Audio Excerpt

Eaaaarthhhhquaaaakkeee!!! Quick everyone get under a doorway! No get under the table.. Wait, no go outside.. Ah I dunno, everyone run around in a circle and panic!!!

 

Well, you’d probably agree that my emergency earthquake reaction checklist leaves a little bit to be desired right!?  Well just an fyi, the correct response is to drop to the ground and take cover under ANYTHING you can find. The National Earthquake Information Center, the NEIC, is only a couple miles to the North-West of here and aims to help! The NEIC has three main missions.  The first mission is to determine, as quickly and accurately as possible, the location and size of all significant earthquakes worldwide.  They then immediately send the information to various national and international agencies, scientists, critical facilities, and to the general public.  Secondly, the NEIC is the national data center and archive for earthquake information. They have collected an extensive seismic database from earthquakes all over the world and made it available to everyone.  The third NEIC mission is to figure out how to create earthquakes with your mind so they can sell it to the X-Men for millions! Juuuust kidding.. We all know they can already do that.. duhh.. So what do you think their third mission really is? Is it,

 

A - Train emergency crews to locate areas most likely to have high casualties,

B - Better locate and understand earthquakes or,

C - Invent a glue that sticks the earth together and stops earthquakes?

 

If you answered, B, improve location and understanding, you’re no earthquack like me! The NEIC has an active research program to better locate and understand earthquakes with the overall goal of mitigating the risks of the often devastating natural disaster.