At 10:16 a.m. Thursday, the university sent out a text alert asking everyone on campus to participate in an earthquake drill. But in James Allen’s philosophy class, neither the students nor the ground stirred.
“I didn’t even know about it,” said the sophomore enrolled in letters and sciences. “I guess I glanced over the email and text and didn’t even notice it.”
The university participated in its second “Great ShakeOut,” a nationwide earthquake drill meant to teach students about disaster preparedness. For one minute, students and faculty members were asked to drop to the ground and find cover, whether they were in class or at a dining hall.
“This is an educational hands-on practice for the community,” said Alisha Childress, the university’s emergency management coordinator.
Officials sent a text alert and an email before the drill. Before the event, they also spoke to student groups, asked resident assistants to inform their floors and hung up posters across the campus to spread the word, Childress said.
The alerts told students to hold on to a desk or sturdy table while using it as cover. This is meant to provide protection from falling debris, said Nicholas Schmerr, a geology professor who focuses on seismology.
Kristen Essel, a senior government and politics and history major, did not participate in the drill. She said she has trouble seeing the drill’s purpose and feels “desensitized” to the text alerts because of the number of test messages she receives.
“I don’t think a lot of students would participate in it,” she said. “In classes, you have a lot of people invested in the lecture instead of watching their phones.”
Senior English major Jasmine Marcelo was with a friend getting coffee at Stamp Student Union during the drill. She also did not participate, she said, and found the drill unnecessary.
“It just seems pretty silly,” she said. “Can you really be prepared for a situation like that?”
Yet preparation is the major reason Schmerr believes the drill can be helpful for the campus population. When a 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit the area in 2011, many people did not know what to do, he said. Some ran out to the street, which could have been very dangerous if the earthquake had damaged a building.
“You need to know what to do when there is an earthquake, especially since there isn’t a lot of time,” Schmerr said. “Personally, I don’t want to be the person to get hit by fallen glass.”
While earthquakes are usually not common or strong in this state, Schmerr said buildings are not built to withstand the shaking an earthquake could cause. The Washington Monument had to undergo repairs after the 2011 earthquake damaged it.
Last year, students also reported a lack of participation in the drill, which Childress said had to do with the program being in its infancy at the school. She said she wants to see more people participate in coming years.
“What I’m hoping is that this is something people participate in and are aware of,” she said. “We want people to be comfortable with this information, so if anything does happen, it won’t be too much of a surprise by them.”
