Under a strong table.
Often they suggest under an inside doorway, which are reinforced above. However, you don’t want to be in one with a freely swinging door which can pinch your fingers or hit you.
I don’t think they are suggesting doorways anymore. I think the suggestion is under a strong table and away from any windows. You definitely don’t want to run outside where a building or bricks or whatever might fall on you. My gut feeling is you are better off higher up, if you are down low I would think there is a possibility that the building would collapse on top of you. In my 53 years in California I have never experienced any damage. A friend who lived in Northridge during the Northridge quake said that he couldn’t get his car out of the garage because the automatic door didn’t work. He also recommended a pair of shoes/boots be handy in case of broken glass, etc…
I think any student moving to Calif who does not know we have earthquakes must have been asleep for the past 150 years, lol!
should we also warn students about earthquakes if they are moving to Oklahoma ?
there have been plenty there in recent years here because of the fracking process .
Oklahoma just had one of equal size to the one in Borrego Sprigs
and just north of that Kansas just had a 3.5!
^^ And how many people die EVERY WINTER in snow-related accidents and powerful storms? (Hint: A LOT MORE than in earthquakes!)
While statistically you’re more likely to die in bad weather than in earthquakes, those who have not been through a sizable quake (Mag 6+) don’t understand the sheer terror you will experience during and after the quake, dealing with and dreading the inevitable aftershocks, and wondering if a bigger quake is coming. Hearing the wood studs in your hose creak and the popping sounds the house makes when it moves. It’s nothing you’ve experienced until you been through one.
I’ve been through more than one and, while I wouldn’t buy a house on stilts in the Bay Area, earthquakes wouldn’t keep me from moving back there. Even with the perpetual reminders, issued every year for decades, that “the big one” is coming.
Thanks for the responses. I don’t really think about it when I visit. Just wanted some guidelines so that I would be prepared, especially with a toddler. I grew up and lived all of my life in New England. Well prepared for ice, snow and even tropical storms. Living in Florida for past 5 yrs and have a plan for storms and flooding. We were visiting when hurricanes Charley and Katrina hit. Know the plans and procedures. Now living on a barrier island.
OK, as a native Texan and midwest transplant more than 30 years ago, we never worried about earthquakes, either. But D2 has been in the LA area now for over three years and it never occurred to me that a smaller earthquake was a precursor to a larger earthquake. I always hear about aftershocks, but never ‘before shocks’. Is this a real thing? If so, I honestly never remember hearing about it. Not that I need one more thing to worry about!
Foreshocks are real.
I have experienced several large earthquakes in So. Calif.- Upland, Northridge, and Sylmar in 1971. I was at the epicenter only for Upland, and I don’t think you realize how difficult it is to move until you actually are there. It is hard to get your balance and to get to a safe location because you are being thrown around. I know that they no longer recommend doorframes- under a table is the best bet. Everyone I know gets very lax in between earthquakes. We all pile up on supplies after a nearby quake or one that is small, but then the memory kind of fades. We do have an earthquake box with basics in the garage and always have fresh water on hand but other than that have no special plan. We were in Santa Barbara during the Northridge earthquake and even that far away, the city lost power and you could not get gas or much food. We were lucky to have a full tank and just drove back home where we didn’t have power either but at least had some supplies. Everyone thinks that they will gather up their nearby family after a bigger earthquake, but after Upland it took me over 2 hours to get to our day care to pick up kids- a trip that normally took 15 minutes. All of the traffic lights were out and there was a lot of structural damage so that streets were completely blocked. I don’t really worry about earthquakes- I worry much more about my daughter getting caught in a tornado now that she is in Arkansas. Tornadoes and hurricanes look much scarier to me than earthquakes.
foreshocks happen very infrequently. They cannot be thought of as a way to anticipate when a big earthquake will follow.
from the USGS website:
"Worldwide the probability that an earthquake will be followed within 3 days by a large earthquake nearby is somewhere just over 6%. In California, that probability is about 6%. This means that there is about a 94% chance that any earthquake will NOT be a foreshock. "