Washington state celebrates 1 million ShakeOut participants
Celebrating 1 million Washington ShakeOut participants
Washington state celebrated reaching the 1 million mark for the Great Washington ShakeOut for the second year in a row, hitting the milestone the night of Friday, Oct. 9. It’s a full five days earlier than it took last year, noted John Schelling, Washington state’s earthquake programs manager.
The Great Washington ShakeOut emphasizes the urgent need for people, organizations, schools, communities and businesses to practice what to do to be safe and to be ready before an earthquake strikes. The “drop, cover and hold” earthquake drill takes place at 10:15 a.m., on Oct. 15 – that’s 10:15 a.m. on 10/15. Registration can still be done online http://www.shakeout.org/washington/. More than 40 million people have signed up to participate across the globe.
This is the fourth year for Washington State to participate in the Great ShakeOut initiative and we plan to make use of social media to the fullest extent possible. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., on Oct. 15, Pacific Northwest earthquake preparedness experts will gather online for a Reddit Ask Me Anything – an online Q&A. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA
Among the participants:
- Paul Bodin, a seismology researcher at the University of Washington and manager of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
- Jim Hutchinson, the catastrophic incident response planner for the Washington State Military Department’s Emergency Management Division
- Emory Montague, manager of Engineering Research and Development for Simpson Strong-Tie focusing on new product development for lateral systems and connectors. He graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and is a licensed Civil and Structural Engineer in California and previously worked as a consulting structural engineer on seismic retrofit projects.
- Rosanne Garrand, Public Education Program Coordinator of the Washington Emergency Management Division
- Dave Nelson, earthquake program coordinator for the state Emergency Management Division
- John Schelling, Washington state’s Earthquake/Tsunami/Volcano Programs Manager, is unable to make this AMA, but has agreed to sign in later and check for unanswered questions.
We also encourage participants to take photos of themselves participating in the drill on Oct. 15 and post those photos to social media using the hashtag #washakeout so we can retweet them from our @washakeout Twitter account.
In addition, at 11 a.m., Oct. 14, we will participate in a “Twitter Chat” with the main California ShakeOut office along with USGS. Use the hashtag #shakeoutchat on Twitter to participate.
Here's our Reddit "proof" we are who we say we are.
Simpson Strong-Tie provided this graphic to share (click to expand):
