Seattle Schools Community Forum

What should we be doing in an earthquake? Drop – get down to the ground or floor before the shaking of the earth throws you there.  (Do this in the first couple of seconds.) Cover – get under a table or desk or other piece of furniture that can protect you from falling items such as books, light fixtures, etc. Face away from windows and mirrors. Hold – hold on to the furniture, move with it. It is your protection from falling objects. - Victims who try to move on their feet during serious shaking are often thrown violently by the seismic forces and can suffer serious injury from being thrown AND… -Are at risk for suffering life-threatening injuries from being simultaneously imbedded with glass shards. Actual post-earthquake data show that large and dagger-like shards of glass can travel more than 20 feet, and with enough force to penetrate solid wood. If you are attempting to move on your feet, your entire body is exposed to glass and other objects tha...

From The New Yorker piece entitled, The Big One" by Kathryn Schultz: When the next very big earthquake hits, the northwest edge of the continent, from California to Canada and the continental shelf to the Cascades, will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west—losing, within minutes, all the elevation and compression it has gained over centuries. Some of that shift will take place beneath the ocean, displacing a colossal quantity of seawater. The water will surge upward into a huge hill, then promptly collapse. One side will rush west, toward Japan. The other side will rush east, in a seven-hundred-mile liquid wall that will reach the Northwest coast, on average, fifteen minutes after the earthquake begins. By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA ’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our op...