Recently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced the publishing of the “2011 FEMA Central States Disaster and Earthquake Preparedness Survey Report”  To review the report please visit http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=6403.

The area within the Central United States (CUS), which consists of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and is known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), is at risk of experiencing a major earthquake.  Although the CUS is not traditionally thought of as an earthquake-prone zone, the scientific community agrees that this area is a seismically active zone. In 2011, several major initiatives increased earthquake awareness among CUS residents, including commemoration of the anniversary of the 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes, the first Great Central U.S. ShakeOut^TM, and the 2011 National Level Exercise (NLE), which used a catastrophic earthquake in the NMSZ as the scenario.  To educate the residents of these states, the Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC), with support from FEMA, conducted six months of outreach from December 2010 to May 2011.

The goal of this survey, which was part of the outreach, was to gauge residents’ preparedness for an earthquake and provide actionable recommendations for increasing preparedness.  For example, more than half of the respondents knew the following key actions when in an earthquake: Get close to the ground, get under a large piece of furniture, do not lie on the floor next to a bed, hold onto something and do not run outside if you are currently inside a building. However, more than three in five respondents incorrectly believed that they should get in a doorway, and more than two in five incorrectly believed they should run outside of a building.  FEMA administered the 2011 FEMA CUS Earthquake Survey to 3,211 respondents from the CUS states through telephone interviews.

FEMA summarized the findings of the survey in a report, entitled “2011 FEMA Central States Disaster and Earthquake Preparedness Survey Report”  The report provides insight into the use of hazard-specific outreach, messaging, education and training; the linkage between awareness of outreach and preparedness behaviors; and the value of using multiple channels for outreach and other activities.  As shown in the report, FEMA discovered that individuals exposed to communication and outreach during the months leading up to the ShakeOut^TM had much higher measures of awareness of their risk, and knowledge of what to do in response to an earthquake, and had taken steps to prepare for an earthquake or other hazard.

The results of the survey are informing new outreach and research.  FEMA is incorporating these findings into the plan for the National Campaign to Build Resiliency called for under the Presidential Policy Directive 8: National Preparedness by providing more information on local risks and safety drills, and greater outreach through community organizations.  Outreach from community-based organizations and informal discussions among the public are linked with earthquake preparedness behaviors.  For more information, visit fema.gov/earthquake