Hey .... we used to do that when I was in grade school to get prepared for atom bomb attacks.

I suppose being under a table will help to prevent getting hit by falling ceiling tiles. Not much help when the joists are coming down. I always thought one was supposed to stand in a doorway.

I can just imagine the drill at a meeting with 8 people trying to get under a conference table .... LOL

What Idiots ordered this, some Days I do feel I live in a Place where Hype is everything "The End is coming run for the Hills". Let the once in the Lower Mainland and on the Coast do all the Worrying .
This is a repeat of the 50th "Duck and Cover"

I expect it is a good idea, kind of like a fire drill. If you actually think about it, how do you get out of your house when you get breathe from fire inhallation and can't see from black smoke, and your back is on fire. You don't know where your pets are, its a hirrific thought. Now expand that to an earthquake, your roof just fell in, or your office just collapsed and the phones don't work, and the stairway to get out is gone? You don't know where your kids and spouse are or if they are ok. The whole point of these drills is not to sit at your copmputer and make jokes about it, its to understand how you would react in an emergency when you are not thinking straight, and nothing that is normal exists anymore. We in North America don't live in war torn countries so we cannot possibly know what to do when we are in a building that has just collapsed. So we learn by paying attention and actually practising this stuff, so when this kind of thing happens we can actually be a benefit to the situation instead of a hinderence. I'll be under my desk at 10am. My family in Vancouver has already set up a family contact number in the event that the big one doesn't happen here simutaneously as well as on the coast, so we can coordinate everyone.

Have a great drill everyone.

Victoria's 6.2 in 2000 myself. Two story rooming house shook nice and hard. I went outside and there was someone raking leaves and that person never felt a thing. That quake was deep under the ocean at Olympia Washington.

Gus is partially correct about 'not much help when the joists are coming down'.

What the earth quake 'experts' have found is that crouching down beside a solid upright object, like a filing cabinet, a corner of the desk or at the end of the couch (on the floor) your likelihood of survival increases exponentially - even when the joists are coming down. The upright objects take the majority of the impact and the falling building materials is less likely to fill these 'air voids' for lack of better terminology.

Any bets on an earthquake tax. This could be a leadup to that.

Betcha a lot of folks living in Richmond will have all their bank books in little baggies in with their noodles and bottled water. Could happen. Besides, ain't the world gonna end in 2012?