Hi Cathryn,

I was just catching up on some of the posts here and I saw that you just had surgery too. I hope you get well soon.

I also wanted to say in regard to that article sometimes it's all in a phrase. Drop, cover and hold-on is something I don't agree with regardless of who endorses it. I have and probably always will advocate hallways in homes or apartments in the USA as the safest place provided people will just leave the walls undecorated. It's small, compact and study. Everyone in a household can fit in there, sit down and brace themselves with their feet against the opposing wall(s) and nothing can fall on them. It's unlikely to shift, turn or twist.

Outside of that the old DUCK, COVER & HOLD are the three best words in earthquake safety, but running outside of a home or standing at the window checking everything out are definite No, No's.

It isn't rocket science and actually according to professionals it isn't science at all. It's the science of surviving an earthquake. I hope that's as confusing to everyone as it is to me.

Ridge 2000 notified me today that I'm late in forwarding my abstract for the conference. I hadn't even decided my topic yet and I'm already late. Oh boy, I don't know what I'm going to do now. Maybe I can work on it tomorrow. I would love to do one on The Coastal Shove and how sea floor spreading is the mechanism driving it, but that may be just a little too much to contemplate for such an event. Decisions, decisions!

Petra