Guerilla Public Art We Like: Pasadena's Fork in the Road
TV Junkie: Interview with 'Bored to Death' Team of Ted Danson, Jonathan Ames & Jason Schwartzman
Mint Condition VW Bus Stolen 35 Years Ago Found!
The Creepy, Yet Beautiful Street Art of Dan Witz Now in L.A.
Recession Obsession: Sky's Gourmet Tacos
"Evacuate ALL building and proceed to the circle," read an emergency text alert sent to students at Mount St. Mary's College in Brentwood. "Right now-train just stopped," a tweet from Metro commuter shawnrstewart wrote about the massive quake.
Luckily, this was not the real thing. "The 'Golden Gaurdian' earthquake drill has begun," the Los Angeles Fire Department said in an alert message. "This would be a notification that a Major Earthquake has occurred in the Southern California area. The exercise simulates a 7.8 earthquake."
That magnitude is 50 times greater than the Northridge earthquake in 1994 which is one of the reasons why today is The Great Southern California ShakeOut, a scripted disaster which is billed as the largest earthquake drill in US hisotry. Right now, after an estimated 5 million dropped, covered and held, emergency responders are still playing out the situation whether that be response, search and rescue and triage. KTLA and Fox 11 News covered the event and mock press conferences like it was really going on. Officials are estimating that 1,800 are dead and 53,000 are injured. A big aftershock at 10:28 a.m. was then simulated at the press conference. Reporters and scientists all dropped to the floor.
The big one is not a matter of if, it's when. Do you feel a little better now? For millions, everything is okay."Survived earthquake drill," chrisspurgeon on Twitter wrote.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
i'm back at my desk. my job evacuated about 1000 employees in downtown. i jaywalked so i didn't have to be in the cattle herd awaiting the walk signal.
This reminds me of those earthquake drills we had in elementary school. We were supposed to duck and cover, but really, those tiny tiny seat desks provided absolutely no protection at all. I always thought the better bet would be to run screaming into the open field instead.
The desk may not seem like much, but it prevents direct impact of falling objects off your head and neck. If you run while things are still shaking, you risk being hit directly on your way to said open field, which can potentially be fatal. I think of it like being hit by a car while riding my bike, with or without a helmet. The desk is your helmet.
Here at Disney in Glendale, we started shaking the systems furniture to lend to the full effect of the simulation.
I said this in an earlier post....a 7.8 magnitude quake that totally destroys 1,500 buildings and damages another 300,000 would kill a lot more than 1,800 people and injure a lot more than 53,000. That's not even counting the many, many people that will be killed and injured outside of buildings.
Why is no one else asking about this?
I work in a downtown office building and didn't see any other buildings evacuate or hear sirens.
Infact, my co-workers and myself were talking about the drill when arriving to the office - then it just slipped our minds. Next thing we knew, it was 10:30.