Many people have been depending on faulty information for earthquake survival. The "Triangle of Life" method is the worst problem. This advice is agreed to be wrong by a long list of reputable rescue organizations. The advice they all agree on to survive an earthquake is, "drop, cover, and hold on".
Getting in doorways is also bad because they are based on building methods that are rarely used now and on an unrealistic test.
I was given an example of why doorways are bad now. Alaska had a big earthquake recently. (So what else is new? We get them all the time. We are used to them.) The only single casualty we had was a woman who got her arm broken and was very bruised and battered elsewhere. She got in a doorway and bashed repeatedly by the door swinging back and forth and hitting her.
Even worse news about doorways is that because of the way buildings are built now, they are no structurally stronger than the rest of the building. Not only will you not be protected by a doorway, but you are risking being savaged by a swinging door as well. Stay out of doorways in earthquakes.
Getting under something during an earthquake is only hazardous if the building collapses straight down like a pancake. Earthquakes don't cause that sort of collapse, so you Do want to get under something during an earthquake. The "experiment" that provided the "Triangle of Life" theory was based on a building demolition in Turkey. The demolition method caused a pancake collapse. If you want to survive a building demolition, don't be in it when it is demolished. For earthquakes, get under something and follow the correct advice: "drop, cover, and hold on".
Above is a poster for how to survive an earthquake site. Here is a link or address for the earthquake preparedness site that it comes from:
http://www.shakeout.org/downloads/DropCoverHoldOnFlyer.pdf
The people who run Shakeout try to organize earthquake preparedness practice days once a year in earthquake areas. They have information for organizing one in your area if you are interested.
Below is a site that explains the controversy about the "Triangle of Life" idea for earthquake preparedness.
Triangle of life discussion http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/triangle.asp
My boss at my local disaster preparedness center told the people at her monthly seminar about this problem. She also told us about the local woman who got her arm broken by trying to shelter in a doorway during an earthquake. I intend to stay out of doorways from now on during earthquakes. You might like to do the same.
I am also going back to, "drop, cover, and hold on", during earthquakes. That might be good for you to do as well.
The first disaster risk reduction that I remember reading about was so simple and cheap that it was almost ridiculous. I read about it a very long time ago and am not sure it is still being done.
Some relief agencies had discovered that adding dental floss to the adobe mix destined to become bricks for buildings saved lives. The dental floss did not keep the buildings together and save property loss. It simply held the buildings together long enough for people to have time to get out before they collapsed.
I had never realized how valuable dental floss could be before that. Since then I have discovered my own uses for this overlooked wonder. I reinforced packages that I made myself out of paper mache when I mailed them to a relative who was living far away, sometimes in another country. The packages needed to be very strong to make to their destination in one piece. I had brownies and cookies in the packages most of the time.
The cookies or brownies were completely demolished into tiny crumbs, but they were eaten with gusto by the recipient anyway. The package was intact so every crumb got there.
Another use for dental floss that was not commonly known was for repairs of shoes and luggage. I discovered that waxed dental floss makes an admirable substitute for waxed leather thread. Most of the items that broke were black and I usually had black shoe polish or dye with me, so I applied that to the finished repair with a q-tip and the repair became invisible, or close enough anyway.
I watched a video about building a survival shelter using zip ties to hold tree branches together and make a camp chair and shelves, etc. Somebody commented that it was not realistic to expect to have that many zip ties handy.
It would be if you planned it that way. Between zip ties and dental floss we might eventually come up with shelters that will let more people survive all the nasty disasters in store for us in the future. :-)
A video on traditional Japanese buildings showed men straightening out a building that got knocked cockeyed by an earthquake. The men had a very large long and were all lined up along it. They pushed against the building until it went back into its normal position.
The traditional buildings of Japan were planned that way, so they would not be lost in every earthquake. I was informed that traditional Japanese carpenters spent part of their apprenticeship carving little interlinking puzzles that taught them, in miniature, the carving skills they would later need to make a building. I was amazed and impressed by this information.
Japan does have a lot of earthquakes and it is a very good idea to make buildings that can simply be pushed back into shape after an earthquake. They don't fall down and crush the occupants either.
That is definitely an advantage to homeowners. Since I live in Alaska, this is quite relevant to the frequent earthquakes we experience here.
Where is a good traditional Japanese carpenter when you need one?
The best Earthquake warning system I have had experience was chickens. I believe the ones responsible for the warning were a rare breed of chickens called Black Astralops or Black Astralopes. (I have seen it spelled both ways.)
Quite a few people have insisted that this breed does not exist because they assume that I must be misspelling the name of another breed called Black Astralorps. Those are an Australian breed and may be related to the Black Astralopes. They look similar, but are not exactly the same.
All of my 4 Black Astralope hens had spurs that were bigger than some roosters I have seen. All of those hens were enthusiastic about using their spurs in the right situations, so they are pretty tough birds when they feel the need to be.
I babied my Black Astralope hens a lot, so they were very cuddley with me and any people they were properly introduced to. I could hardly believe the change that came over them when they felt the flock, or eggs needed to be protected from my dogs, for example.
I had a couple of other breeds of chickens as well, but I never did like them much. They were not nearly as smart and interesting as the Black Astralopes.
There were earthquakes in the area before I got the Black Astralopes and the other kinds of hens never reacted to them ahead of time.
The first big earthquake after I got the Black Astralopes was different.
In the morning of the day of the earthquake all of my hens disappeared from their yard. I saw the empty yard and ran out to see what was going on. I had ideas of a chicken thief or horde of raccoons or dogs making off with the whole flock.
I looked in the coop. There all the chickens were, sitting on their roosts and in their nesting boxes. It was bright daylight, so they were not being faked out by no sun.
I tried picking one of the Black Astralopes up and carrying her out into the yard. She squirmed and squawked until she I let her go and she ran back into the coop with the rest of them.
The chickens mostly stayed in their coop for the rest of the day. The earthquake came in the early evening. The chickens came out for a little while after the quake before they went back to bed for the night.
The chickens roosted in daylight again before another big earthquake, so it was not a coincidence.
That was many years ago and those chickens are long gone. I do not know if it was a particular talent of that set of Black Astralope hens or not. As soon as I have a place to put them, I want more Black Astralopes, however. I live in an earthquake prone area. I will take all the possible warning I can get.
