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.