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.

How Good Is Your Retrofit?

Area governments say that 150,000 homes in the bay area are going to be uninhabitable after the Hayward Fault ruptures, the fault that USGS seismologist Tom Brocher says “Is locked and loaded and ready to fire.”  The retrofitted houses are the ones that will survive.

Do you feel safer because your house has had a retrofit?  Unfortunately, you may have a false sense of security:  a highly respected east bay retrofitter says that fully 30% of his business is repairing retrofits that were incomplete or incorrectly done.

Bottom line:  get your retrofit inspected.  Please get in touch with me if you need recommendations. Will your home survive a big quake?? See: http://tinyurl.com/88gdgk7

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Larry Guillot

707-965-3299
https://www.quakeprepare.com
larry@quakeprepare.com