(Missourinet) – The Missouri Statewide ‘ShakeOut” earthquake drill is taking place on Thursday.
Jeff Briggs is the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Program Manager. He says the state conducts the drill every year to keep residents aware that the danger exists.
“There is an earthquake risk in Missouri,” said Briggs. “Because large earthquakes don’t happen frequently here, some people don’t know that there’s a risk of it.”
Briggs says the drill is also taking place to alert people about safety procedures because earthquakes strike without any warning such as weather patterns that precede tornadoes and floods.
“If a flood comes, it’s raining, and you see the river rise,” Briggs said. “With a tornado, you usually get a few minutes of warning on your phone or with a siren. But in an earthquake, the shaking is going to start and you’re going to have no warning at all. People need to know what to do in advance.”
“ShakeOut” participants will practice the “Drop, Cover, Hold On” technique during the one-minute drill beginning at 10:18 a.m. Emergency management experts consider the method the appropriate action to reduce injury and death during earthquakes.
The procedure calls for participants to drop to their hands and knees, cover their heads and necks with their hands or by crawling under a table or desk, and then hold on until the shaking stops.
Missouri is not thought of as a location where major earthquakes take place. But in 1811 and 1812 the state was rocked by at least three of the largest earthquakes ever to hit the continental United States. They occurred in the New Madrid Seismic Zone in the southeast part of the state. According to SEMA, the biggest of those quakes “altered the flow of the Mississippi River, turned rich farmland into fields of sand and destroyed countless structures.”
More than 492,000 Missourians are taking part in the “ShakeOut,” led by more than 400,000 individuals at elementary, middle and high schools. There’ll be almost 29,000 participants from colleges and universities and nearly 19,000 at healthcare facilities across the state.