I received this email yesterday, and am posting it here in its entirety. Following it is a link to an article from the American Red Cross that refutes what Doug Copp advises. Following that (if you're still interested) is an article on those common (esp in CA) tilt up buildings and their tolerance of earthquakes.

What I found most interesting was that the ARC pooh-poohed ALL of Copp's suggestions, right across the board. There was no mention that his information could be of extreme value in older stone or concrete buildings, in those common death-trap fast-&-cheap tilt-up concrete buildings, or any other circumstances whatsoever. IMO, once again there seems to be more of a problem with ego than producing good advice.

I read through both, and Copp's advice still makes more sense than that of the ARC, IMO. You may feel differently.


Extract from Doug Copp's article on the 'Triangle of Life':

My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world's most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.

I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries.

I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.

The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide under something. I am amazed that even today schools are still using the "Duck and Cover" instructions- telling the children to squat under their desks with their heads bowed and covered with their hands. This was the technique used in the Mexico City school.

Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the 'triangle of life'. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probility that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the 'triangles' you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.

TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY
1) Almost everyone who simply 'ducks and covers' when buildings collapse ARE CRUSHED TO DEATH. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.

2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. That position helps you survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.

3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs. Concrete slab buildings are the most dangerous during an earthquake.

4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the back of the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor, next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.

5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in the fetal position next to a sofa, or large chair.

6) Almost everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!

7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different 'moment of frequency' (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the stair treads horribly mutilated. Even if the building doesn't collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are no collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse later when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is not damaged.

8) Get near the outer walls Of buildings or outside of them if possible - It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and lying in the fetal position next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids are found surrounding stacks of paper.

In 1996 we made a film, which proved my survival methodology to be correct. The Turkish Federal Government, City of Istanbul, University of Istanbul Case Productions and ARTI cooperated to film this practical, scientific test. We collapsed a school and a home with 20 mannequins inside. Ten mannequins did 'duck and cover,' and ten mannequins I used in my 'triangle of life' survival method. After the simulated earthquake collapse we crawled through the rubble and entered the building to film and document the results.

The film, in which I practiced my survival techniques under
directly observable, scientific conditions, relevant to building collapse, showed there would have been zero percent survival for those doing duck and cover.

There would likely have been 100 percent survivability for people using my method of the 'triangle of life.' This film has been seen by millions of viewers on television in Turkey and the rest of Europe, and it was seen in the USA, Canada and Latin America on the TV program Real TV.

Spread the word and save someone's life... The entire world is experiencing natural calamities so be prepared!


American Red Cross article: http://www.bpaonline.org/Emergencyprep/arc-on-doug-copp.html

Article on those tilt up buildings and their tolerance of earthquakes: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.14.99/tiltup-9941.html

Susan, your second link duplicates the first ARC article.

Sounds like they are into apples and oranges

what you received is from 2004.

in 2004 snopes.com didn't think much of him: snopes

in 2006 a rejoinder to his assertions are found here: cert-la

he's now in haiti.

here's some personal info (not good) about him: copp

as with any advice, take what you like and leave the rest.

Maybe all his info isn't correct, but the ARC advice to "drop, cover and hold on" leaves something to be desired, too. I remember that 'training' when I was in grade school in SoCal, and remember questioning it then. How can sitting under a cheap desk protect you when the concrete walls fall in? And what are you supposed to hold onto?

It would be interesting to see the results of a really strong quake here in Dreamland, to see what really works and what doesn't. I'll bet it will be different than people think.

Engineers: the guys who think a plane will fly into a building without fuel.

Army Corps of Engineers: the guys who okay a housing development being built on a land that has a bunch of underground springs.

Sue

I remember running across Copp and his "triangle of life" concept quite a long time ago. I've given it thought from time to time over the years, especially whenever running across anything critical about him.

I've personally come to the conclusion that the usefulness of his advice depends on where in the world you are. If I were in a concrete slab building in Turkey, Iran, Mexico City, or maybe even someplace like Kansas City, then I think his advice could be lifesaving because the odds of structural collapse are not insignificant in a major quake in those places.

But if you live someplace with good building codes like California, where I live, or Japan, then I believe that statistically, you're probably much more likely to be injured from falling/toppling objects versus being squished flat from a catastrophic building collapse. So, a child in a classroom is probably more likely to be injured from falling light fixtures and other debris than having the whole building come down and squishing them, in contrast to Copp's oft repeated anecdote about the Mexico City school or the more recent examples from schools in Haiti or the Sichuan earthquake in China.

If you ever see demonstrations of what happens during a really big quake on those "shake tables", you often see rather large and heavy pieces of furniture or appliances shooting across the room. I think most of us have seen the security camera footage from the Kobe earthquake ( this one). The scene is the offices of a Kobe TV station. Someone is always there--notice the guy, in bed, in the lower part of the screen when the shaking starts very early that morning. Even if this guy were even able to roll off the bed during violent shaking like this, he very well could've been injured by being squished against something. As it was, he stayed on top of the bed and rode it out unharmed, which is the standard advice on what to do if you're in bed when an earthquake hits.

To me, it's basically a risk-benefit thing. Do I do something that may protect against the rare but catastrophic outcome but also expose you to lesser threats, or do something which should protect you against the most likely threats? For me, I consider falling objects (well, other than the entire building falling on me) to be my biggest threat during any earthquake (and not just the one massive Big One, but any large earthquakes over my lifetime), and I'm probably more likely to be hurt by something bonking me on the head or having something heavy slam into me from the side. There are exceptions, of course, even here in California. Like "soft" first floor areas, like carports under apartment buildings or wide open retail space on the first floor of apartment buildings are not good places to be when the Big One hits and you risk getting squished.

But, for anyone who isn't familiar with the "triangle of life", I think it's a worthwhile concept to read up on.

I think you have some very good points Arney. Techniques that might save you in one case might very well get you killed in another. Yes, there would seem to be a major divide between what works in areas with strict versus lax building codes, and strong versus less strong construction. But even given the optimum technique matched to the peculiarity of the building codes and construction in any particular area your relative rate of survival using one method or another seems to be a crap shoot.

I am suspicious of quick and easy answers. Particularly when the methods promoted seem to be based in anecdotal evidence, personal observation. Not backed up by any real research.

He presents an interesting case but at best it can only be applied in the heat of the moment and there is some chance that while your figuring out what to shelter beside you might be better off leaving the building entirely. An earthquake might be over in thirty seconds. Assuming you take a few seconds to figure out it is an earthquake, and one serious enough to worry about, your going to be running short of time and likely to find any activity challenging. Also consider that any earthquake sufficiently strong to take down a building is going to make any action difficult.

i, too, live in california and consider these various issues from time to time. i agree w/the points you raise.


especially when they come in emails.


especially from a guy who seems to be self-promoting.


and that's the dilemma.

Yes, that's one of those options that seems prudent, like the triangle of life, but which turn out can get even MORE people hurt in the long run, at least in places like California. That zone between inside and outside turns out to be one of the common places where people in earthquakes are actually injured, primarily from falling debris. Which leads to the traditional advice that if you're inside when the quake hits, stay inside, and if you're outside, get away from buildings, power lines, etc.

The other common ways people get injured are being struck by things like toppling bookshelves, paintings, big mirrors, TV's (those suckers are heavy!), falling light fixtures, and also foot injuries, such as having to walk barefoot on broken glass or even getting poked through your shoes by nails when walking over the debris of a collapsed house. Personally, I'd hate to be deep frying a turkey when the Big One hits. Ouch!

I was thinking about fleeing the building in the context of third-world standards for reinforced concrete and the sorts of cascading pancake failure that make survival inside highly unlikely. Get hit outside the building at least your outside the building and closer to any rescuers. But your absolutely right about staying in the building being the safer thing to do as long as your talking about buildings built to modern standards.