Preparing for the Big One: Lori Dengler Shares Earthquake Safety Tips for the North Coast
As part of the 15th annual Great ShakeOut earthquake drill, KMUD News interviewed Lori Dengler, emeritus professor of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt, to discuss the importance of earthquake preparedness for our seismically active region.
“For us, it’s kind of exciting, because it’s year number 15 of all of California being part of the Great ShakeOut,” Dengler explained. The drill focuses on practicing the essential safety steps – “drop, cover, and hold on” – that everyone should take when the ground starts to shake.
Dengler emphasized that these actions can make a big difference, even for those with mobility challenges. “If you have some mobility issues, just staying where you are and trying to remember to breathe, and that is the best way to get through our next earthquake,” she advised.
Living on the North Coast means residing in one of the most seismically active areas in the contiguous United States. Dengler outlined the complex tectonic forces at play, with three major fault systems converging offshore at the Mendocino Triple Junction. This volatile geological setting means earthquakes can strike without warning, as evidenced by the powerful December 2022 quake that caught many by surprise. “We can’t predict earthquakes any more than that at this point,” Dengler said. “So given that we live in a very seismically active place, the fact that we’ve had now about a year that’s been fairly quiet, that doesn’t mean you need you should be forgetting your earthquake skills and drills, because earthquakes often will not announce themselves in any way in terms of increased activity before we get another big one.”
Preparing for the “Big One” requires a community-wide effort. Dengler emphasized the need for neighborhoods to develop resilience plans, noting that isolated communities may be on their own for days or even weeks after a major disaster. She encouraged residents to get to know their neighbors and explore joining Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) to bolster local preparedness.
“Communities that are tight before something like that happens, they recover much more quickly than the ones where people are isolated from one another, where there’s a lot of distrust, they’re the communities that won’t make it through,” Dengler said. To help North Coast residents get ready, Dengler pointed to the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group’s website, which offers the “Living on Shaky Ground” magazine and other resources on earthquake and tsunami safety. She also encouraged businesses, especially small and tourism-focused companies, to participate in the Great ShakeOut to ensure they are prepared for the next big event.
“After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, about 80% of the small businesses in the area of strong ground shaking. Two years after the earthquake, they had gone out of business,” Dengler warned. “So, I really would like to see more involvement from the business community, from the hospitality industry, folks that have hotels, motels, tourists, oriented businesses, because you’re likely to have people that don’t know anything about earthquakes.”
As we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Great ShakeOut, Dengler’s message is clear: earthquake preparedness is a shared responsibility, and the time to act is now. By working together as a community, we can ensure that when the “Big One” strikes, we are ready to weather the storm.
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