Natural disasters have been in the news a lot lately. The comparatively small number of lives lost when Hurricane Ike swept ashore over the weekend suggests that Americans are learning to heed public officials’ warnings — at least when those warnings are in attention-getting language, and the threat is obvious and imminent.
Now the Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, Calif., is undertaking a multimedia effort to persuade Californians to prepare for the unpredictable: earthquakes. The effort, called the Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready Project, includes a Web site that will link to resources and data. It will also let users play an online game about reacting to, and recovering from, a quake in Los Angeles. The site and the game are tied to a November 13 regional quake-preparedness drill, the Great Southern California ShakeOut.
The design college plans a quake-awareness campaign for 18- to-25-year-olds that will use “contemporary modes of communication”; a source book for civic officials and the news media that includes illustrations by students; and a rally that is scheduled for November 14 in downtown Los Angeles. —Lawrence Biemiller
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