On Thursday,Oct.18,at 10:18 a.m.PDT,more than 9.3 million Californians,including employees at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena,Calif.,"dropped,covered and held on" during the 5th annual Great California ShakeOut,the world's largest earthquake drill.The purpose of the ShakeOut is to encourage people and organizations to be prepared to survive and recover when the next big earthquake happens.
In conjunction with the ShakeOut,scientists from two JPL-developed projects participated in a supporting exercise by the California Earthquake Clearinghouse to provide disaster response data that will allow decision makers to best focus their response efforts immediately following an actual earthquake.