Hospital, Schools Shaking Things Up Thursday

The ground starts shaking. Your knees start quaking. What do you do? Visit Marin General Hospital during Thursday's Great California Shakeout to get a dress rehearsal of what to expect during the next big quake and how to prepare.

At the event, Marin Healthcare District will distribute emergency preparedness information and provide information on how to sign up for "Get Ready Marin," an education and awareness initiative coordinated by public safety agencies throughout the county to insure that all residents are prepared to survive for 72 hours in their homes following a disaster. Get Ready Marin offers a two-hour course to teach citizens what to do before, during and after a disaster.

Marin's Great Shakeout will feature Northern California's only "Quake Cottage," a mobile earthquake simulator that provides a demonstration of how a real 8.0 seismic event would feel. The Quake Cottage is open to the public but requires a waiver to enter.

In fact, the Shakeout is a statewide emergency preparedness exercise in which nearly 8 million people are set to participate in a massive, statewide earthquake drill.

Students and faculty at Redwood High School, Neil Cummins Elementary and Hall Middle School are expected to join in disaster drills on campus.

Participants all over California will practice a “duck, cover and hold on” drill at the same time starting at 10:20 a.m. The drill involves ducking under a table or desk, covering your head and neck with your hands and holding onto the leg of the table or desk so that if the furniture moves, you move with it.

According to Mill Valley resident Maggie Lang, who oversees the countywide Community Emergency Response Team program, local municipalities simply don’t have the manpower to check on everyone immediately following a large-scale disaster, a point driven home by the on the subject issued in June.

“As residents, we need to be responsible for ourselves, our families and our neighborhoods and be ready to take care of ourselves for some period of time, possibly as long as five to seven days without power,” Lang said.

People who want to participate can register at the Shakeout website – it’s open to individuals, families and larger groups like businesses and organizations.

— Mill Valley Patch editor Jim Welte contributed to this report.