[Eoscstudents] FW: Earthquake Safety

[Mike Nowlin]

/PubSafety/tcc 

11/09/2011 01:32 PM 


To

Metro_Campus 


cc

	

Subject

Earthquake Safety

 

		





EXTRACT FROM DOUG COPP'S ARTICLE ON 'THE TRIANGLE OF LIFE' 
TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY 
1) Most everyone who simply 'ducks and covers' when building collapse are
crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are
crushed. 
2) Cats, dogs and babies often naturally curl up in the fetal position. You
should too in an earthquake. It is a natural safety/survival instinct. You
can survive in a smaller void. Get next to an object, next to a sofa, next
to a bed, 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. 
4) If you are in bed during the night and an earthquake occurs, simply roll
off the bed. A safe void will exist around the bed. Hotels can achieve a
much greater survival rate in earthquakes, simply by posting a sign on the
back of 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 the fetal position next to a
sofa, or large chair. 
6) Most everyone who gets under a doorway when buildings collapse is killed.
How? If you stand under a doorway and the doorjamb falls forward or backward
you will be crushed by the ceiling above. If the door jam ! 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 of the stairs takes place. The people who get on stairs before they
fail are chopped up by the stair treads - horribly mutilated. Even if the
building doesn't 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 later when overloaded by
fleeing people. They should always be checked for safety, even when the rest
of the building is not damaged. 
8) Get near the outer walls of buildings 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 their vehicles; which is exactly what happened
with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the
San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all
killed. They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying
next to their vehicles. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been
able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed
cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had
columns fall directly across them. 
10) I discovered, while crawling inside of collapsed newspaper offices and
other offices with a lot of paper, that paper does not compact. Large voids
are found surrounding stacks of paper. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/eoscstudents/attachments/20111110/9a73a849/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: garage.png
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 288567 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/eoscstudents/attachments/20111110/9a73a849/attachment-0004.obj 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: livingroom.png
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 197489 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/eoscstudents/attachments/20111110/9a73a849/attachment-0005.obj 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: office.png
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 149795 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/eoscstudents/attachments/20111110/9a73a849/attachment-0006.obj 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: untitled.png
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 74364 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/eoscstudents/attachments/20111110/9a73a849/attachment-0007.obj