Earthquake Safety

5/24/2018 (Permalink)

Living in California, you have to always be prepared for an earthquake since this state has been prone to some serious earthquakes in the past. Although, bigger earthquakes, such as the 6.7 one that hit Northridge area of Los Angeles are often pretty rare, even minor earthquakes can damage your homes and property and even cause injuries as well.

The key to preventing and lowering the risk of injury and surviving an earthquake is to plan, prepare, and practice what you will do when an earthquake happens.

Earthquake Drills

During an earthquake drill, practice:

• Get under a study table or desk and hold on to it
• Make sure you know where the disaster and emergency supplies are
• Practice the DROP, COVER, AND HOLD-ON in each safe place
• Drop under a sturdy table or desk and hold on to one of the legs of the table to desk and protect your eyes by keeping your head down
• Doorways are no stronger than any other part of a structure so do not rely on them for protection!
• Stay clear of windows or glass that could shatter or objects that could fall on you
• Always use the stairs if you are above the first floor of a building in the case of power outages or aftershocks
• Stay indoors until the shaking has stopped before you are sure it is safe to exit the building
• When outside of the building, move away from any structures since falling debris could fall and injure someone that is around surrounding buildings still
• Leave a structure when it is safe if you smell gas

Frequent practice will help reinforce safe behavior in an event of an actual earthquake.

Always keep a look out for a possibility of an aftershock. Aftershocks are smaller earthquakes that follow the main large earthquake. Aftershock earthquakes can continue over a span of hours, days, and even months afterwards. Usually, the larger the earthquake, the more frequent and numerous the aftershocks are. They can cause as much damage as the main earthquake and some rare cases, a larger earthquake can occur.

More tips and how what to do before, during, and after an earthquake, visit this website here:

http://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/types-of-emergencies/earthquake#Before