You might wonder what The Great California Shakeout is. Well, it has 17.1 million global participants doing it. It’s a little less in the United States but still high at 16.4 million. This number is only for the people who registered and does not include all the people who haven’t registered. This happens every third Thursday of October every year. This year it will be on October 19th, 2023. The goal of this drill is to prepare people for an earthquake. Mrs. August is one of Rio’s assistant principals. Says “We practice this drill so each student can have muscle memory in a real situation. This is because we want each student to know where to go in case of a real emergency.”
The steps practiced for this drill are to, drop, cover your neck, and hold on to something stable like a desk if you’re in school. Or get under a doorway in your house. Tables are practiced as the best option though. Every school in California has participated. Sheriffs in California are part of that team but they are not on campus always to help out. This drill can take a minute but some schools who want to raise awareness can do it for up to an hour.
Some people have an emergency earthquake kit if they lose their homes or get stuck in some rubble. Ready.gov says, “the kit should consist of one gallon per person per day for several days, for drinking and sanitation, food for at least a several day supplies of nonperishable food, battery-powered or hand crank radio, and an NOAA Weather Radio(reports the weather for you) with tone alert. Also a flashlight.” You should consider having one of these kits close to you in case of an emergency. Mrs. August also says that “our primary responsibility is our students. Then our search and rescue team would go find missing students.”
This drill is critical as it raises awareness among people about how bad earthquakes can be and why we need to practice them. Earthquakes can be very dangerous in California since it sits on a tectonic plate fault line. California has a history of earthquakes and will continue so it’s important to raise awareness. People want to stay safe and to sleep better at night knowing how to handle an earthquake.
