We've all seen the news lately of the massive earthquakes that have been rocking the South Pacific over the last couple of weeks. Besides being called the Pacific Ocean, the vast area that lies between Alaska and Australia and Japan and the United States west coast also has another name and that is the "Pacific Ring of Fire".
Sometimes referred to as just the "Ring of Fire", this area is where close to 80% of the world's largest earthquakes happen. The Ring of Fire is a large 40,000 km horseshoe shape area that has a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and plate movements. Within this area earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in this basin of the Pacific Ocean. The Ring of Fire includes over 450 volcanoes and close to 80% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.
Since California is included in the "Ring Of Fire" and is considered to be at a higher risk compared to the rest of the nation for earthquakes there is a yearly event to educate and promote earthquake safety and awareness and it's called the ShakeOut.
The ShakeOut is a planned event to get people to practice how to protect themselves during earthquakes, whether they at work, school, or home and next week, on October 15, 2009 at 10:15 a.m., millions of Californians are scheduled to participate in the largest known earthquake drill to date.
For those of you who have lived in California for some period of time you may already know the importance of the Drop, Cover, Hold drill. However, if you are new to California and you are not familiar with this drill then the ShakeOut is a great way to learn it and practice it.
Regardless of how long you have lived in California or if you've experienced an earthquake, it should be understood that in order to react quickly you have to practice often because you may never know when only have a few seconds to protect yourself in the event of an earthquake.
In order to prepare yourself, your family and your co-workers, we suggest that you click the link below to sign up to participate in the 2009 ShakeOut drill. Heck, besides learning something new, you just might have fun doing it.
http://www.earthquakecountry.info/contact_us.php?site=shakeout