Cyndi Loza

Duck, cover and hold — it was good advice 40 years ago and it’s still good advice today, officials said Wednesday.

With the recent swarm of earthquakes, some residents are circulating claims of American Rescue Team chief Doug Copp who said people should not duck and cover during a quake.

“As a lifetime Reno resident, we were always taught in schools you got under the desk,” said David Reese, 65, of Reno. “But this expert’s article seems to indicate we were getting the wrong advice.”

The duck, cover and hold method is practiced by all students in the Washoe County School District, said Chris Smith, district emergency management director.

Copp challenges the method in an e-mail where he reportedly stated “most everyone who simply ducks and covers when buildings collapse are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.”

Many experts disagree.

“‘Duck, cover and hold’ is the best thing to do,’” said Tom Rennie, a seismic analysis technician at the University of Nevada, Reno seismic lab. “Your biggest hazard is objects falling on you.”

Rennie said he first heard of the group’s stance on the method about five years ago.

Copp said that voids, or spaces, are created during a quake next to or surrounding big, bulky objects.

“This space is what I call the ‘triangle of life,’” Copp said in an e-mail. “The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured.”

Copp cited in the e-mail an incident of a building collapsing and killing students who ducked and covered during an earthquake in 1985 in Mexico City.

But, structural collapses do not occur as frequently in the United States as they do in other countries, making falling objects the biggest concern, Rennie said.

Winnemucca Elementary School in Reno is among the schools that practice earthquake drills and ask students to seek shelter under their desks. But Principal Susan Frank said Monday students have felt earthquakes so often the need for drills is not necessary.

The same drills were performed in Washoe County schools in 1966, when a 6.5 magnitude temblor rumbled Northwest Nevada and California. The center of that earthquake was in the Verdi area.

Dale Sanderson, capital projects and facilities management administrator, said all district schools except Robert Mitchell Elementary have a steel-reinforced wall system, “which is what you need in an earthquake.”

The Mitchell school roof is supported by an additional structural system made of wood. The school is the most vulnerable to an earthquake, but the reinforced system would help avoid a “catastrophic collapse of the building,” Sanderson said.

If the community wants to remain safe they should “focus on things to do beforehand,” said Caroline Punches, the Red Cross director for Northern Nevada.

Punches said she recommended practicing the duck, cover and hold method. She also recommended strapping objects such as television sets and book cases to building walls.