Earthquakes & Tsunami Warnings: Did You Feel It?

What happens when Northern California gets rocked by multiple earthquakes? A flurry of phone alerts, a dash of confusion, and plenty of "Did you feel it?" texts. Did you get last weeks earthquake and tsunami notifications? Did you even feel the quakes?

In this episode, we’re diving into our own earthquake adventures and tackling the age-old question: “What should I do?”

Jimmy recounts his comical reaction during a training class, where internet speeds dictated who got the first alerts. Megan confesses her earthquake app obsession and explains how those precious extra seconds can save lives—even if her teacher thought it was just another silver alert. And Jenny? She made the bold choice to finish her shower before checking the alert. (Spoiler: she survived.)

We’re also busting some earthquake myths, embracing the quirks of California living, and sharing a few tips you can put to use when those emergency alerts hit your phone.

Download this episode today—you won’t want to miss it!

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Earthquake Alert and Evacuation Tips
• 8:58 Emergency Earthquake Safety Tips

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:23

Hey, what's happening? It's your boy Jimmy with the Girl Megs and another Life and Safety podcast, and we got another special guest with us, miss Life Safety, miss Jenny's with us.

Jenny: 0:35

Hi everyone.

Jimmy: 0:37

So today we're going to talk about the earthquake and the alert that we got. For us it was yesterday.

Megan: 0:46

For you guys, it was last week.

Jimmy: 0:48

For you guys.

Jenny: 0:48

it was last week For you guys it was last week and if you're listening in the future, it was in December of 2024.

Jimmy: 0:56

Yeah, and if you're listening in the very future.

Megan: 1:00

Ooh, how's it like what's going on?

Jimmy: 1:02

How are things going? I hope it doesn't suck Now. So a couple things have come up from this earthquake. I'm going to give full disclosure. I was teaching, I was doing a forklift class in a warehouse when the alerts came on, and I guess we'll start there. It's kind of where were we at yesterday and what happened, and I'll finish that thought and then we'll go around the table.

Jimmy: 1:32

For me it was funny because the people I was with were obviously hooked up to the Wi-Fi at the building so they got their alerts fast. So they got their alerts about six seconds or so before I got my alert. I was like what's going on? And I thought maybe it was like a local thing, like a silver alert, you know, maybe for like a missing elderly person, something like that, and I was like, well, maybe my phone's not going off because I'm not from this area. And then my phone went off and then I heard everybody else's phone in the warehouse went off and it was about 50 people. It was kind of funny. I was like, oh my god, what's happening? And they're like it's a tsunami alert and I was like I'm glad it's not another Pearl Harbor situation is actually what I said did you even know there had already been an earthquake?

Jimmy: 2:23

no, so the tsunami alert? Huh, I'm like I bet you there's a big earthquake someplace, and I I'm not kidding, I promise. I said that. And another coworker came out of this little cubicle in the area we were at in this warehouse and was like hey, there was a big earthquake up north.

Jimmy: 2:41

Talking about where the earthquake was at, and they said the earthquake was in Huayreca and then another person was saying it was in land, and obviously there was just no good information in the 15 seconds or so, 30 seconds of what happened. So that's where I was at Megs. Where were you at?

Megan: 3:01

I was at school as a student and I was on my 10-minute break in between classes, um, and I actually got the alert about the earthquake before I got the tsunami alert, because I have an app on my phone that's supposed to give you, like you know, like five seconds extra warning, or whatever it is that an earthquake is coming.

Megan: 3:20

But you know, those extra seconds might, you know, make a difference. Who knows? It's just a funky little app that I have, um. But so I got a notification and I usually ignore these notifications because it's like, oh, there's like a 3.1, 20 miles away from me and I'm like I don't care. But I was like I just happened to glance at my phone and saw at that time it was telling me a 6. Something and I was like that is a large earthquake. Where is that? Do I need to be concerned? Is a large earthquake? Where is that? Do I need to be concerned? Um and uh. Then at the same, like as I was processing that information, shortly after that the tsunami alert came on my phone and I was actually talking with my teacher and she was like another silver alert. I was like no, a tsunami alert, is this for real? What is happening? And then everybody else's phone went off. So my phone was the first one to go off in my scenario, um, but I was like what huh?

Megan: 4:19

and so I was like I guess that earthquake was for real, because I thought that it was a glitch, because I mean, I don't know, I just I'm so used to, like you know, between the one and three magnitude earthquakes here in California.

Jenny: 4:34

Yeah.

Megan: 4:34

And I was like there's no shaking. I would feel it because the earth revolves around me and I know all things.

Jimmy: 4:41

Yeah, that's what we keep telling you, meg. Oh God, it's a good thing, you're funny.

Jenny: 4:47

Thank you, I try, okay. So I was actually at home and I was in the shower and the alarm goes off and I can hear it from my phone outside the shower and I thought the same thing. I'm like you know what? I am not getting out of the shower for a silver alert. I'm not going to walk my wet body through the bedroom dripping water everywhere. And so I decided to wait and risk it, because was it an earthquake alert? I didn't even think that it could be a tsunami alert and we live in an area where it could also be fire. There could be a fire danger, close firehouse. So I just decided to risk it and finish the shower and so I get out and then I see the alert and I'm like tsunami, okay, well, we're really not in a place where the water is going to reach us at our home, and so I didn't.

Jenny: 5:42

I thought, right, earthquake, whatever. So I kind of look around and like nothing shaking, did I miss it? That's what I thought too. I'm earthquake, whatever. So I kind of look around and like nothing's shaking, did I miss it? That's what I thought too. I'm like, did I miss it? Was I in the shower? And like there was an earthquake and I didn't feel it Nothing. And finally I realized, after jumping on Safari and trying to search for news, that I should just go out to the TV and turn on the news.

Jenny: 6:00

Yeah, that works too, you know.

Jimmy: 6:03

That works.

Jenny: 6:03

Then I got all the information and I knew what was going on.

Jimmy: 6:06

Yeah, the guys I was with actually all got on X or Twitter, nice.

Jimmy: 6:11

And they were like it's this, it's that, it's this. And I was like, all right, guys, we're done, see you later. And I left. That was kind of the end of it for me Until last night. I got home, I was watching, I turned the tv on and the news happened to be on, probably still from when jenny watched it earlier in the day. And it was the news and they were talking about the earthquake and they were talking to some first grade teacher up in the eureka area, crescent city area, and her teacher's aid has probably has the same app has. And they said, oh, it's an earthquake, everybody go to the tables. So it was a first grader, so all the little guys and everybody got on the tables and she said everybody was really scared because we got shook really hard.

Jenny: 6:56

That's so cool, though, that they were already, so they were under their desks and the tables before it even started shaking. That's amazing yeah.

Jimmy: 7:06

So to Megan's point, those couple seconds helped. So, Megs, I'm going to pull you on the spot. You got to pull up the app now and tell everybody what the app is. Okay Now. With that being said, do we evacuate, yes or no? And evacuations from tsunamis? If you're on the coastal cities and you're in the coast, you should probably take note. You don't know how big the wave's going to be. You don't know if it's the big Godzilla coming out of the ocean destroying cities' waves, or if it's a little high tide kind of a situation, right. So we don't know. So read the situation and act accordingly. Meg has 72,000 apps on her phone and she's swiping furiously. I'm trying to think.

Megan: 7:52

I actually have two earthquake apps on my phone. I have the MyShake app and I have the earthquake app. I have Apple, so iOS One's just called Earthquake. It's a red icon with a little quakey line in it, and then MyShake. It's just like a tealy blue app with white dots on it. I'm trying to figure out which one was the one that notified me. I think I probably got notifications from both apps, but I was trying to figure out which one it was.

Megan: 8:24

But maybe deleted the notification. One of those apps, but I was trying to figure out which one it was, but they deleted the notification. So, whoops, one of those apps.

Jimmy: 8:28

I'm sure they both worked great. Now, evacuating the buildings this is one of the most common questions I get when we teach our building evacuation classes. Because it's a building evacuation class, we're talking about leaving and there's an earthquake section in there. And when should you leave in an earthquake? Well, if you're in California, we have one of the strongest building codes against earthquakes. I believe it's California and Japan have the strongest earthquake codes.

Jimmy: 8:59

Now, if you're in a high-rise and it's shaking, you're going to want to evacuate. I saw some folks on Facebook and on the news Jenny was talking about earlier before we started recording that in San Francisco people were evacuating. Okay, yeah, totally. Especially if you're in a big building. It's going to sway, it's going to feel like you're going to fall over. It's scary, I get it. Stay in the buildings, because if you run outside and other buildings start to fall, you're in more danger. Traditionally, if you're in the buildings and your ceiling tile starts to fall out, your fire sprinklers start to break from the building swing, you start to see cracks develop, glass panes fall out, external walls, things like that start to fall out, then you may need to think about okay, as soon as the building stops shaking. We need to evacuate from this building because this building may or may not be safe. Okay, other than that, ride it out. The building should be. Okay, it should be. And there's more layers to that, onions, so that's just a super 10,000-foot view of that.

Megan: 10:13

An interesting video that I saw on social media was this lady who was I don't know exactly where she was placed, but somewhere where there was big proper shaking, and she started videoing herself when the shaking started. Of course she did.

Jimmy: 10:30

Of course she did?

Megan: 10:31

Of course she did. We lived in the age of social media and she was just lounging on the couch, you know, watching whatever it was that she was watching.

Jimmy: 10:40

Please tell me she fell off the couch.

Megan: 10:41

No, she didn't Damn it. But she was like, oh, I should go check on my bottle collection, like her glassware, because she has this like vintage glassware collection. And she started walking there and she was like, whoa, this is bigger than I'm used to. Oh my god, I don't even remember. Like I live in California, I'm so used to earthquakes, like I don't even remember what to do when a real one happens. You know, because a real one being you know, like I said, we don't count things 3.0 and less here.

Jenny: 11:06

Right, if the ground just wiggles a little bit and kind of gives you a little shake, that doesn't count.

Megan: 11:10

But she's like I don't even remember what to do in Earthquake. Do I stop, drop and roll? I was like no, that's fire. And she's like, do I stand under a doorframe? What? Oh my god, the dog. And she called the dog's name and she was like wait, I was on my way to check on the glass and you could tell like her whole thought process happening and you could like see the things behind her shaking. And then she ended up going and checking on her glassware and she put up a little lip on the shelf so that nothing fell and she was like that was what I was most worried about. I'm glad nothing broke, no losses.

Jimmy: 11:41

Jeez.

Jenny: 11:43

So super high level. What do you do when there's an earthquake?

Jimmy: 11:55

A decent one that rocks you good. All right, let's talk about earthquakes, what you should do. So first off, I'm going to tell the story when jenny and I were early dating and the paso robles earthquake happened. And we were dating early on and we were in mountain view and an earthquake happened we looked at each other like holy crap, that's an earthquake. Do you remember this?

Jenny: 12:14

I don't, but I'm thinking we didn't move much. No, to be honest, like we probably were like oh yeah, that's cool and just stayed there.

Jimmy: 12:20

And then it started shaking really hard and you got underneath your dining room table at the apartment you lived in because they were at your apartment, and I got into the doorway of the your downstairs bathroom, which was a pocket door, and I remember going, oh this is not good, we're shaking really hard, and I was like Jamie's gonna be safe, I'm not gonna. And do you remember the door flew out the door, the pocket came out of the door and luckily I'm a larger human than most my foot was able, like I was able to put my foot in front of it and keep myself in and the door came open and shutting on the door. And so that's what you do, right, you get under something sturdy. You get in the door ways if you can. There's, you know, older construction. The doorways are better built, just older construction, stud and sheath. I can get into that email at lifesafetycom. You know it's my consulting hours, uh, but find someplace sturdy and safe. Duct cover and hold.

Jimmy: 13:30

If you're on a high rise, under tables is great. Get to the core of the building by where the elevator shafts are, the inner hallways. That's going to be the strongest part. Get away from the windows If you're outside. Get to a clearing, try not to be underneath any power lines, obviously underneath any trees, no cell phone towers, those kind of things but under the tables. If you're in bed, next to the bed, all right. Or to a door, well, and that's what you do. That's what you do at a high level, all right, team. First off, I want to thank the ladies for joining me today. It was awesome, awesome to have you both. Thank you very much and be safe out there and we'll see you next time. Oh, and one more quick shout-out to Mac and the Kindle Boo, auntie and Uncle love you and we'll see you soon.