Earlier today, everyone in the school practiced responding to an earthquake as part of the Great ShakeOut, in which millions of people across the country and the world participated in an earthquake safety drill at 10:20 a.m. local time.

Clover Hill was just one of thousands of schools across the country to hold drills at that time. The purpose of the drill was to ensure that students and staff are ready to protect themselves in the event of an earthquake, and to ensure that they know what to do.

Even though earthquakes rarely occur in Virginia when compared to west coast states such as California, and the ones that do occur are of low magnitude, Clover Hill does fall into the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, where earthquakes are more common.

Because there is a chance an earthquake might happen, library aide Kat Bogdanowicz believes that taking time to practice is important.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever get that hard of an earthquake, but it’s good to be prepared,” Bogdanowicz said.

If an earthquake occurs, everyone is supposed to shelter under a sturdy protective object such as a desk during the shaking. Then, once the earthquake stops, they are to evacuate from the building as soon as possible on their assigned route. The reason for this is to escape the building before any aftershocks occur, because it is much safer outside where the building collapsing is not a danger. If an earthquake happens outside of school hours, the guidelines are the same.

During the drill, students practiced finding shelter after an announcement at 10:20 and remained in that position until the drill was over a few minutes later.