Quote:
Originally Posted by PSM
I'd say stay inside but get under a door frame or in a bathroom. Quakes are over quicker than you can get out and you will feel dizzy and disoriented. Plus, things outside have a habit of falling when the shaking starts. In the Northridge quake, the shaking was so bad that I had a hard time just walking the short distance to the bedroom door and it lasted about 20 seconds which is pretty long for a quake.
Pat
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Good advice.
Several people were killed and more injured by falling masonry/debris during the Christchurch, NZ quake in February 2011.
Door frames are good.
Under sturdy tables.
Adjacent and below kitchen islands/bars/etc(but make note of further issues below).
A good idea would be to secure high furniture, bookshelves, etc. things that could tip over and injure/kill people(especially children).
Think basic earthquake proofing akin to childproofing.
Things can become projectiles.
We've had "a bit" of earthquake experience here with the world's worst earthquake anomoly.
Over 12,000 earthquakes in 6 years.
Thousands felt.
Hundreds that felt like "uh oh, not again."
Dozens that felt like "uh oh, I think it's happening again."
A dozen or so that felt like "uh oh, it's definitely happening again."
And 3 that caused considerable damage( hundreds of millions, $2 ish billion, and the biggest still counting at over $30 billion.)
A couple of tips:
As many ways as possible to maintain or just monitor coms(and POWER for coms, small electronics car USB chargers, solar chargers, backup battery chargers, etc.).
Most people will be struggling to keep their mobile phones charged for coms. A little known fact is that many cell towers have battery backup when they lose mains AC electric power, but will fail in 24-72 hours without Mains AC power or genset(That was a BIG resource intensive job).
There are some cool peer to peer coms apps that do not require cell towers that can mesh net texts, voice, and data.....but are battery intensive and require mesh coms app density to work well.
When your vehicle fleet petrol tanks hit half, consider them empty....fill them up.
Keep as much petrol/diesel at home as you can safely and in compliance with your insurance...and rotate it.
Keep basic damage repair materials on hand: plywood, 4x2s, heavy tarps, etc to make your home weathertight if damaged. They sell out quickly.
Potable water and long shelf life food and home consumables is a no brainer and when bought on "super sale" can actually reduce household food and consumables budget.
Multiple fuel sources for home heating and cooking also applies.
But probably the most important recommendation would be to do what this forum's QP community does, force multiply communities/networks.
Know your neighbours, the good ones and the bad ones.
I generally don't like neighbours, I enjoy my privacy usually just waving, smiling, and saying "hi" leaving the neighbourly heavy lifting to my wife.
But I forced myself to make the most of the opportunity/mess.
We were able to map the ultra local community and who was short on water/food(water/electricity was out for weeks with electricity coming back first) and provide some supplement.
I reckon that ultra local community/neighbourly resilience thing is pretty crucial with any type of disaster.
The same for just networking period.
My wife did the heavy lifting with the former, I covered the latter.
Without existing relationships we wouldn't have been able to source and fill potable water trucks and stage them in the first day to keep communities hydrated until the big green machine could get up to speed days later.
Local community, networking, relationships.
Just some thoughts from our fun roller coaster earthquake rides.....welcome to the club!
Glad there was no serious damage.
Earthquake!
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