It’s been 3 years since I warned my readers about this, so it’s time to re-visit it.

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 yourself.

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 un-reinforced 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.