“Triangle of Life”

Every so often I get an email from someone passing on information from a person named Doug Copp, who is a self-proclaimed “expert” on disaster management.  His ideas run around the internet every few months.

He says that, in a serious quake, the “drop, cover, and hold on” advice from the Red Cross and other American disaster agencies is wrong, and that instead you should find some “triangle of life” area in the room to protect you.

Please don’t listen to this advice.  His observations are based on buildings in third world countries and, even if his ideas may have value there (as they would in unreinforced concrete construction), they DO NOT have value here.  Engineering researchers have demonstrated that very few buildings collapse or “pancake” in the U.S. as they might do in other countries.