Do you follow procedure during an earthquake (tornado/hurricane)?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Slightly vague title, allow me to explain:

Growing up in California, we always had endless “What to do in an earthquake” classes and even more earthquake drills. If the ground starts a-quakin’, I am supposed to:
[ul]
[li]Get under something strong- duck and cover[/li][li]If there isn’t something strong, get in a doorway-duck and cover[/li][li]If there isn’t a doorway, go in the bathtub-duck and cover[/li][li]If there isn’t a bathtub, get away from the windows, drop to the ground-duck and cover[/li][/ul]

There is daily rumbling around these parts, but every year or so we get a nice, big, REAL quake. Do I ever do what I am supposed to? Of course not! Usually my experience goes a lil something like this:

Basically- I never realize it is an earthquake until it is over. Maybe I’m a lil’ slow, but the quakes don’t last long and I never think “earthquake!” right off the bat.

So do any of you follow proper procedure during an earthquake (duck and cover)? We can extend this to other “natural disasters” like tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.-- although, I’d venture to say those are different because, generally, you have some warning.

2

Well, pretty much, but that’s because I’m in New England where our variety of natural disaster is pretty much the over-hyped blizzard. So standard procedure is to go to the grocery store and buy enough bread, milk, and toilet paper to last until spring the moment that snow is predicted.

3

I follow the general common sense “have enough food for a week or so” in winter. I don’t have enough water, but I have a water filter and I live across the street from a lake. There would have to be some mondo huge flooding for that lake to get to my home, so I don’t worry about flooding. Tornado warnings, I’m hit-or-miss on. I live in a large county. A few weeks ago, 20 tornadoes hit in my county and surrounding counties. We didn’t even get a wind gust where I live, so I just watched the weather radar on TV. I really don’t need to spend the night in the basement when the tornado is 10 miles away and travelling away from me.

If I heard a hurricane was headed my way, I’d get the hell out of dodge.

4

I used to keep a hurricane kit. Last January I drank the water since it was getting up to its expiration date. I meant to replace it but haven’t as of yet. I haven’t had much of a chance to use any of the emmergency kits or skills I’ve learned. I missed two hurricanes, Iwa and Iniki being either on another island or out of state. A tsunami warning in 1995 woke me up and I did stay put, as I should have, but nothing came of it. I lived through a 6.2 and a 7.2 earthquake but was too small to remember have known what to do. I would do what I should if one hit though. I’d much rather stay lucky.

I expect to get my kit up by within the next few paychecks.

5

When there is tornado weather, I get the cats’ cages out for quick insertion should the need arise, and we make room in our furnace closet for the five of us should, again, the need arise. It’s not arisen yet.

6

Doorways are no longer considered to be a good place to be in case of an earthquake because the swinging of the door could break your hand. Better to hunker under a table of some kind.

My latest emergency training at work had the sobering slogan of “You can’t help anyone if you’re already dead”.

7

I used to live in Ohio. During winter, I always had enough food on hand for at least 10 days. I drink sparkling water so I always had a large quantity on hand. While warm sparkling water isn’t fun, it could keep me alive should I need it to. Thankfully, I have a mail order pharmacy which provides me with a 3 month supply of medicine for asthma. I also have a mini generator which can recharge my cell phone.

I follow basically the same plan in Texas.

8

I have never been on the coast for a hurricane. I was living in near Northwest Houston during Alicia, and we had some emergency supplies, but not enough water. Being eighteen at the time, I went for a drive through the storm about five hours before the eye passed overhead. Go figure.

Were I living on the coast with a hurricane approaching, I’d probably stock up, but I might not evacuate if the home was above the height of the storm tide. I’d rather be in a house than stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on an evacuation route.

My family rode out Carla (1961) in Galveston, three blocks from the beach. They didn’t even board up the windows. My sister remembers looking out from the second floor windows and seeing the tops of waves get sheared off by the seawall and fly through the air until they hit the house.

9

I have earthquake kits in both home and car. That’s about it. My reaction to quakes is very similar to the OP: Wake up, groove on the shaking, listen for falling objects in the house, attempt to soothe wife and cats, go back to sleep. During the last quake, whose epicenter was all of 3 miles from my house, I stood with the refrigerator door open, watching the liquor cabinet bounce bottles of bourbon onto the floor. Never even thought to try to catch them. Luckily none of them broke. :smiley:

10

It depends. I was working tech support once in the Bay Area, in San Leandro. I was talking on the phone to somebody in Berkely, about 30 miles north. A small earthquake began, and I said “Whoa, earthquake…” and about three seconds the lady on the other end said “Okay, it’s here now…”

We went on with the call because it was only a 3 or so.

Since moving to St. Paul, the first couple of times the air-raid sirens went off (to signal a possible tornado sighting somewhere within 30 miles), I went outside to see if I could see anything. :rolleyes:

Now I just ignore them.

11

Typical Oklahoma tornado precautions (announced about 5,730,382 times per year on television, taught to kids in school, printed in every newspaper, etc. etc. etc): don’t go outside, don’t drive your car. Get into a storm cellar or basement. If none available, go to the lowest, smallest room in the center of the house and wrap yourself up (including helmet). Preferably bathroom, in the bathtub, covered by a mattress.

Typical Okie reaction to a nearby tornado: run outside and start looking around for the storm. Carry a video camera if possible. Alternate watching storm with watching non-stop TV coverage to find out where it’s at. If actual tornado arrives, watch storm until last possible moment, then run inside and take shelter.

If it’s not nearby (i.e., within a few miles), you just ignore it and maybe keep an eye or ear on the weather reports.

I’m serious, that’s how almost everybody reacts here. (Natives, anyway. Immigrants freak out & run in circles.)

I believe at least part of this is due to our weather coverage. I’ve seen what y’all call “weather coverage” in other places…pathetic is the kindest term I can think of. Our guys announce to the minute what time the storm will be where, are amazingly accurate at storm prediction, and have a gazillion official storm-chasers calling in with exact, eye-witness reports.

Almost nobody has any serious supplies stashed…tornadoes generally don’t cause the kind of damage that needs major supplies. I’ve never seen a winter storm that would keep me off the roads for more than a few days, if that. If there’s supposed to be a really nasty one, most people will stock up a bit just to avoid having to go out (mostly it just increases the pizza delivery time up to a couple-three hours). Our earthquakes are tiny (most people don’t even feel ‘em) and any hurricane that hit us would require far more than a couple weeks’ supplies to survive. (Like maybe an Ark.)

On the other hand, it’s not uncommon for a bunch of folks to be without electricity, for anywhere from a few hours (frequent) to a couple weeks (rare). Generally our power crews do a tremendous job, but it does occasionally take a while. Most folks deal with it, no big fuss. Maybe borrow a relative’s/friend’s/coworker’s shower a couple of times.

12

We lived on the coast of South Carolina for almost a decade, never more than 1/4 mile from the beach. We kept a hurricane kit, which we checked/restocked every year. Our policy was to stay put for Category 3’s and less, evacuate for anything above. We evacuated for Floyd, which was supposed to hit us as a Category 4, but turned and hit further up the coast as a weaker system (although still caused massive flooding). If we were still living in hurricane country, I think we’d be more likely to heed evacuations, since we have a child now.

13

Short answer: not always.

We live on a barrier island, which means we’re under mandatory evacuation orders for even the mildest hurricane. When Katrina came through Florida, it wasn’t very strong. I went out and got some candles and some extra water, but I wasn’t too concerned. We were supposed to evacuate, but we didn’t. We closed most of our storm shutters and stayed put. The storm went fairly far south of us and we didn’t even lose power. Of course, if the storm had suddenly come straight as us and strengthened, we could have been in trouble. But we knew that if we chose to defy a mandatory evacuation order, the authorities would not help us.

14

I grew up 2 blocks from the ocean in Jersey. One year, we were supposed to get slammed by some hurricane (can’t remember which) so we dutifully packed up us four kids, a dog, two cats, a rabbit, some fish in a bowl, plus my parents into the old skool suburban and went to my uncle’s house near Princeton. It was scary as hell, and when we got there, there was no electricity and lots of flooding. Our house, on the other hand, had no power outtage, no flooding, and just a couple big branches in the yard. :smack: