On Thursday, Paso Robles emergency service providers gathered in Downtown City Park to participate in the Great California ShakeOut earthquake drill and inform the community about earthquake preparedness.
Each year, Paso Robles holds this event in honor of the San Simeon earthquake of 2003. The 6.6-magnitude quake caused major damage in Paso Robles and took two lives.
North San Luis Obispo County CERT Program Manager John Spooner believes the before and aftermath of disasters go hand-in-hand.
“How you prepare determines how quickly you’re gonna recover,” Spooner said.
He added that there are several steps locals can take to prepare for earthquakes now to avoid structural damage.
“You wanna fix things to the wall that might fall over. You wanna make sure your house, if it’s an older home, that it’s been seismically retrofitted,” Spooner said.
To make sure you and your family are safe when disaster strikes, Spooner suggests having safety items stowed away.
“Everybody in the family needs to have a go bag. The family needs to have a kit at home that has enough stuff to sustain the family for at least seven days,” Spooner said.
One new method of staying prepared comes in the form of an app called MyShake. By installing MyShake on your mobile device, you can be alerted of earthquakes with magnitudes of 4.5 or higher near you.
Fire Captain John Prickett said the app is a new way locals can get to safety before a quake.
“Allowing people that opportunity, that few seconds to go ahead [and] duck, cover and hold on is what we’re trying to accomplish with that app,” he said.
Prickett explained why the 4.5 and up range was chosen.
“4.5 is enough of an earthquake that could cause injury or damage to a structure,” he said.
The MyShake app is free to download on the App Store and Google Play.
