California Great ShakeOut earthquake drill, 5.3 million participate

by Tina Kells | November 13, 2008 at 10:22 am

1068 views | 29 Recommendations | 8 comments

I grew up in British Columbia, on the West Coast of Canada, and I remember taking part in earthquake drills in elementary school. It was always chaos. So I am curious to see how the large-scale earthquake drill dubbed the Great ShakeOut 2008, taking place today in Southern California, turns out.

Track real-time comments from ShakeOut participants and California residents.

Update

Great ShakeOut 2008 ended with mixed reviews, but lots of Internet buzz. The organizers were hoping to raise awareness of the danger posed by a quake, and it looks like they succeeded.

As Quake Captain I have begun assembling a kit; gallons of water in our garage, which even if it collapsed would be easy to navigate through, a crank operated radio, flashlight, Luna bars, baby wipes, poop bags...yup, I said poop bags, and not just for Mabel! We still need to get a change of warm clothes, a fleece blanket, dog food, and canned food. Next up is familiarizing ourselves with how to turn off the water and gas, in case the person assigned to this is unable to.

Mock debris is strewn everywhere and a dummy is trapped under a maintenance cart as Heritage Hall prepares for the Great California ShakeOut earthquake drill this morning. Millions of people across Southern California will participate in the earthquake preparedness drill by dropping, covering and holding at 10 a.m. today.

5.3 million California residents will take part in the staged event that is intended to simulate what will happen in the event of a massive magnitude 7.8 earthquak e. Emergency response teams and average residents will act out scenarios and go through rescue manoeuvers as part of the ShakeOut earthquake drill. It will be the largest disaster drill in US history.

Can't make it to Southern California today to participate in the event? The organizers of The Great SoCal ShakeOut 2008 have hosted a great little game to test your earthquake survival skills. Play Beat the Quake to see how you would do in the event of a massive earthquake.

Want to see what happens after the ShakeOut quake? Visit the Aftershock site to see a simulated account of the minutes and hours after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hits Southern California. See incoming video and photos, listen to voice reports from various disaster scenes, and read first-hand accounts of the ShakeOut aftermath.

The Great ShakeOut2008 is also hoping to engage the Web 2.0 world in the experiment. The Great Southern California ShakeOut Web 2.0 Links:

Blogger.com Blog - Great So Cal Shakeout Blog
ShakeOut 2008 YouTube Channel
Great Southern California Shakeout Facebook group
ShakeOut Twitter feed
MySpace event page

Some 5 million Californians promise to drop to the ground, cover their heads and hold onto furniture Thursday as if an earthquake had just struck.

Don't worry, it's not real. But because earthquakes are a big threat to California, the state is starring in a mock quake disaster drill billed as the largest in U.S. history.

The exercise is based on a hypothetical magnitude-7.8 temblor that ruptures the southern San Andreas Fault - an event scientists call the "Big One." Such a quake would cause 1,800 deaths and $200 billion in damage, researchers estimate.

The state's previous simulated quake catastrophes were smaller in scale, with the leading actors mainly first responders and cities testing their emergency preparedness. The drill Thursday is more of an ensemble cast, with governments, schools, hospitals, churches, businesses and residents promising to do their part.

"We're trying to make it a communal event," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones, who helped create the crisis scenario.

California is the most seismically active state in the Lower 48. Earlier this year, the USGS calculated that the state faces a 46 percent chance of being hit by a magnitude- 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, with the epicenter likely in Southern California.

Despite the known seismic risks, California has never been as organized as Japan, which holds an annual quake drill to mark the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, a magnitude-8.3 temblor in Tokyo that killed more than 140,000 people.

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politisite

at 15:23 on November 13th, 2008

Are you tryng to "shake things up" with this story? Well done. My first strong earthquake was in Fairbanks, AK.

Tina Kells

at 17:02 on November 13th, 2008

I think it is a fascinating experiment.

JoIM

at 17:21 on November 13th, 2008

This is a constitutional nightmare. The fact that this was planned long ago along side NORTHCOM is atrocious. People need to wake up as to why its "all of a sudden" necessary to have a domestic platoon, and have it carrying out public "drills". I suppose it wont be much of a shock when its a "real world" scenario. For those who are not in Ca( parts of LA in particular ) this "drill" has allowed for completely unchallenged marshal law. NO not permanent, and not the point. Can someone tell me why it necessary to ID people if this is a training for a dissaster relief? For those who were around when we had the last big earthquake( parts of 105 collapsed ) people were not checking to make sure they had their damn ID.

Barbara McPherson

at 18:32 on November 13th, 2008

This NORTHCOM sounds sinister. What is it? I was thinking this exercise was all good until I read this.

JoIM

at 19:20 on November 13th, 2008

www.northcom.mil

Everyone should take a look at the Democracy Now videos on YouTube and Google Video

Deyy

at 23:39 on November 13th, 2008

I think this is a great experiment. I agree with you.

incycle

at 10:18 on November 18th, 2008

Well I think the whole NORTHCOM issue is a bit separate from a disaster preparedness drill. I'm sure any thinking and researching person in the US would and should be afraid of the possibility of martial law being enforced on us, considering the secrecy of the current administration. I know I was very afraid on voting day, knowing the history of the Diebold voting machines and such - BUT - the Great ShakeOut was a disaster preparedness drill.

I am ALL FOR people taking responsibility into their own hands. They need to know how to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. Being a member of CERT and knowing basic survival skills is something everyone should know. Does this make me a goose-stepping fascist? I don't think so. Is it wrong for me to have been raised with a sense of civic duty and pride even though I wear punkish clothes and rock purple hair? Meh.

If you had been in the EOC with me, you would have seen regular people working for the city, trying to do their best during a disaster simulation. These people weren't power-tripping, weren't trying to take control over normal citizens - they were all trying to work together to keep as many people safe and secure as possible. So please don't muddy the waters here, what happened on the day of the Great ShakeOut was a good thing. The purpose was to provide information and access to it.

Are there people that power-trip? Of course, but that wasn't the point of the exercise. This was a well-publicized event to make as many people aware of what to do in the event of an earthquake as possible. Here in SoCal everyone talks about the Big One, the one that is long overdue. We still have lots of folks who will seek shelter uner a doorway or try the triangle of life method (both great ways of getting hit by falling which is how MOST people get injured in a quake). DUCK, COVER and HOLD is so simple, yet we still need to get word out.

p.s. Thanks Tina for bringing me onto this!