The drill was sponsored by the California state Office of Emergency Services, the United States Geological Service, the California Earthquake Authority, and several other private companies who compiled drill instructions on a website called "The Great Shakeout" (www.shakeout.org). The buzz words for this morning's drill were: "Drop, Cover and Hold On."

Californians have been talking about "The Big One" for years. The 5.4 magnitude Chino Hills earthquake this summer scared a lot of Angelenos who remember the Northridge earthquake of 1994 which caused millions of dollars worth of damage and killed 57 people, injuring thousands more. But most of us are complacent about emergency preparedness until we experience a real tragedy. I remember the massive popularity of emergency preparedness right after 9/11. Everyone in Hollywood made sure that we had bottled water and food supplies stored away in case of an emergency, and some people went so far as to purchase gas masks and duct tape to protect themselves from a chemical weapons attack. But as the years have worn on, most of us have neglected to update our emergency preparedness kits and succumb to the belief that there is nothing we can do to prepare ourselves for a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

When our office manager alerted us to today's upcoming drill, the four of us in the office for the morning looked at each other with a little bit of reluctance and then collectively decided: "Let's do it!"

I have to admit, the organizations putting the drill together put a lot of thought and energy into the most efficient way to prepare people for a large scale earthquake. Yahoo News estimated that the preparations, communications and administration of the drill cost about $2 million statewide.

The Drill:

I downloaded an MP3 file from the Great Shakeout website (www.shakeout.org) to play during our drill. When the clock on my computer hit 10:00am, I clicked on the MP3 file I had downloaded and a man's voice came over my speakers stating that we were about to participate in the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history. The instructor told us to drop, take cover under a sturdy piece of furniture, and "hold on." The best part of the drill came next, when the online instructor advised us to imagine what we would be going through if we were really experiencing a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. There were sound effects of rumbling, breaking glass, and a distant siren. We were instructed to imagine what items around us might be knocked over or falling down from the ceiling. We were also told to imagine that the floor was shaking back and forth about six feet in each direction for a full minute.

I admit that I and my co-workers were a little bit embarrassed about taking part in the drill at first, but actually sitting under my desk and imagining what it would be like was actually valuable. The computer tower I was crouching down next to would have probably fallen over on me, my baskets of unfinished paperwork would go flying throughout the office, and the filing cabinets lining the wall could have toppled over and flattened anything in their way.

At several places on the website, the drill organizers state that "Drop, Cover and Hold On" is a preferable and superior safety measure to other controversial procedures like the "Triangle of Life" safety method purported by safety engineer Doug Copp. Studies have shown that injuries and deaths that occur during earthquakes are much more likely to be a result of falling objects indoors rather than dying in a collapsed building or freeway.

The "Triangle of Life" method states that you should position yourself next to a large sturdy object in the event of an earthquake rather than underneath a desk or table, because if the building that you are in collapses, the large sturdy object next to you will stop the ceiling from falling from falling on you and create a triangle of safe space for you to survive in until help arrives. This method is widely refuted, especially by American safety specialists who state that the triangle of life method is more relevant for undeveloped countries where buildings are not subjected to the same safety codes as they are in the U.S. and are more likely to collapse. Organizers of today's drill state that you are much more like to be injured by falling objects than in a complete building collapse.

The Shakeout website also offers advice for what to do if you are trapped in a collapsed building, stating that you should try to look for a source of light, find a solid object to tap on to let your rescuers know where you are, and to wait until you hear rescuers close by to call for help so that you can conserve your air and energy.

While I admit I rolled my eyes at the prospect of today's drill at first, I can say that it actually was a valuable experience just to put myself in the frame of mind of considering what it might feel like to experience a "Big One." Let's hope that in the event of a real earthquake, I can hold on to my wits along with a piece of sturdy furniture so that I can live to write about it another day!

Sources:

Earthquake Country

http://www.earthquakecountry.info/dropcoverholdon/

Shake Out

http://www.shakeout.org/

Wikipedia

Northridge Earthquake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Northridge_earthquake

Triangle of Life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_Life

Yahoo News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/quake_drillwww.shakeout.org