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What do you do in an earthquake? You get under something sturdy.
But when the instant comes, do you want to be looking around, evaluating desks and chairs and doorways and shelves and whatnot for sturdiness? No. That should all be pre-decided - you should be sprinting.
So the idea here is those
in charge of a building's safety should determine what areas are most likely to be safe in case of an earthquake, and then mark each with an Earthquake HangTag. These tags are affixed to the ceiling of each safe zone (the underside of a desk, a reinforced ceiling, or whatever). They are unobtrusive, and lay flat against their surface until activated.
When they are signalled, they drop from their normal position and dangle in easy view. (Much like the oxygen masks in an airliner.) The signal can be provided by a pendulum-based earthquake sensor, or simply by loss of power (they should be set up on a dedicated UPS circuit). Each tag contains a green LED, powered by a small zinc-air battery. The tag drop unseals the battery, powering the LED.
Persons in the area will see these tags drop; even if the power goes out they are still visible. Just head for one. No un-panicked thought required.
The tags should consist of plastic pouches, and each pouch should contain a number of facemasks, since dust inhalation is one of the most common immediate hazards post-quake.
[link]
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By Golly, this is a great idea! Seriously. The tags should be
regulation 48 inches long by 4 wide and neon orange, like the
REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT tags used on military aircraft support
equipment such as engine plugs, flap downlocks, and landing
gear downlock pins. Huge bun. [+] |
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No, green. Orange designates "hazard", green is for evacuation/first aid etc. |
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may as well put all the controls for emergency lighting, phone, first aid, etc. there too [+] |
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[+] In daylight normal LED's could be difficult to see, but they do make some insanely bright ones these days. These could also be installed on exits so that a clever control network could illuminate the relevant sign - no use hiding under a table for a tsunami. |
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I like the idea of identifying earthquake-safer zones, but I
think an active mechanism is too fussy. Just have a sticker
to indicate the spot (or point to it). As long as the sticker is
conspicuous, people working in a place will be familiar with
where they have to go. (Most fire-exit signs are just
stickers.) |
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Since LEDs are hard to see during the day, how about a tiny
alarm on each tag that beeps to alert earthquake victims of
the tag's location sonically? To avoid confusion, tags could
beep in different, predetermined patterns or sequences. |
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//tags could beep in different, predetermined patterns or sequences// |
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Stuck in a semi-collapsed building for eight days, surrounding by gazillions of beeping tags... No, thanks. |
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Well, [UB], seeing as the beeping would only be necessary
during the first few minutes of the earthquake , maybe it
could stop after then? |
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And by the way, [+] because I forgot to earlier. |
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I bunned it but I have never noticed any disaster panic alarms that shut up. The fire alarm sirens in our building used to drive me bonkers every time we had a fire drill. |
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The officious dweeb that ran the fire drills used to keep the fucking things running for hours. |
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Likewise, smoke alarms run until their batteries give out. |
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Orange, I think, is better. Or red. They're the most eye-catching
colors. Think of fire trucks and emergency strobe lights. Lots of
red ones... not so many green ones. Even many overhead exit
signs in building interiors are illuminated in red. Green is
common in those signs, but that's because it's easier to see them
in fires, not earthquakes. |
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Perhaps where you're from. Emergency vehicles here and in Europe have begun switching to Fluoro Green and Reflex Blue patches, for enhanced visibility. |
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All first aid and exit signage is green; Slip/Trip Hazard is yellow; Headstrike Hazards are yellow/black stripes. |
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When I was in the Service, they started phasing out the blue
reflective safety belts and vests because of reduced visibility in
smoke, fog, and dust. Yellow's good, and green's ok, but they
don't catch the eye quite the same as neon orange does. Which
is why motorcyclists on military bases and hunters just about
everywhere are required to wear that specific color. |
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Have them red on a green background. If you're going to
have a natural disaster, you may as well use it to weed out
some dud genes. |
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Actually, you could have the instructions printed in the form
of cryptic crossword clues and/or equations, in red on green.
After a few dozen earthquakes, the earthquake-ridden
country would have evolved a significant intellectual and
optical advantage. |
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Maybe that's why the Welsh are so fond of Red on Green? It's a self-improvement program. Now, how can we arrange some earthquakes? |
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What?
Nothing to weed out the short, bald and lazy? |
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To weed out the short, make the safe areas accessible by scaling
a 5-ft wall. To weed out the lazy, make the wall accessible
through a turnstile with a lot of resistance. To weed out the bald,
use an IR camera to measure heat emanating from the head,
and set maximum allowable limits, then rig it to the lock on the
door to the safe area. |
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My lazy, fat, bald, colourblind accountant is SOOooooOOO totally fucked! MWahahahahaha! |
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(... waiting for [UB]'s hand-dryer to shut off...) |
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You haven't met him. He deserves to die. He'll even tell you that after he's known you a couple of minutes. |
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Green. I like green. Except I think I'm going to change to a white LED, and just put it inside of a green plastic pouch. It can sit in there with the white face-masks, and help make the green more visible. But then after the quake is over, and you're huddled in your little airspace with three other co-workers, you can take the masks out of the green pouch, and take the light out of the green pouch, and you don't have to be lit like a horror movie for the next 48 hours while you're waiting for someone to rescue you. |
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I should probably add a little plastic whistle, like those cheap ones from the CrackerJack boxes, except with one of the whistle-tubes very small to be ultrasonic to help the rescue dogs find you, and I don't care if that part is green or not. |
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I see another iPhone Application - WhereCan-iHide® |
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I can see someone standing very still with an iPhone in his hand, waiting for the jiggling of an earthquake to initiate the program that will tell him where to hide when the building he's in starts to collapse. |
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