EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS
Contributed by Bob Brown, CEO, Superior Community Management Company (click to contact)
This information is provided by a Disaster Management Specialist.
Unlike what we have been taught throughout the years this is information which will save a life. For many years we were taught in an earthquake to get under a desk or table. Please read this person’s discovery and I quote:
“The first building I ever crawled inside of was school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down nest to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn’t at the time know that the children were told to hide under something. I am amazed that even today schools are still using the “Duck and Cover” method telling the children to squat under their desks with their heads bowed and covered with their hands. This was the technique used in the Mexico City school.
Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space or void is what I call the “triangle of life”. The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the triangles you see formed. They are everywhere. It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.
TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY
1) Almost everyone who simply “dusks and covers” when a building collapses WILL BE CRUSHED TO DEATH. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.
2) Cats dogs and babies naturally curl up in the fetal position. You should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. That position helps you survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next to a large bulky object that will compress slightly but leave a void next to it.
3) Wooden buildings are the safest type of construction to be in during an earthquake. Wood is flexible and moves with the force of the earthquake. If the wooden building does collapse, large survival voids are created. Also, the wooden building has less concentrated, crushing weight. Brick buildings will break into individual bricks. Bricks will cause many injuries but less squashed bodies than concrete slabs. Concrete slab buildings are the most dangerous during an earthquake.
4) If you are in bed and an earthquake occurs, simply roll off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a much greater rate of survival in earthquakes, simply by posting a note on the door of every room telling occupants to lie down on the floor next to the bottom of the bed during an earthquake.
5) If an earthquake happens and you cannot easily escape by getting out the door or window, then lie down and curl up in a fetal position next to a sofa or large chair.
6) Almost everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed. How? If you stand under a doorway and doorjamb falls forward or backward you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door falls sideways you will be cut in half by the doorway. In either case, you will be killed!
7) Never go to the stairs. The stairs have a different moment of frequency (they swing separately from the main part of the building). The stairs and remainder of the building continuously bump into each other until structural failure or the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they fail are chopped up by the treads. Even if the building does not collapse, stay away from the stairs. The stairs are a likely part of the building to be damaged. Even if the stairs are not collapsed by the earthquake, they may collapse when overloaded by fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest of the building is damaged.
8) Get near the outer walls of the building or outside of them if possible. It is much better to be near the outside of the building rather than the interior. The farther inside you are from the outside perimeter of the building the greater the probability that your escape route will be blocked.
9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes the vehicles: which is exactly what happened with the slabs of concrete between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed in their vehicles. They were all killed. They would have had a chance of survival if they had removed themselves from their vehicles and laid in a fetal position beside the vehicle, in the void. The vehicles had a 3’ high next to them, except for the vehicles crushed by the columns that fell directly across them.
The above has been proven to be accurate in a survival process and film done in Turkey so it does work.
Get the word out to schools and buildings and hopefully we can save lives.
You can contact Bob Brown by clicking on the Company name here: Superior Community Management Company