What You Should do When Your Home or Office Starts Shaking in an Earthquake

(TNS) - Early Sunday morning the ground started to rattle in Alaska, and those who didn’t sleep through the 7.1-magnitude earthquake reacted in many different ways.

Some people ran outside of their homes, while others pressed themselves into doorways. Some people hurried down the stairs of hotels in their underwear, while others squatted under kitchen tables.

But what’s the best thing to do when you feel the floors start to sway?

Emergency officials have a few tips and one of them is stay inside.

What should I do if I wake up to an earthquake?

“Stay in bed,” said Sam Johnson, preparedness specialist with the American Red Cross of Alaska.

Johnson said Alaskans should generally follow a simple mantra when an earthquake hits: “Drop, cover and hold on.”
When you’re in bed, she said, you’ve already dropped. And as long as nothing can fall on you -- including a ceiling fan, a large headboard or shelves -- you just, “cover your head,” she said. “Just stay as stationary as you can.”

Buildings in the U.S. are resilient, and people shouldn’t have to worry about them collapsing, said Jeremy Zidek, public information officer with the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

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