Earthquake home safety checklist: Stop point for the earthquake home fallback

Prioritize bedrooms, sofas, desks, kitchens, and exits where people actually are when shaking starts. This page is for the quiet day before an earthquake, when a household can reduce obvious hazards and make the first hour less chaotic. It does not engineer the home, choose anchoring hardware, inspect utilities, or certify that a building is safe. The useful work is simpler: look at where people sleep and sit, what could fall or break, what might block exits, what essentials should be reachable, and who does what after shaking stops. Beds and glass.

Focus on household observations and risk priorities without giving hardware, anchoring, or structural instructions. Walk through the rooms where people spend the most time: bedrooms, living room, kitchen, home office, children's rooms, and exits. Notice heavy objects above beds or sofas, glass near sleeping areas, tall furniture, loose items near stairs, and anything that could block a door. The first pass is observation and prioritization. If fixing a hazard requires tools, wall attachment, electrical movement, landlord permission, or structural judgment, record it for the right person instead of improvising. Heavy objects.

Make shoes, light, phone power, documents, contacts, and pet items reachable after a room shifts. Earthquakes can scatter glass, furniture, and supplies. Keep shoes, flashlight, phone power, written contacts, simple documents, pet leash or carrier, and necessary notes where they can be reached after shaking. Think about the path from bed to the safer area and from the safer area to a door if leaving becomes necessary later. Do not hide every useful item in a garage, closet, or high shelf that may become blocked. Shoes and flashlight. Documents and contacts. Assign who checks people, pets, exits, contacts, and documents after shaking stops.

Connect home setup to a short Drop, Cover, and Hold On practice for each common room. A home checklist should support the during-shaking action, not replace it. Practice Drop, Cover, and Hold On in the rooms where people actually are. Children need simple words and repetition. Older adults or people with mobility limits may need the safest practical position and reachable protection where they spend time. After the practice, assign post-shaking roles: who checks people, pets, exits, contacts, and obvious hazards before anyone covers property. Room drill. Family roles. Walk through sleeping, sitting, cooking, and exit areas to identify items that could fall, block, or cut.

Send structure, utilities, anchoring, rentals, access, and medical equipment questions to qualified people. Get qualified help for wall anchoring, heavy furniture, water heaters, chimneys, foundations, gas appliances, electrical panels, rental permissions, medical equipment, and accessibility changes. Use emergency services after an earthquake for fire, gas odor, trapped people, injury, blocked exits, or structural concern. This page keeps the household checklist honest: reduce obvious risks, stage essentials, practice the first action, and hand technical or dangerous work to people trained for it safely. Keep that boundary visible. Property staff. Qualified professionals. Place shoes, flashlight, phone power, contacts, and documents where they remain reachable after shaking.