San Mateo County 'Drops, Covers and Holds On' for Great ShakeOut

The following is a news release from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office:

The San Mateo County Managers Office along with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services participated in the “Great ShakeOut” earthquake exercise earlier Thursday.

The “Great ShakeOut” is a State-wide emergency exercise that is the largest of its kind in the country and at approximately 10:16 Thursday morning, San Mateo County departments paused what they were doing to “Drop, Cover and Hold On” just as would happen in the event of an actual earthquake.

Each department had designated evacuation points around the perimeter of the building and the Maguire Correctional Facility was even able to get in on the exercise to practice implementation of facility earthquake and fire evacuation procedures.

Local Fire Departments including the Redwood City Fire Department, Menlo Park Fire Department and Cal Fire were on site with a full assignment response and worked hand in hand with members of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Response Team to extricate, triage, and treat moulaged victim role-players.

In the end, the exercise was found to be extremely successful and was a great opportunity for so many critical functions to work together just as they would in the event of a real life emergency response.