What to Do DURING an Earthquake When Outside

One of the main reasons that makes earthquakes so deadly is that they can strike at any time in any location. Of course, seismologists have a greater understanding of the current status of plate tectonics in the complicated region off the coast of British Columbia than they used to, but they still don’t have the technology to predict when a quake is due, and how strong it is likely to be. Large earthquakes generally increase in magnitude the longer the dormant period, which means when The Big One hits, it will likely wreak havoc in and around the area. This means that British Columbia residents have to be fully prepared for disaster, and know what to do during an earthquake wherever they happen to be.

If you ever consider how much time you spend outdoors, in a car, in the kitchen, at work or elsewhere at home, and with the inevitability of a large earthquake happening at any time, it is crucial to have a plan for every scenario you'll be in, so you and those around you are not caught off guard with no idea what to do. To give an idea, the average person spends nearly 14 hours per week outdoors, and the average Vancouverite spends 5+ hours commuting per week. With all that time spent either outside or in a vehicle (for info on indoor scenarios, click here), here are several tips to consider when making your plan for what to do during an earthquake:

Stay Outside

If you find yourself outside during an earthquake happening now, the biggest and most important advice is stay outside. It’s so important that it needs to be repeated: if you’re outside and an earthquake strikes, stay outside. Even though the building codes in British Columbia contain some of the strongest guidance for making quake-proof structures, buildings are full of hazards: flying objects not secured to a wall or surface, shards of glass and large pieces of unsecured furniture that can collapse on top of you.

While staying outside is the single most important rule to follow, you also need to know what to do during an earthquake when outside. The following are some of the most important do’s and don’ts during an earthquake if you’re caught outdoors:

• DO get low – once you’ve got yourself to a safe space outside, you need to keep as low to the ground as possible. If you can lie down on the ground, do so as it will dramatically reduce your risk of falling or tripping suddenly. A low crouch or simply sitting down will do; anything that reduces your centre of gravity will be good enough. A typical British Columbia earthquake lasts less than a minute, so you’ll only be down for a short while.

• DON’T go near buildings – not only is the advice to stay outdoors if you’re already outdoors, but you also need to move away from any buildings as quickly as possible. Windows are the weakest point in any structure and a strong quake can literally shatter a window, spraying the nearby area with dangerous glass shards. Any architectural external features and facades will also be the first things to fall off a shaking building, so it will be essential to keep clear of any buildings.

• DO have an earthquake safety kit ready – living in British Columbia means that you should always have several up-to-date earthquake safety kits in convenient locations. One of these should be outside your property in an easily accessible place in case you can’t return to your home for some reason. Your earthquake safety kit should include food supplies for a couple of days, dry clothes, a first aid kit, a flashlight with spare batteries and a list of emergency contact and meet up plans.

• DON’T go near power lines – power lines are held up by single poles, making them highly susceptible to collapse and breakage during an earthquake. If you’re near a power line when an earthquake hits, move quickly away as you’ll not only be at risk of being hit by the pole, but you also could be hit by falling electrical cables. If you’re not sure if it’s a power line or a utility line, you should still move away as you don’t want to run the risk of electrocution on top of other earthquake damage.

• DO get in your car – finally, if you’re near your car, it’s a good idea to get in for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the car’s suspension will absorb a lot of the shocks, keeping you safe even while the car is jiggling around like crazy. Secondly, cars are designed to withstand high collision forces, meaning that the shell will protect you from falling debris. Finally, your car is equipped with a radio, so you’ll be able to tune into the emergency broadcasts which will give you more advice and meet up points once the earthquake has finished.

Driving and Earthquakes

On the subject of driving during an earthquake, there are a few pointers to follow to keep you safe during an outdoors earthquake:

• Stop as soon as possible – driving during an earthquake puts you at risk from flying or falling debris, and the further you move, the more danger you put yourself. Pull over as soon as possible, stay in the car and put on the emergency brake to keep yourself from rolling and moving.

• Keep away from any overhead dangers – hazards caused by structural collapse is the biggest danger you face in your car. These include overhead wires, power lines and overpasses, so make sure that you’re well clear of these potential hazards when you pull over.

• Leave fallen power lines – there may be a scenario in which your car gets stuck under a fallen power line. In this situation, under no circumstances should you attempt to move the power line yourself. Fortunately, your car acts like a massive Faraday cage, so any electricity will pass around the metal shell of the vehicle. Your best bet is to sit and wait it out until a trained professional can come and rescue you.

Once the earthquake is over, you may continue your journey to meet up with loved ones, but make sure that you’re on the look out for potential damage to the roads, flooding and collapsed bridges on your route.

Get Experienced

The hardest part of any earthquake preparation guide is that until one strikes, you don’t know how you’ll respond. This is why you should seek out the QuakeCottage at a local community event. This is a real life earthquake simulator, and while the experience is aimed to provide an insight to what an earthquake looks and feels like inside (think like a stationary rollercoaster!), you can still get a feel for how the earth moving under your feet makes you react. Once you’ve got an idea of how it feels, you’ll build muscle memory that will help you know what to do during an earthquake when outside.

Earthquake Safety Checklist for BC

Even though you might not feel all of them, there are over 3,000 earthquakes each year in British Columbia. The proximity of the province to the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates means that any subtle changes deep underground gets translated into ground movement. Fortunately, many of these earth tremors are too small for us to notice, but there are definitely some each year that catch our attention. Many people in the province live in fear of The Big One; a catastrophic earthquake that completely destroys homes and lives, but with the right earthquake safety preparations, the damage caused by The Big One can be drastically reduced.

The key for effective earthquake safety preparation is to find the fine line between being ready for disaster and living your day to day life. If you have young children, it’s even more important to strike this balance as you don’t want your kids living in fear of something that seismologists believe has only a 1 in 10 chance of happening over the next 50 years. But just in case, the following 5 ideas make up an ideal earthquake safety checklist for BC residents.

Tsunami Zone

Start off with the big picture. If you live in a busy downtown area, your main focus for earthquake safety preparation will be installing seismic fasteners onto freestanding furniture and finding safe places to run and hide. However, if you live by the coast, you need to be aware that British Columbia has been split into five tsunami “zones”, so you need to know which one you live in. The five zones are:

1. The north coast and Haida Gwaii

2. The central coast and northeast Vancouver Island (this zone includes Kitmat, Bella Coola and Port Hardy)

3. The outer west coast of Vancouver Island, taking all points between Cape Scott to Port Renfrew

4. The Juan de Fuca strait from Jordan River to Greater Victoria, including the Saanich Peninsula

5. The Strait of St George (this includes the Gulf Islands, Greater Vancouver and Johnstone Strait)

Within each zone, there are 4 levels of warning that you need to be aware of:

• Information – this means that you can expect minor waves at most, and you don’t need to take action.

• Watch – this is when the government doesn’t know the danger level yet, so you need to keep an eye out for further information.

• Advisory – strong currents are likely near your neighbourhood, so your main duty is to get away from the shoreline.

• Warning – this is the highest level and means that a big wave is incoming. Full evacuation of your area is suggested at this level.

For each zone, there is a corresponding map so you can see exactly which tsunami zone you’re in so you can build it into your earthquake safety plan.

Household Emergency Plan

The next step in your earthquake safety checklist is to complete a household emergency plan. All members of your family (or at least those who can participate in such a meeting!) should be present for the discussions, which should cover some, or all, of the following:

• Escape routes from all rooms – don’t be afraid to play devil’s advocate about what to do if your first escape route is blocked or unavailable.

• Shelter-in-place location – if the government issues a “shelter-in-place” warning, make sure everyone knows where that is in your home, or what to do if they can’t get there.

• Neighbourhood meeting places if you need to evacuate your home – make sure you have two or three locations spread out so at least one will be available.

• Out of neighbourhood meeting places – these should be places near schools, workplaces or other common locations your family visits. In the case of The Big One happening when you’re out of the home, your family should make their way to one of these places and wait in place to be found.

Earthquake Safety Kit

One of the best earthquake safety tips is to prepare a basic earthquake safety kit in an easy to access location. Some of the essential items for this kit include:

• Medical kit – this needs to have the basics of bandages, antiseptic cream and wipes, gloves, gauze, pain medication and insect bite cream.

• Battery, hand crank or solar powered radio – make sure you have a list of locally available radio stations that will broadcast emergency information.

• Food supplies – these should be tins or bottle so they won’t spoil, and should last you and your family up to four days.

• Dust masks – these will help you breathe through the dust. As with airplanes, fix your own before fixing those of your children.

• Spare clothing and footwear – keeping warm and dry will help keep everyone healthy as well as maintaining good morale.

• Copies of important documents – in the case of a statewide catastrophe, having copies of birth and marriage certificates, insurance documents and any medical paperwork will help you get back on your feet quicker.

You should also have earthquake safety pictures of your safe places, any medication you need and family members for younger children to use.

Be Ready for Quick Action

The last part of your in home earthquake safety checklist is to know where your utilities come into your home and how to shut them off. This includes gas and water supplies. You should also know how to shut off the electricity to the whole house, and have a ready supply of fire extinguishers for gas, wood and electrical fires. In an ideal scenario, you should make signs and how-to pictures so that other family members know how to act quickly in an emergency earthquake situation.

Finally, given the infrequency of big earthquakes in BC, it’s easy to become a little complacent and forget about the earthquake safety checklist you’ve just completed. Make sure you review everything a couple of times each year to keep everything fresh and current. This will allow you to update anything in your earthquake safety kit as well as adapt your plan to meet any changes that have happened for you or your family.

Top Benefits of Earthquake Training

With the number of recorded earthquakes in British Columbia on the rise, there is a greater need for earthquake training to keep residents safe during one of the most dangerous natural phenomena that exists. However, there’s only so much earthquake advice and earthquake safety information that people can listen to before it just becomes “noise" without the real experience of an actual earthquake, a lot of this earthquake training will go to waste, or be forgotten in the heat of the moment.

The obvious solution, therefore, is to have earthquakes happen so people can practice their earthquake safety precautions, but as with all naturally occurring disasters, there are two problems. Firstly, you can’t make them appear on demand, and secondly, even if you could make them happen when you wanted, no one would want that power due to the sheer destruction and the associated clean up and rebuilding costs after the ground shakes.

Quake Cottage

Fortunately, this problem has a solution. An on-site demonstration from Quake Cottage can increase awareness of the necessity of earthquake training as well as providing an excellent illustration of the importance of using the best seismic fasteners for free standing furniture, both at home and at work.

How It Works

When you book the Quake Cottage team to come to your event, you’re sure to gain a lot of interest! The first thing visitors will see is their large truck and trailer with interesting graphics; enough of a draw to come over and see what’s going on. The inside of the simulator is set up with 3 comfy seats and handles. Across from the seats is a TV in which they stream a video while the ride is in motion. There are also different objects set up and secured to demonstrate how much motion would be going on in the room and what could break around you if it's not secured. Participants receive a brief, informative safety talk before the ride as well as some preparedness education after the simulation. During the simulation, they will be taken through what it could be like to experience an 8.0 magnitude earthquake in our region. It lasts for 35 seconds and the Quake Cottage team is ready to respond to any questions or concerns when it is finished.

Benefits of Earthquake Training

The ground-shaking experience is a real eye-opener for a lot of guests. When people hear about earthquakes, even the shakiest handheld video footage can’t give them an accurate feeling for what a big earthquake would feel like. The hands on experience of the Quake Cottage earthquake simulation gives visitors three main benefits to take away:

• It makes it real - Visitors to the Quake Cottage come away with a look of fear and realization in their eyes, having gone in expected a fun theme park kind of ride. The visuals of being in a home setting with the ground shifting violently underneath their feet makes everything that much more serious. Being in that experience makes people think about how they would react as and when a quake hits their town.

• They see the dangers – the home set up also shows the visitors just how dangerous common household appliances and objects can be. The visuals of kettles, bookcases and even the flat screen TV that they watch the intro video on shaking like crazy makes it clear how hazardous these items could be if they’re not secured properly. Fortunately, in the Quake Cottage earthquake simulation, everything is held down by Safe-T-Proof seismic fasteners, a fact that is not lost on the majority of visitors to the experience.

• They ask questions – there’s the old saying “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and it’s especially true when it comes to seeking earthquake advice. No matter how many leaflets you read or videos you watch, you don’t know what questions you have about earthquake safety until you actually experience one. Despite being a little shaken after the Quake Cottage experience, many visitors come out seeking further earthquake safety information, such as how to install seismic fasteners around their home, the strength of Safe-T-Proof seismic fasteners and what equipment and resources they need to prepare in case of an earthquake emergency.

Quake Cottage in the Workplace

While the majority of Quake Cottage experiences are held at community events, it’s a great idea to incorporate their earthquake simulation into any workplace earthquake training. The benefits of exposing employees to the Quake Cottage simulation include:

• Identify possible hazards – even though the earthquake simulation shows the hazards facing shaking homes, the ideas of securing loose items and tall furniture using seismic fasteners is one that can easily be expanded to the workplace. Employees should be encouraged to go through their work environment after visiting the Quake Cottage and identify areas and objects that would concern them in the case of a violent earthquake. They should be on the look for both objects that could cause physical harm to themselves and other employees, as well as objects that would be detrimental to the organization if they were broken or destroyed. Server stacks and computers definitely fit into this last category.

• Post experience discussions – another benefit of having employees take part in a communal earthquake experience is the quality of conversations about workplace safety that inevitably happen after the event. Formal feedback procedures will provide forums for employees to talk about their feelings and thoughts during the event, as well as some initial ideas, but there needs to be a mechanism to capture the informal “water cooler” discussions as this will contain more creative and spontaneous problem solving.

• Earthquake safety protocols – finally, a workplace Quake Cottage experience gives employees a chance to lay out their protocols for actions and procedures in the event of an earthquake and have them examined by earthquake safety experts. This can involve running earthquake drills with observers providing feedback, as well as a walk-through of the workplace to look at where seismic fasteners could be used to improve safety.

Whether it’s in the workplace or just around the home, there are many benefits of earthquake training through the Quake Cottage experience, from providing a real life earthquake simulation to promoting discussions around improving safety and reducing negative fear reactions when a big quake hits.