[New post] Woodland Joint Unified School District students participate in Great ShakeOut earthquake drill
Carlos Guerrero posted: "Being ready is always a great idea, especially when what you are preparing for happened just one day before. Throughout the morning hours on Thursday, every school and program in the Woodland Joint Unified School District and the district office partic" Daily Democrat
Being ready is always a great idea, especially when what you are preparing for happened just one day before.
Throughout the morning hours on Thursday, every school and program in the Woodland Joint Unified School District and the district office participated in a serendipitously timed earthquake and evacuation drill as a part of the national Great ShakeOut drill.
Following FEMA's "National Preparedness Month" in September, the Great ShakeOut drill is traditionally held every year on the third Thursday of October. According to their website, an estimated 10.1 million California students were registered to participate, up from 9.5 million in 2022.
"Before the drill, students had knowledge ahead of time something would take place," said Woodland High School Principal Gerald Salcido. "There was a lot of communication with teachers and students. We also let parents know we'd be evacuating to a secondary site. In the event of a real emergency, we would send out a post letting parents know where they can go to pick up their kids."
All of the WJUSD's 9,500 students participated in the nearly hour-long drill. During the drill, students practiced how to "drop, cover and hold on" under a desk following the announcement of the start of the drill on the school intercom. After a brief period of cover, the students were alerted it was time to evacuate to a safe site down the street from any of the respective campuses.
"The safety of our students and staff is our number one priority, and we practice a variety of safety drills throughout the year, including this earthquake drill," said WJUSD Superintendent Elodia Ortega-Lampkin. "Safety is a community-wide issue. Students and staff did a great job during our drill, and we are especially thankful for our ongoing partnership with our police and fire departments in keeping our schools and community safe."
Woodland High School students take cover under a desk during the first part of the Great ShakeOut earthquake drill. All of the Woodland Joint Unified School District schools participated in the drill on Thursday, Oct. 19. (Carlos Guerrero/Daily Democrat)
At Woodland High School, after the drill concluded around 10:25 a.m., students evacuated en mass to a safe site just down the street from the high school. The city of Woodland fire and police departments were also on hand to provide evacuation support.
"I think this drill is fantastic," Salcido said. "It's necessary and important that we participate in this. It's encouraging to me that the district wants us to be safe so that in case there is a real emergency, it isn't a huge surprise when it happens."
While the earthquake drill is locked into the later part of October, the timing couldn't have been more perfect. On Wednesday, Oct. 18, at 9:29 a.m., just one day before the drills were scheduled to take place, a 5.1 magnitude earthquake gently rocked most of Northern California.
"It was a little alarming yesterday for some," Salcido said. "I got a lot of emails and text messages asking me if the quake alert on Wednesday was the drill we were doing. The timing of it was very interesting."
The tremor triggered a warning from the West Coasts ShakeAlert system, which detects the start of a quake and sends alerts to smartphones in the areas expected to experience shaking.
"Fortunately, we were not impacted by the earthquake that occurred on Oct. 18 near Isleton, but it definitely serves as a reminder of why these drills are so important," Ortega-Lampkin said.
No comments:
Post a Comment