up The Great California ShakeOut

Held

KRISTINA VILLAMIL Reporter @KrisVillamil

None of the students in the Library / Learning

Crossroads dropped or took cover, at Pierce College on Thursday, Oct. 15.

Librarians called an evacuation instead of directing students to perform the drill of the Great ShakeOut, scheduled for 10:15 a.m.

Over the library’s PA system, students were told to evacuate and head toward Parking Lot 7. However, no message about taking cover and holding on was ever broadcast over the system.

“At 10:15 you were supposed to do the duck and cover. Why didn’t you do it?” asked Paul Nieman, director of Facilities, who oversaw the drill to librarian Michael Habata.

“We weren’t notified at 10:15 in any audio way that we have to drop. So we only heard when everything came through that it was time to evacuate,” said Paula Paggi, Associate Professor of Library Science. “We didn’t do the drop/cover, it’s not like a classroom where you look at your clock and say, ‘Ok kids.’ It’s a big, big building, we’re not just with one group of people.”

Paggi said the LLC was notified all week like everyone else and put up signs to inform students of the drill.

“They said it was our responsibility when we questioned them after to have them drop and cover at 10:15 without notification,” Paggi said. “We did get them evacuated. It was no problem I understand and they did a very good job at evacuating.”

Sheriff’s Officer Justin Ramos believes these drills are “extremely important.”

“There’s a lot of people that just take it as a joke or don’t know what to do when something really happens,” Ramos said.

The drill is supposed to encourage people to think about what they would do in the event of a real earthquake. With a number of fault lines that run through and around Southern California, the probability of an earthquake occurring is likely. There were a number of mixed reviews as to whether the drill was successful.

Beatriz Gonzalez, a child development major who was in the library at the time, was unaware that a drill was occurring until she tried to check out a study room.

Another child development major, freshman Angelica Guardado, thinks that the faculty could have been a little more active with getting students involved in the drill.

“People are confused. They don’t know what to do. Do we stay in? Do we do the whole duck and drop under the table? Or do we just exit the premises?” Guardado said.

Efforts by the library and school had been made to get students aware of The Great ShakeOut through fliers and a college wide text that was sent out informing students of the event.

Despite confusion for proper procedure for the drill, student Mohammed Rahman does not think a better job could have been done.

“There’s no sense of urgency. Especially when you say this is just a drill. I don’t think it’s a lack of awareness. I mean we live in a fault zone. I think the students are aware. I think the fact that saying that it’s a drill kind of takes away from that. It was a pretty decent job, you can’t really do anything more without pressuring students or creating a sense of urgency which is unnecessary.”

Even though there was a lack of student participation, Technology Librarian Clay Gediman does feel the drill can help students.

“I think they did ok, I think it does help. I mean these kinds of drills help at least put it in their mind about how they’d be prepared,” Gediman said.

I think cooperation from the students and being really aware of what to do, and taking instruction about how to cover and things like that, I think they’d be a lot better with it in the case of an earthquake,” Gediman said.

Library Technician Elizabeth Valenzuela felt something could be taken away from the drill.

“I feel like because we were able to do some type of drill we have ideas of what we can do to make it work better next time,” Valenzuela said.

Valenzuela feels a little more time to prepare would have helped in execution of the drill.

“I feel like they could have given us a couple of days of warning in advance so that we could have time

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Pierce College alumnus, Barry Zito announced his retirement from the MLB on Monday, Oct. 19 via The Players’ Tribune. Zito played for the Bulls in 1998 before transferring to USC. He was selected in the first round of the 1999 MLB Draft by the Oakland Athletics.

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Breaking Silence

to talk about what we wanted to do. I feel like there’s a little bit of a better idea. We do need to make sure we make time to get together though,” Valenzuela said.

One suggestion Valenzuela has is for the whole school to participate in the drill. Whether or not students will be more willing to participate is unclear.