Will It Shake? The Pictures

When we ask our readers to submit questions about what will happen to their stuff in an earthquake, there are always surprises. Framed pictures hanging directly over the bed? You’ve got to be kidding!

San Francisco resident Penny Jennings contacted Totally Unprepared recently, curious about what would happen during an earthquake to the framed photos and pictures she has hanging on her wall…
directly over her bed.

We decided to show her. Having studied the work of earthquake experts, and spoken with earthquake survivors, we had an idea of what would happen to them, and her.

It’s bad enough if that lovely picture of Great Aunt Mabel smashes to the floor and breaks the glass. But if those pictures hang directly above your bed, where are you going to hide if there is an earthquake?

You can always protect your head with a pillow, but why not go one step better and secure your framed pictures? Penny, we are talking to you!

With a little preparation, if an earthquake strikes when you are sleeping, you’ll survive unhurt. So secure those pictures today.

Earthquake nerds everywhere are going to say, “Hey, that’s only a one-degree of freedom shaketable AND you only show shaking for a few seconds, there’s no way that replicates a 6.9 magnitude or a 7.5 magnitude earthquake.” Well they’re right, we only show the shaking for a few seconds because while the tension was enormous in the lab when we shook the table for a long time, it was really boring to watch on video. Our attention spans are not so long.

As for how Seismic Engineers Paul and Andy estimated the magnitude using a one-degree of freedom shaketable, that is beyond our knowledge, but we’ll tell you we watched them put the simulation of the Kobe earthquake into the computer, and make crazy quantities of calculations before they’d crank it up for us.

The important thing for you to know is that in a real earthquake the ground can move in six directions, not just one, and that a 7.5 magnitude earthquake is going to be a lot longer than what you’re watching. But your pictures are still going to fall on the ground if they’re not attached with earthquake safe hooks.
Media guide available for download here.