School disaster readiness: lessons from the first Great Southern California ShakeOut

The Great Southern California ShakeOut on November 13th, 2008 initiated the largest community‐wide earthquake drill in U.S. history with 5.5 million participants. Almost four million children (80% of Southern California students in Kindergarten through 12th grades) participated in the drill through their schools. Risk RED, with support from the Earthquake Country Alliance (ECA), teamed with Western Washington University’s Institute for Global and Community Resilience (IGCR) and the Coalition for Global School Safety and Disaster Prevention Education to support an international school observation team to take a participatory action approach to research the state of school disaster prevention and preparedness in California and its implications for school disaster management worldwide.

Background policy and research literature review and surveys of individual schools and school districts on their disaster preparedness as well as on the Post-Disaster Drill Assessment and on-site observations form the foundation for recommendations for school safety in California and internationally.