An earthquake during school pickup

You are third in the car line at 2:50pm, engine idling, when the car starts to rock like someone is pushing on the bumper. Then the light pole across the street starts to sway. It is an earthquake, and your kid is inside the building. Here is what happens next, in order, and the one thing most parents get wrong.

While it is shaking: stay in the car

Stop. Set the parking brake. Stay inside with your seatbelt on. A car is a decent shelter from falling things, and the school's drop-off lane is usually away from the building. The things to avoid are what is overhead: power lines, big trees, overpasses, the edge of the building itself. If you are stopped under any of those, roll forward out from under them if you safely can, then stop.

Do not get out and run for the building. Falling glass and facades hurt people at doorways, which is why the kids inside are being told the same thing: drop, cover and hold on until it stops.

The first minute after: look before you move

Shaking stops. Look up and around before you open the door: downed lines, a leaning pole, cracks in the pavement, anything hanging off the building. Treat any downed line as live. If the car is fine and the lane is clear, stay where you are for a moment and breathe. Aftershocks can be strong for days and the first ones come quickly.

The thing parents get wrong: do not run to the door

Every school in California has an emergency plan, and in it the staff hold the children, account for every one of them, and release them only to an authorized adult through a reunification process. That process is slow on purpose. A parent who runs to the classroom door is a parent the staff has to manage instead of the kids, and a crowd at the entrance makes the count take longer for everyone.

What to do instead:

1. Do not call the school. The lines jam within a minute, and every call you make is one that a staff member cannot. Check the district's text alert or app; most send a status within minutes.
2. Text, do not call, your out-of-area contact and your partner: "Quake at school, I am here, waiting for release."
3. Park where the school tells you, or in the nearest lot that is not under a line. Then walk to the reunification point and wait your turn with your ID out. The school will ask for it.
4. If you are not on your kid's emergency card, you will not be able to take them, no matter how obvious it is that you are the parent. Check the card every fall.

If you are not at the school yet

Stay off the road for the first few minutes unless you have to move; roads near schools fill with parents doing exactly what you are tempted to do. Check the alert, text your contact, then drive the route that avoids overpasses and the oldest brick buildings in town. Expect to walk the last part.

Once you have your child

Head home by the route you know, slowly. Before you walk in, look at the house: cracks in walls, doors that will not close, a smell of gas at the meter. If you smell gas or hear hissing, do not go in; shut the valve at the meter if you know how and call the utility from the yard. Inside, shoes stay on, because broken glass on the floor is the most common earthquake injury and it happens in the first steps.

Then the ten-minute sequence from the earthquake first ten minutes guide: people, gas, water, aftershocks, and out if the building is damaged.

What this scenario teaches you to prepare

Three things, all of them an afternoon:

• Be on the emergency card, and know the school's reunification point. Ask at the front office; they will be glad you did.
• Put the out-of-area contact and the meeting places on the household plan page on the fridge, so a teenager who walks home knows where to go when nobody answers.
• Do the 20-minute earthquake home check, especially the bedroom furniture and the gas wrench, so the house you come home to is the one you left.

Sources

• Great ShakeOut: Drop, cover and hold on, including in a vehicle
• Earthquake Country Alliance: Seven steps to earthquake safety
• Ready.gov: Earthquakes
• Ready.gov: Make a plan