PRHS emergency routines prepare students for natural disasters.
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In the recent month’s, devastating hurricanes have blazed through the east coast leaving everyone in the US wondering, what’s next?
On Aug. 25 for the first time in 56 years a major hurricane that is stronger than a category three, made landfall in Texas as a category four hurricane. Hurricane Harvey left more than 100,000 people without homes and dumped over 19 trillion gallons of water throughout southeast Texas. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, predicts about 180 billion dollars in damage.
Irma crashed through the Florida Keys and the Caribbean on September 10th, as a category five hurricane. With winds as low as 85 mph and as high as 130 mph, houses were ripped apart as if all of them were made of straw. The massive destruction of Irma has already cost millions of dollars, but the final cost could possibly take months to finalize.
Hurricanes feed off of warm water and the ocean water has to be at least 79 degrees but the Pacific waters are only on average around 60 degrees and can’t produce major tropical storms. With this, it is very unlikely to have a hurricane hit the state of California. this, it is very unlikely to have a hurricane hit the state of California.
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Although, California can relate to these recent natural disasters because of the current possibility of a massive earthquake striking on the San Andreas Fault. This fault is an active strike-slip fault on the west coast extending from San Francisco to southern California. When this fault creates a massive earthquake it will leave major destruction on the west coast.
“I haven’t really thought about it in detail because I can’t really imagine it happening,” said freshman Madi Loff in regards to her preparedness.
In relation to safety procedures for an earthquake at school sophomore Mairin McNerney stated, “If it were to be a mild earthquake, I think I would feel fine at school. However, if it was a higher scale earthquake I would feel a little iffy.” Knowing that there is a possibility of something like this, students and staff must be prepared.
Although students may be on the line about safety, the administration seems to have a handle on it as stated by the assistant principal Tom Harrington,“the school has a very extensive crisis plan in case of an emergency and that every October the school participates in the Great Shakeout.”
Aside from the Great Shakeout, PRHS also has an extensive plan to help get the students out of the building and make sure there are no casualties. With all of the things that PRHS does for safety, it is easy to say that in case of an emergency, the school would be in pretty good shape.
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