Drop – Cover – Hold

This is the mantra for Operation Shakeout on 26 September, at 9.26 am.  Or as we more militarily minded like to say, 0926 hrs.  It is a National Civil Defence earthquake exercise.  On that day and at that hour each person in the nation is expected to

DROP

COVER

HOLD

I am happy to comply, being of a generally compliant nature, as is widely recognised.  Withal, I do have some concerns about the initial DROP.  At age 78, of uncertain balance at times, and with bones and joints some eight years past their biblical use-by date (4 August 2004 at about 0230 hrs), it all sounds a bit perilous to me.  And that is to say nothing of the considerable task of getting up again. 

There should be a generous provision that Senior Cits may gently lower themselves to the floor, holding on to a chair or some more stable object.  Hand-over-hand down a doorpost might be a good idea, since some think that situating oneself in a doorway is a smart thing to do.  I doubt that.  People have got themselves killed in doorways and under desks.  You can’t get under the modern bed.  So that’s a problem, and it does cast some doubt on the order to COVER. 

HOLD, I have no problems with.  HOLD, I for one do quite well.  I look forward to that. 

They will have great fun in all the nation’s schools. 

But what will they do in the Warkworth supermarket?  There is nothing to get under.  So luckless customers will die in any real 0926 hrs earthquake under a mountain of cans of baked beans, or sconed by flying Pinot Noir.   We have had multiple pictures of the situation in supermarkets immediately post-earthquake.  It is a gloomy prospect for survival unscathed.  And in places like Pak’n’Save or The Warehouse, where they seem to have all their bulk storage way up above head height – actually, in such a place, it might be really smart to scramble up one of their large ladders, the ones on wheels with a chain across the bottom stairs and a notice reading “Staff Only”, and perch amid the large cartons of toilet rolls.  My advice is to be in Pak’n’Save at 0926 hrs that day.