What to Do in an Earthquake and After It's Over

What to Do in an Earthquake
The next time (and yes, its a matter of when not if) you find yourself facing a significant earthquake, what you do and how you react can largely depend on where you are at the time. Are you inside? Are you outside? Are you sleeping? Are you driving? Your present location at the time matters and because these things happen without any warning, knowing what to do in a variety of situations is important. For all intents and purposes, the statistics show us that you should DROP, COVER, and HOLD ON. While some specific situations may require you to tweak this basic principle, if you do this, you will more than likely reduce your chances of injury during the quake. DROP - Drop right where you are, on your hands and knees. Getting low to the ground prevents you from being knocked down from the violent movement of the ground or floor beneath you. It also allows you to be able to crawl, if needed, to somewhere nearby for additional shelter. Statistically speaking, people moving from one part of a building to another during an earthquake leaves more people injured than those who stay put.


Where are you?
Now lets talk about a few specific situations that might help you gain some perspective on protecting yourself while you might be working, shopping, driving, or even sleeping. In Bed - If you're sleeping, stay in bed. Waking up to that kind of chaos might mean you would want to start moving through your home, in the dark, not fully awake. The better bet is to stay in bed, lay face down on your mattress and utilize your pillow and blankets to give your head and neck additional protection. Curl up into a ball just as you would during the DROP, COVER, and HOLD ON steps. The only situation the might warrant moving to a nearby safe space would be if you have a large light fixture or heavy item that could fall on top of you while in bed. Side Note: Parents, teach your children these same techniques. If the child is old enough to follow your instruction, everyone is better off staying put. You certainly can't help your family if you try to gain access to your kids and get injured along the way. For parents of babies and toddlers, other preventative measures and considerations could be used like paying attention to where a crib is situated, making sure its not situated next to a wall with decoration or shelving that could fall on the child. Put some thought into how your nursery is setup for an earthquake. Inside - This is a generalization, but the same technique applies; DROP, COVER, and HOLD ON. Things to note is to avoid exterior walls, windows, glass of any kind, large objects hanging from the walls or ceiling (in Alaska we often have animal mounts on the walls, stay away from falling horns and antlers!). Resist the urge to run outside. Windows and decorative portions of the exterior are often some of the first items to fail and fall to the ground.





What to do After an Earthquake
What to do after an earthquake can largely depend on how large the quake was, how severely your home/office/school/etc was damaged, and potentially how injured you might be. For the purposes of this article, we will assume that the situation is largely what happened during this last 7.0 quake that we have just endured. I will boil the situation down to that you are largely OK, there is some damage to your home, which is where you were at the time and that infrastructure could be compromised around your immediate area, potentially limiting entry/egress from where you are. First perform a quick self-evaluation. Are you hurt? If so, you'll need to evaluate how hurt and if you need assistance. If you need medical attention, attempt to call/text for help if communications are still up. If others around you are hurt, provide assistance to them and help get others to safety if you can do so. Immediately after the initial shaking, the first thing to expect is...more earthquakes. Alaskans have experienced more than 1,800 aftershocks in less than a weeks time since the first quake. Because you don't know if there are going to be more earthquakes, your primary focus is going to be getting out of the potentially damaged building you are in.Once you have determined that your home might be OK to assess for damage, you'll now focus on mitigating other hazards that might have been created from the quake. Those additional hazards could be: -Natural Gas Leaks -Damaged Electrical Wiring -Broken Water Lines -Spilled Chemicals -Potential Falling Objects Natural Gas Leaks - Many of the fires that start as a result from an earthquake are from damaged or parted natural gas supply lines that release gas into a home or nearby a home until that gas finds an ignition source. An explosion, or at least a fire can result from this. Installing automatic shutoff valves on your gas supply line or at least knowing how to manually turn off the gas supply to your home is a very important bit of safety to be familiar with. If you're renting, ask your landlord where the shut-off valve is. Once you find it, the best strategy would be to tie or wire a tool near or on this valve so you aren't searching for a wrench in this chaos!If you're wondering how the aftershock sequence looks to a seismometer, here is the last 24 hours of data from our Rabbit Creek station. We're up to around 1,800 now, the great majority of which were too small to feel. pic.twitter.com/HxO6BMxrWq
— AK Earthquake Center (@AKearthquake) December 4, 2018

11 comments
Good tips, Robert!
Well without an escape route, your options are pretty limited. The best course of action would be to hopefully call or contact someone from a mobile phone, if its working. If not, you may find yourself stuck for an extended period of time. Tough spot to be in…
And what if you are in an elevator when the quake hits?
Ya never coveted that.
You mentioned not using the elevator during or after it but you failed to mention what to do if you are already in the elevator when the quake hits.
Great article. I normally do not post comments. I’m a lifetime Alaskan and have been through many quakes including the 64. One of the quicker things I do is isolate the hot water heater by closing the supply water valve. This gives most people 50 gals. Of fresh clean water if there would happen to be issues with the city water main or wells that get stirred up. Just something I do.
A great read! And so fortunate how it went for us. No children but we have 4 dogs. 2 grown German Shepherds and two of their babies who are less then 3 months old. We had just woken up. Charlie is always by our bed, Betsy was in the living room on our couch and the babies where running around playing. My first reaction was get up and run I was running when I got jolted into the closet where I remained clinging to the support for most of the quake until my fiance grabbed me onto the bed and we remained. Adult dogs where on the bed in seconds and the babies flew under the bed and hid for hours after. I have extremely bad PTSD through this as does my female rescue Shepherd so these aftershocks have us clinging together on the bed(my new safe place). I’m looking to get help for this because I am going to end up dying from the stress this is giving me living in fear. Thank you for the post. I will share it and encourage people to read it because it helps to go over these things.
Thank you for all this info! I am in St Louis,Missouri but my son and family are in Wasilla,AK. We have had quakes before but I never knew the correct things to do. Heard of the doorway move but now I will head for under a tablel. This was very enlightening!!!
Anchor large furniture pieces to the walls, use earthquake putty (it works) and get cupboard latches for your kitchen or other room that have cupboards. In the garage anchor metal shelving to the walls.
Very nice! We are hoping that this information makes others create some change in their homes as well. Good work, Jana!
Thank you. I made the mistake of placing a rock salt lamp on my headboard above my pillow. Luckily, I had sat up in bed after getting jolted awake and when the lamp fell on my pillow it only hit my pillow and not my head. Now I’ve cleared all potentially dangerous objects from my headboard. Lesson learned.
Thank You! This is very good information.
Thank you for all that information , and my husband & I each got under a doorway,.next time i will drop to my knee’s & crawl to get under the kitchen table ,.Debbie in South Anchorage