perhaps.

We talked about this a bit in my recent CEPA class. The Great Southern California Shakeout is the public/civilian side to another exercise called Golden Guardian. Golden Guardian is primarily a table-top exercise of the "professionals"--emergency services, police, fire, utilities, etc.

If you don't think a public service announcement can't be hip and interesting, watch this Shakeout video on YouTube. There are also a number of interesting informational videos on the Shakeout website. The videos can be found here. I recently watched an hour-long video of a lecture called "Creating a culture of preparedness". Actually, the title is rather misleading, but the lecture is interesting nonetheless. The speaker primarily describes the mechanics and effects of the Big One which is the scenario underlying this event, although she does touch on changing attitudes towards educating the public and getting them to change their behaviors, and also touches a bit on the importance of educational events like the Great Southern California Shakeout.

It's not clear if this video annoucing the start of a simulated earthquake will actually be broadcast tomorrow morning, but it would be cool if it was shown on all TV channels and on all radio stations.

On the radio today they were interviewing Lucy Jones from the USGS, chief scientist coordinating the Shake Out exercise. It made her aware of two things she needed more of at home, more water and more fire extinguishers. I figure it this way. If my building is still standing, thats wonderful, but the troubles have just begun.

Exploring the Shakeout website some more, it's interesting that Doug Copp and his "triangle of life" concept seems to be visibly and thoroughly rejected and he is vilified as a fraud now (apparently a false 9/11 Ground Zero hero who then claimed disability from the compensation fund).

I haven't heard Doug Copp mentioned in many years. I ran across his ideas quite a while ago and they made sense to me, although I realized that his ideas were based on buildings that were not built to "earthquake standards". Still, I thought it was a useful concept to keep in mind.

If you were somehow in a building that you sensed was collapsing, then it would make sense to seek shelter next to something large and sturdy and get out from under anything that would pancake right on top of you. At the time, memories of those poor souls who were crushed on the Cypress section of the I-880 during Loma Prieta were still fresh in my mind. Arguably, those people would have survived if they had been crouched next to their cars rather than sitting in them, but that's a hypothetical situation that we'll never resolve. That Haitian school collapse the other day is another example where being next to something would have been safer than under something (although this case doesn't involve an earthquake).

As far as the official line in what to do in an earthquake here in the US or anywhere with reasonably strong construction-- drop, cover, and hold on is still the rule. When buildings are strong enough, most injuries/deaths are due to getting hit by falling objects, particularly as people try to run outside during the shaking, or else getting their hands/feet cut on broken glass. Stay put, protect yourself from falling objects until the shaking subsides.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/livenow?id=6502645

KABC 7 will have a live video feed starting at 9:59am PST for those that aren't in the area.

From what I can tell, it seems that every single public broadcaster, television and radio, in the area will be broadcasting the drill.

I wasn't aware of the controversy around Doug Copp, but the triangle of life idea seems to me to have only a limited or very particular application in real life. As architects can tell you, we don't often have buildings that pancake in the US. In most places, you can be hit by falling ceilings and debris, but entire floors pancaking should be exceedingly rare. But this might be situational: I currently work on the second (top) floor of a building at some risk of collapse, but if it does I am at least on top of the lower floor and the parking area. When I move to the first floor next month, I'll have the second floor above me to consider. Either way, the best option to shelter is duck cover and hold below my work desk, and hope for the best. When I'm on the first floor, I have to hope that any collapse leaves a local void around my desk.

I can say that in CERT training and real life, alot of rescues come from these voids, and they train you to look for them.

Reports of my (simulated) demise were greatly exaggerated. I survived the (simulated) Big One!

A couple local news stations seemed to be covering various exercises in the area when 10am rolled around. I saw some green hard hats and vests at one scene on TV, so probably some CERT drill on this one channel.

I had hoped that at least one channel would broadcast the slick video I linked to, above, but I didn't see it on any of the channels that I checked. All that happened was that the normal TV program went silent while a generic message about a "required test" scrolled across the TV screen, just like your normal weekly EAS test message. I turned the TV on slightly late so I'm not sure if there was any audio mention of the Great Southern California Shakeout or not when the EAS was first activated.

I did hear the slick message in the background of the KTLA link above. Turns out my link was not the live over-the-air signal, but a internet only link. When I was able to finally get up the over-the-air video, they were not playing that video at all.

Kind of disappointed in that. I thought it would have been more impactful if it was simulcasted on all the channels at the same time. To effectively have an entire metropolitan area come to a stand still for 2 minutes, I think would subconsciously show how serious the content of the drill is.

OK, for all you black helicopter folks--interesting, so California's Golden Guardian event dovetails with the US Northern Command and NORAD's Vigilant Shield '09 exercise.

From the official press release :
"Concurrent exercises include U.S. Strategic Command GLOBAL LIGHTNING 09 and BULWARK DEFENDER 09; Canada Command DETERMINED DRAGON; California National Guard VIGILANT GUARD; and the State of California GOLDEN GUARDIAN."

A lot of big boys playing the board game Risk this week, I guess.

interesting sidenote - how do you store water to withstand a quake?