God. Now I'm afraid that I won't just die, but that some guy will make fun of me after I'm dead 'cuz I couldn't make snap judgements about the compressibility of objects. Thanks!
well what do i do in the event of a nuclear blast?
(and "mike", get a more original nickame...)
Then dude comes by and makes fun of your nuclear-ash-shadow-thing. If those aren't apocryphal too.
Look, the entire idea of managing your survivability in major, major instant disasters is a bit whack.
Nevertheless, what interests me about this, as somebody who grew up in Southern California, is that the shit we were taught every year, every few months, was obviously based on nothing more than some expert talking out his ass about what to do, some abstract model or maybe even nothing at all except a state mandate to prepare children for earthquakes. I mean, I still have this in my mind: get under a table or get in a door frame. Yet this guy's deconstruction of that advice sounds perfectly plausible to me, that most of what we were told to do is a shit idea. In fact, I remember wondering aloud in class about the "building collapses, I am squashed under desk" thing as a kid, and being told by my ninth grade math teacher that I should shut up and do the drill.
If people don't trust expert advice today, it's partially for this reason: time and time again, the basically arbitrary, idiosyncratic or even pervy-crazy (a la posture photography of naked Ivy Leaguers) advice that was forced on us as if it were based on massive amounts of hard empirical data.
People laugh at me for wasting my time here, but what I come here for is valuable tips such as this one. Several good suggestions about how to get squashed in an earthquake, plus a feeble sort of suggestion giving a vague glimmer of hope that you might not be.
About ten years ago I was awakened at about 3:30 am by a fairsized earthequake, and I immediatley concluded that my goddman neighbors were doing something stupid with their 4-wheel drive.
People laugh at me for wasting my time here
Who does that?!
Ignore the void of life at your peril, Tim. I mean, the idea is to feel like you've got a plan, right? The plan isn't so much meant to save your life as to make your life before the disaster less anxious. (At best, you hope they tell you, not about what will save you, because probably nothing can do that, but about what's sure to get you killed. Maybe that's why this advice seems so compelling.)
Tim's got it: the reason it seems so compelling is precisely because it contradicts existing wisdom.
(I think I'll still wager that doorframes are sturdier than my Ikea furniture.)
The guy this comes from (Doug Copp) is totally bogus: the newspaper series linked to via Snopes is worth reading all the way through. He's a complete disaster whore: he shows up in a fake uniform, tries to boss real professionals about, talks a big game and tries to make money. It's actually hard to tell whether he's a real con artist or just one of the P**l D***g**ns of this world -- ie, semi-delusional.
The point of hiding under desks is to protect yourself against, say, broken glass or debris, and the point of standing in a doorjamb or stairwell is that often that's the most structurally solid part of the building, plus the furthest from glass windows.
Obviously if the entire building collapses a desk isn't gonna save you, and if the earthquake is really strong enough to take down everything, being in a stairwell or doorway won't either. but if that's the case, I'm not so sure being next to a sofa would either.
In a rare catastrophic earthquake, his advice may be sound, but in most cases, broken glass is far more of a danger.
You only need to read about three sentences to recognize that this is a crock of shit, with the blustering self-promotion and all. I wonder if the guy is from Indiana.
My neighborhood disaster experts dispute this highly and it really stresses them out that people will take him seriously. I will try to send them your way. Please be skeptical in the meantime.
I posted an update at the top of the post, Saheli.
Jeez Ogged. Hook, line and sinker. First of all, why a desk? In a school building, it's probably the most stable thing in the room. You don't get a ficking 5 minute warning for earthquakes. Secondly, if the whole building collapses, it won't do much, but if parts of the building collapses, and the weight of the pieces isn't enough to crush you, the desk will take the brunt of the force, instead of, say, your head.
Remember, it's not something like a fire or hurricane. You've only got so much time to get to safety. Why stairways? Because they are built stronger. Why doors? Because they are usually built stronger too.
Finally, whenever someone says, every time, without exception, that should be a warning flag.
Guilty as charged, tweedle. I posted the goddam update already.
Good people can disagree about the merits of doorframe vs. desk in the event of an earthquake but I think we all know that curling into a ball against the lockers while holding your History book over your head isn't going to save your life during a tornado, despite what the Midwest elementary school propaganda machine would like you to believe.
Also, our tornado-preparedness instructions when I was a camp counselor...
Camp owner: If the tornado siren sounds, all of the campers and counselors should go to their cabins for shelter.
Me: Why should we go to our cabins? Wouldn't the lodge be safer? That's a much sturdier building.
Camp owner: Yes, but we want you guys getting killed 10 at a time, not all at once.
You're bringing back some memories for me, Becks. Again, I think the underlying thought here is something like: "It would just feel stupid to sit around and wait for the disaster to kill us, so let's at least get busy doing something." Then somebody suggests everyone go to the hallway, lie down, and pray, and suddenly it's national policy.
Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and claim "neighborhood disaster expert" status here, since, well, that's what I spend my days teaching. Sorry I'm coming into this late, but two points I had to make:
1) As you've already noticed by now, Copp's ideas don't hold water. For one thing, buildings in the US just really don't collapse very often. That's the kind of thing that matters a lot more in, say, Kashmir or Bam.
2) I gotta come down against doorways, too. The idea that they're stronger than the rest of the building is pretty outdated. Buildings are pretty strong these days. And doorways have some problems: walking to them, for one thing, and standing up in an earthquake, and getting your nose broken and your fingers chopped off when the door slams shut on them.
So: get under the desk. Or the table, or the counter, or whatever you've got. If nothing else, stick your head under a chair and let falling debris hit you where you're more padded. Basically, the biggest danger in an earthquake is something falling on you. So duck and cover (and hold on -- furniture can "walk" in an earthquake). It wouldn't help with an A-bomb, but it will help with ceiling tiles, picture frames, and window glass.
Ogged was nice enough to send this to me a few days ago, knowing my love of the Worst Case Scenario, and while I kind of thought the guy was full of it - you're taught in California that buildings rarely collapse but the broken glass and falling whatnot (ceiling tiles, lights, etc.) could kill you so take cover - Copp did raise one thing that basically re-invigorated a long-time paranoia based on the collapse of the Nimitz Freeway.
Thank you, Ogged, for refreshing my memory about the kid whose dead mother had to be chainsawed off of him, from the car in which they were trapped. I wonder if the Triangle of Life works in Turkey and India and double-decker freeways. Then again, with my luck, I'd get out of my car and promptly get hit by a careening semi. (Note to self: no more Michael Bay movies. Ever.)
Whoops - sorry that last one was me (have no idea how I accidentally anonymized myself).
Sorry Ogged, I was just worried snopes might not cut it with people.