All About Earthquake Preparedness

An earthquake rarely comes with a warning. It comes suddenly and disastrously. However, there are things you can do in order to prepare for an earthquake and increase your chances of survival.

The first thing you should think about is finding some cover. Constant drilling and training will help you to instinctively cover your head and find shelter under a nearest table when experiencing an earthquake.

The most dangerous thing about an earthquake is not the shaking of the ground itself, but the objects falling because of the quake. By finding cover immediately and protecting your head, you can minimize head injury and you increase your chances of survival dramatically.

Another main concern in earthquake preparedness is evacuation. People should be able to get out of buildings quickly. However, during emergencies, people have a tendency to panic, causing stampedes and multiplying the danger. Because of this, constant drills are needed to help train people to evacuate in an orderly fashion.

Earthquake preparedness also requires people to draw up plans on how to evacuate any building safely. This means people need to be able to see a diagram of some sort that can serve a map in order to help them find the right exits and keep moving without hindering other evacuees.

You might notice that drilling is a major part of earthquake preparedness. As said before, earthquakes come without warning. This means you won’t even have enough time to think about what you are going to do while in an earthquake.

Drilling trains people on how to act when an earthquake comes. This makes the drills instinctive, making sure that a person acts before he even thinks about what he needs to do. The split second it takes to react can be the difference between life or death.

Earthquake preparedness frequently only allows people the two options mentioned above: find cover or evacuate.

By making sure that people act from instinct, many lives can be saved from the devastation of a quake. In the end, preparation is not about having the right equipment and supplies; it’s about having the right mindset and being able to respond quickly to threats.