RIDGECREST, Calif. (NBC) – After back-to-back strong earthquakes in Ridgecrest, California, residents are trying to recover but the city building inspection office is overwhelmed.
Ridgecrest’s city building office doesn’t employ inspectors but instead contracts with the county.
Since the earthquakes last week, they have brought in eight inspectors from other agencies to help evaluate if buildings are safe.
A professor from the University of Colorado Boulder is volunteering to inspect buildings. He said the damage is surprisingly very modest for the strength of the quakes. He also spoke about the risk of aftershocks in the coming weeks and what you should actually do when an earthquake hits.
“First of all, for the people who live in the area, there is a risk of aftershocks, but the chance of one that is as big as the main shock, it’s very small, it’s like 1% in the next month,” said Professor Keith Porter. “We were taught the wrong thing about what to do in an earthquake. We were taught to go stand in a doorway. Don’t stand in a doorway. We’re now teaching people to drop, cover and hold on and that means as soon as the ground starts to shake, you get down on all fours. You don’t look around and see what everybody else is doing, you get down on all fours because we’re worried that a big shake will come along and throw you to the ground and you get hurt. So, you drop down on all fours, you cover your head an neck with an arm and then you crawl to a table or something sturdy that you can get underneath and you hold on to it, right. So that’s drop to all fours, cover with your arm and hold on to the, to a table. And that’ll keep you safe from stuff that’s falling from ceilings and whatnot.”
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