Hi Petra. Not sure that the stores are a problem as much as the people who are in the stores. When a quake starts the employees are going to have the same train of thought as the customers. What do I do? They aren’t going to be in any position to be telling the customers not to run for the doors, or stay away from the windows. If the customers are already aware of that they won’t have to be told.

The thing that bothers me the most is stores such as Home Depot that has merchandise stacked axel deep to a Ferris wheel as well as narrow aisles. When a major quake strikes you are going to play hell trying to get out of there provided one of the items don’t take you out. It would be like running a gauntlet.

I feel that children are the best method of getting the word out about preparing for an earthquake. A good example of that is Tilly Smith from England. She is a 10 year old girl who was told what a tsunami is and what to look for by her teacher. Her mind kept going back to the geography lesson Mr. Kearney gave just two weeks before she flew out to a Thai resort with her family. She saw that occurring at the beach in Thailand and told her parents about it and they in turn got the rest of the people off the beach. Penny Smith, Tilly’s mother said "I didn't know what a tsunami was, but seeing your daughter so frightened made you think something serious must be going on."

Children are impressionable and if you can impress upon them the value of being prepared for a major quake they can take that home with them and hopefully the parents can learn from them.

The biggest problem with the Bay Area is that no living there now has ever experienced a major quake. Most think the Loma Prieta quake was a major quake, but is was far from it. They can’t vision what the Bay Area would be like had the quake centered in the Bay Area instead of 60 miles south of it. All I can say for them is that they are in for a rude awaking. Take Care…Don in creepy town