Calif. puts on drill to prepare for 'Big One'

5 million sign up to participate
Although the statewide drill was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Pacific time, Schwarzenegger surprised his staff by practicing the drill at 5 a.m. The governor said he was pleased by his staff’s response.

Organizers said about 5 million people had signed up to participate. The exercise coincided with an annual disaster preparedness exercise held by the state. Unlike previous years, the simulation involved scores of governments, first responders, schools, businesses, churches and residents, all following the same script.

Under the scenario, the southern San Andreas suddenly awakens near the Mexican border, sending shock waves marching toward Los Angeles and eventually stopping in the high desert. The 200-mile rupture would leave a path of destruction. Shaking would last about three minutes.

The minimum participation called for people to dive for safety. Firefighters and other emergency responders staged full-scale exercises complete with search-and-rescue missions and medical triaging of people posing as casualty victims.

It was business as usual at Bishop Alemany High until sirens sounded shortly after 10 a.m. and a soundtrack simulating earthquake noise blared through the loudspeakers.

Spanish teacher Fiorella Linares, who had been checking homework, ordered her approximately 20 students to “cover,” and they dove under desks and grabbed onto the legs of chairs.

Some of the teens giggled and joked. “I’m dying,” one shouted in mock horror.

“Don’t laugh,” Linares scolded. “You have to think about what if this really happened.”

Despite decades of research, scientists still cannot predict when an earthquake will strike.

Small quake strikes during drill
California sits atop two of Earth’s major tectonic plates and is the most seismically active state in the continental U.S. More than 300 faults crisscross the state including the mighty San Andreas, which spawned the monstrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Less than half an hour after the exercise began, a small quake — magnitude-3.2 — hit central California, but it shook little and injured no one.

Scientists have long warned about the possibility of a “Big One.” They recently calculated a 99.7 percent chance that a magnitude-6.7 quake or larger will rock the Golden State in the next 30 years. The chance of a magnitude-7.5 or greater was 46 percent during the same period with the epicenter more likely in Southern California.

As dire as Thursday’s simulated quake seems, it’s not the worst-case scenario, scientists say. The scenario, for instance, omits the presence of Santa Ana winds, which typically blow in the fall and have the ability to whip quake-sparked fires into infernos.

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