The third annual Great American Shakeout is to be held this week, with the goal of raising awareness about earthquakes and earthquake safety.
There are hundreds of small earthquakes in this region every year, most of which are too slight to be noticed by the general populace. However, there is a distinct possibility of a larger quake that could cause large amounts of damage.
Brian Blake is the program coordinator for the Central US Earthquake Consortium. He says that such an earthquake would affect millions of people, so everyone should be aware of the danger.
“The correct response, if people feel an earthquake shaking, is drop cover and hold on, which means to get under a table or something sturdy and hold onto it until the shaking stops,” Blake said. “This is a basic level of protection that the shakeout drill helps to provide people.”
Blake encourages everyone to participate in the exercise, which will be held at 10:15 am Thursday.
“And over time it’s going to become very similar to what we see with things like tornadoes or floods, where people kind of instinctively know what to do,” Blake said. “And that’s really what we’re hoping to do is to kind of shift the mindset of understanding that we do have this risk and that people should be prepared.”
Just under 500,000 Missourians will participate, including schools and businesses like Southeast Missouri State University and US Bank.
More information for this drill can be found at shakeout.org.