By Noemi Orozco, Oct. 29, 2024
Cal Poly Pomona encouraged present students, faculty and staff to drop, cover and hold on during the annual Great California ShakeOut Oct. 17, a statewide drill dedicated to practicing earthquake safety and emergency preparedness.
The mandated drill included a test of the university’s Safety Alert System, which sent out a mass message announcing the start of the shakeout via email, phone call and text. CPP-owned computers across campus also presented a similar pop-up alert.
Additionally, evacuation coordinators were available for evacuating assistance and to help lead individuals to nearby evacuation sites.
Aware of the planned drill, electrical engineering student Hunter Xu prepared himself to leave his spot at the University Library 10 minutes before the start of the drill; however, this is when he noted two major concerns.
“I was expecting they would trigger the fire alarm to notify people to evacuate the building, but they didn’t,” said Xu. “I couldn’t hear the PA system telling us to evacuate, so I was never properly notified to get out of the building, and it wasn’t until the staff swept the first floor when I knew it’s time to go.”
As Xu began to make his way through an emergency exit, an evacuation coordinator told him to head back to the main doors, leaving him in a crowd with other student and staff evacuators.
“I feel like that’s a problem because I was told to not use the emergency exit in an emergency evacuation,” Xu said.
Students like Xu who experienced the drill outside the classroom were left to take precaution into their own hands. For international business student and Bronco Bookstore employee Sydney Williams, she was unable to partake in the drop, cover and hold practice because of the lack of shelter in the cluttered store.
Although Williams and her co-workers did step outside the store during evacuation prep, she still had concern in how the drill came about.
“I just feel like they should give more instructions to managers for people who are working on campus during an emergency,” said Williams. “I just feel like we just went outside. It’s not enough.”
According to earthquakelist.org, a total of 248 earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.0 or above have struck within 186 miles of Pomona in the last 10 years.
The Poly Post reached out to the university’s emergency management coordinator, Arlett Carmona, who was unavailable for in-depth comment about earthquake safety, but stated via email: “I do encourage you to look at our website for more Earthquake Preparedness and Emergency Preparedness resources.”
Business continuity coordinator under CPP’s emergency management team Elizabeth Herrera recognized the anxiousness many feel about the impending “big one” and emphasized the importance of active participation in the event every year.
“The more we do these drills, it becomes like a second-hand nature on what to do in these situations,” Herrera said. “We might have students and staff that have never experienced an earthquake before or don’t really know what that is, so knowing what to do in those certain types of drills. It’s really important to keep that going.”
As business continuity coordinator, Herrera assists different departments and divisions with maintaining normal operations after disruption by creating secure contingency plans, a role established in only a few California State University schools.
Herrera also highlighted the more hands-on training offered by her team, such as automated external defibrillators demonstrations, evacuation chair simulations and personal preparedness kits.
“If there’s any other training or any other resources that students or faculty or staff really want to learn about, they can request it from us via email too,” said Herrera. “To see what we can do better, and to see what they can learn a little bit better about personal preparedness.”
The next Great California ShakeOut is planned for Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, at 10:16 a.m.
Feature image courtesy of Noemi Orozco
