re: #403 Obdicut

Not really, no. Evacuating during the 5-30 seconds the earthquake lasts is not really going to improve your chances of surviving any ensuing fire by any significant degree.

Heh. Did you know one signficant source of fires after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco was people setting fire to their homes? They had fire insurance, you see, but not earthquake.

That much is true. I think part of the thingy here is that I’m San Franciscan, and I know where the load-bearing walls are because all this earthquake survival stuff has been drilled into me since I was young.

In reality, you or I will probably panic and do whatever. Since I’m a San Franciscan, I’ll probably scramble for the interior load-bearing wall and stick there like a mollusk of some description.

My friend was outside during the 1989 earthquake, and got to see the air conditioners dropping and smashing. He said that was the craziest bit, like everyone had gone rock star at once and thrown them out the window.

I was in South of Market during Loma Prieta in a high rise. I was the first one under a door. Not the geologists. Not the seismic experts. Not the engineers. I was the first one there. When one of those highly educated geologists saw me under the door jamb he screamed in his British accent, “everyone under a door!” After it finished we evacuated the building. This was while working for Dames and Moore. One of the other geologists just stood in front of a window watching the earthquake in amazement. When a high rise is rocking you can’t really walk or run very far.