<\/p>\n
Ed Lee (left top), the late San Francisco mayor, and others\u00a0participate in the “Great California Shakeout” annual earthquake drill as they “drop, cover and hold On” at an elementary school in the city in October 2011.<\/p>\n
Lea Suzuki\/The Chronicle<\/p>\n
Get ready: The Great California Shakeout<\/a> is coming Thursday.<\/p>\n The event is an annual earthquake drill, aimed at increasing public awareness about what to do during major shaking. Millions of people around the world have signed up for the drills, which are scheduled for 10:16 a.m. local time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe best protective action you can take during an earthquake is to drop down, get under your desk, cover your head and hold on to something that’s sturdy, like the leg of a table,\u201d said state geologist Jeremy Lancaster, with the California Geological Survey, during a presentation<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Great ShakeOut website also provides additional preparation tips, like securing items that might fall during earthquakes, creating family disaster plans and restocking emergency supply kits.<\/p>\n The drill occurs a day before the 36th anniversary of the devastating 6.9-magnitude\u00a0Loma Prieta earthquake, which was centered near Santa Cruz and caused widespread damage, including to the Bay Bridge and the Marina district.<\/p>\n What\u2019s happening Thursday?<\/p>\n At 10:16 a.m., the MyShake app<\/a> will buzz for millions of Californians. The alert will display an infographic instructing users to drop, cover and hold on. It also includes an audio message, indicating that it is an earthquake drill.<\/p>\n The U.S. Geological Survey\u2019s ShakeAlert<\/a> system, which underlies the MyShake app, provides warning in advance of earthquake shaking by detecting seismic waves. People near the epicenter may\u00a0receive little or no advance warning, however.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n What if I don\u2019t get the test alert?<\/p>\n Users should make sure they have the latest version of the MyShake app installed, and also have location services and notifications enabled.<\/p>\n While MyShake encourages users to practice the drill, those who don\u2019t want to receive the message can temporarily turn off app notifications.<\/p>\n Who\u2019s participating?<\/p>\n More than 53.2 million people worldwide have signed up for the event, according to the ShakeOut website<\/a> on Tuesday. There are over 10 million participants registered across California. About 1.5 million people have signed up in the Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n BART<\/a> is planning to trigger its ShakeAlert early warning earthquake system at 10:16 a.m., which will cause trains to automatically slow down to 27 mph and come to a brief stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n BART will also make a systemwide public announcement encouraging riders to be prepared for earthquakes. The transit agency is also testing internal communications systems and simulating damage inspections.<\/p>\n What else is going on this week on the earthquake front?<\/p>\n This week, the California Governor\u2019s Office of Emergency Services is hosting a statewide tour<\/a> with an earthquake simulation trailer and providing quake preparedness information. This simulator is akin to the California Academy of Science\u2019s Shake House<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ed Lee (left top), the late San Francisco mayor, and others\u00a0participate in the “Great California Shakeout” annual earthquake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[184,7,9,8,3934],"class_list":{"0":"post-4759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-bay-area","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-california-headlines","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-earthquakes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}