Preparing for a “Big One”: The Great Southern California ShakeOut

Jones, Lucile M.; Benthien, Mark

doi:doi:10.1193/1.3586819

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Earthquake Spectra / Volume 27 / Issue 2 / MANUSCRIPTS

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Earthquake Spectra 27, pp. 575-595 (2011); doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1193/1.3586819

Preparing for a “Big One”: The Great Southern California ShakeOut

Lucile M. Jones¹ and Mark Benthien²

¹United States Geological Survey, 525 S. Wilson Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106.
²Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089.

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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.