DPS NEWS

Great Utah ShakeOut Reaches 1 Million Participants

By Joe Dougherty

We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.

Since 2011, I’ve been dreaming of the day we could declare that 1 million people had participated in our annual earthquake drill. We’ve gotten so close, and now that day is here.

A record-breaking 1,004,593 Utahns participated this year! Gov. Gary Herbert challenged Utah to get 1 million Utahns participating for 2016. We succeeded! You succeeded! If you held a drill or plan to during 2016, you can still sign up your family, church group, business, school or workplace at ShakeOut.org/utah.  In the mean time, you can upload photos, stories or videos to the ShakeOut website by logging into your profile.

In the fall, we will open registrations for the 2017 ShakeOut drill, which we hope will continue to eclipse the 1 million mark. Lets not let the momentum end with us. Preparedness saves lives, time and money, but only if you do it.

We can only have preparedness success if you help us spread the word on your websites, on social media, in your newsletters, during official meetings and in your neighborhoods. Ask others to do the same.

You can also download your own banners to display on your website, blog or Facebook page from the Resources section of the site.

Want to know who’s participated? Here’s the list.
Follow the ShakeOut on Twitter: @UtahShakeOut or by using the hashtag #shakeout there, on Pinterest or Instagram. Check us out on Facebook, too: Facebook.com/UtahShakeOut

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Joe Dougherty is the public information officer at the Utah Division of Emergency Management.