What should I expect during an earthquake?

What should I expect during an earthquake?

Mark Benthien (Director of Communication, Education, and Outreach, Southern California Earthquake Center ) gives expert video advice on: What should I expect during an earthquake?; What should I do if I am driving during an earthquake?; What should I do if I am in a high-rise building during an earthquake? and more...

During an earthquake you are likely to first feel a very sharp jolt, and then within a few seconds you'll feel a rolling motion, back and forth. That actually can be a much stronger, more intense motion than that initial jolt. In both cases though, items will start to fall, you'll start to have the building shaking very loudly and you'll be hearing the ground itself move as the shaking moves through it. Your building may start to really shake a lot and the contents inside start to fall. You'll have broken glass and a lot of things being spilled all over the place. You can minimize that in advance by securing the things, but you're still going to have a lot of noise and things falling around, so you need to be prepared to walk through all that afterwards.