Preparing for a "Big One": The great southern California shakeout

Lucile M. Jones; M. Benthien

doi:10.1193/1.3586819

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Preparing for a "Big One": The great southern California shakeout

Lucile M. Jones·M. Benthien

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Abstract

The Great Southern California ShakeOut was a week of special events featuring the largest earthquake drill in United States history. On November 13, 2008, over 5 million Southern Californians pretended that the magnitude-7.8 ShakeOut scenario earthquake was occurring and practiced actions derived from results of the ShakeOut Scenario, to reduce the impact of a real, San Andreas Fault event. The communications campaign was based on four principles: 1) consistent messaging from multiple sources; 2) visual reinforcement: 3) encouragement of “milling”; and 4) focus on concrete actions. The goals of the ShakeOut established in Spring 2008 were: 1) to register 5 million people to participate in the drill; 2) to change the culture of earthquake preparedness in Southern California; and 3) to reduce earthquake losses in Southern California. Over 90% of the registrants surveyed the next year reported improvement in earthquake preparedness at their organization as a result of the ShakeOut.

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Source-reported bounding extent: 32.175612478499325° to 38.89103282648846° latitude; -123.74999999999999° to -113.818359375° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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BibTeX RIS

Lucile M. Jones, M. Benthien. 2011-05-01. Preparing for a "Big One": The great southern California shakeout. https://doi.org/10.1193/1.3586819

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