USC freshman Ty Harlan slept through the alert for the magnitude 5.2 earthquake that hit Southern California on Monday morning.
About 10:08 a.m., an emergency alert was sent out to phones across the region, including Trojans, many of whom were still asleep.
“I had a bunch of notifications on my phone,” Harlan said. “I didn’t see anything when I woke up.”
Los Angeles is located right next to the San Andreas Fault, an 800-mile-long boundary between two tectonic plates. Tectonic shifts along the fault have been the cause of several major earthquakes in the past, leaving many Californians wondering when “The Big One” will hit.
Elizabeth Cochran, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earthquake Science Center, said “Southern California has a 36% chance of a [magnitude] 7.5 or greater earthquake in the next 30 years,” according to Newsweek.
“I think [the Big One] is definitely gonna happen eventually, but it’s not an everyday worry,” Harlan said.
Even the students who received the alert were unfazed.
Aryan Nehru, a freshman studying economics and math, said he was woken up by the alert.
“I was like in a sleepy haze, just like ‘Bro, what?’” Nehru said. “I rubbed my eyes and then I [was] like I don’t feel anything … Am I tripping? Is this a dream?”
So, Nehru said he “just went right back to sleep.”
Hailey Mercer, a sophomore, was driving on the freeway when she saw the alert.
“I’m from California, so I wasn’t that scared,” she said. “We always have earthquakes here, and I grew up with them.” She added that she was “in open space … not on a bridge or anything.”
Freshman neuroscience major Dishant Sharma was in his biology lecture when the earthquake hit. He said when the alert went off, “our professor was like ‘whoa, earthquake.’”
He said that when the alert first came up, he didn’t know what to do.
“I’m from Arkansas — we don’t have earthquakes there,” Sharma said. “We have tornadoes.”
Sharma said that his class “sat there for five minutes,” but when nothing else happened, the professor resumed class as normal.
Camryn Lounsbery, a biopharmaceutical sciences major who is also from out of state, said she “didn’t know what to expect … I’ve never really experienced an earthquake before.”
She said the earthquake “was not that bad,” adding that it was “just a little shaking.”
In the end, Lounsbery said she “kind of just disregarded the notification and continued laying in [her] bed.”
Yet another student was in his bed when the alert came. Freshman Ivan Shah said he was woken up by the alert.
In the moment, he decided: “If there’s an actual earthquake and stuff starts falling, I’ll go outside. If it’s a little bit, I’ll just stay in my bed.”
Shah added that the emergency alert system “should only alert you if it’s actually gonna be a big deal.”
However, John Vidale, a USC professor of earth sciences and an expert on earthquakes, is pro-alert.
Vidale said the alert is “not a substitute for preparing … this just gives us a chance to do an extra layer of protective action, just before the shaking arises.”
Vidale is on the advisory committee for the USGS Early Warning system and sees its benefits. He said that with a few seconds of warning, people “can turn off the stove or go find their pet or their kid, and make sure that they’re as ready as they can be when the shaking arrives.”
At USC, earthquake preparedness plans are already in place.
“There’s a really big, deep infrastructure at USC to respond on both of our campuses to the potential for an earthquake,” said Chief Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman in a briefing with student media on Tuesday.
USC Student Health’s contribution to earthquake preparedness is their Mass Casualty Plan, which prepares for triage and treatment in the event of a severe natural disaster. They plan to activate it this summer, according to Van Orman.
Van Orman said that some of the things she recommends for earthquake preparedness are having basic emergency supplies readily available, like extra water, extra supplies of medication and a portable charger for phones. She also recommended having some basic earthquake supplies in cars, like water, first-aid kits and comfortable shoes.
Harlan is prepared for the Big One. He said he has bottles of water in his room and extra food under his bed.
“I’m pretty locked in, so I’m ready,” he said.
Paige Shea contributed to this reporting.