On 10 a.m. Pacific time this Thursday, Los Angeles will be hit by a major earthquake. And how do we know this? Because it’s a pretend earthquake. I just received the following amusing/frightening email:
On Thursday, November 13, the Caltech community, along with millions of other Southern Californians in homes, schools, businesses, government offices, and public places, will participate in the Great Southern California ShakeOut Earthquake Drill. At 10 a.m., everyone is encouraged to drop, cover, and hold on for 120 seconds in simulation of a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. Throughout the day, Caltech will conduct emergency preparedness drills on campus. Audio and video earthquake recordings, which have been created for use in your drop cover and hold drill, can be downloaded at http://www.shakeout.org/drill/broadcast.html.
Yes, the The Great Southern California ShakeOut. Complete with sound effects, suitable for downloading. Kind of like a good old-fashioned nuclear bomb drill. Just part of the price we pay for being able to eat outside in January.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:49 am
“If you are in bed, stay there and hold on; protect your head with a pillow.”
Good thing I sleep on a steel pillow.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:34 am
You forgot to link Discover magazine.
It’s been nice reading your posts. I just hope they don’t make vein-cutting too painful…
November 12th, 2008 at 1:53 am
There wasn’t any mention of puppies, either.
I am an unreliable blogger.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:00 am
are Techers even awake at that hour??
November 12th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Given my past performance sleeping through firealarms, I’m pretty sure I could sleep through an earthquake.
I might roll over and try pushing the cat off the bed if it’s a particularly shaky one, but I can do that without waking.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Thanks for promoting this Sean. For any seismically disinclined physicists out there, the basic situation is this:
1. Los Angeles is moving towards San Francisco at about 4.5 cm/year.
2. Rock is not infinitely elastic.
So at some point, the rock is going to break and release tens to hundreds of years worth of accumulated strain all in one go. This can be unsettling for locals and anything they’ve happened to build. Thus, they have a drill to practice mitigating the problematic side effects.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Sean,
Is there any way to put the author’s name at the top of a post rather than the bottom? It’s really annoying to read a post (not this one, just in general) where the author speaks in the first person but you don’t find out who’s speaking until the end!
November 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
We’re working on improving some things like that … it’s not as straightforward when you have to play nicely with other blogs on the same site.