Earthquake Readiness and Technology Recovery
Prepare people to Drop, Cover, and Hold On—and prepare district operations to continue when buildings, roads, utilities, and telecommunications are unsafe.
During shaking: follow official earthquake guidance and the site plan. Drop, Cover, and Hold On; do not run outside during shaking. Afterward, expect aftershocks, hazards, and restricted building access. Call 911 for immediate life-safety emergencies.
Required school planning
California Education Code sections 35295–35297 establish an earthquake emergency procedure system, and section 32282 incorporates earthquake procedures into the Comprehensive School Safety Plan. CDE guidance states that drop-procedure practice is held quarterly in elementary schools and once each semester in secondary schools. Plans must account for pupils with disabilities and connect to the required instructional continuity plan.
Engineer out predictable failures
Facilities and equipment
- Have qualified professionals evaluate structural and nonstructural hazards.
- Anchor racks, cabinets, UPS units, batteries, displays, shelving, and overhead cable pathways.
- Use flexible connections where appropriate; secure gas cylinders and heavy equipment.
- Keep exits, shutoffs, emergency lighting, and fire protection accessible and inspected.
Technology architecture
- Remove single-site dependencies for identity, DNS, internet, telephony, SIS, payroll, and emergency messaging.
- Maintain encrypted, immutable/offline, geographically separated backups and recovery documentation.
- Contract for alternate circuits, equipment, workspace, and priority vendor support.
- Monitor server-room power, temperature, humidity, water, access, and fire systems remotely.
From impact to operation
| Phase | Data and operational actions |
|---|---|
| 0–4 hours | Account for students and staff; activate ICS/SEMS; treat utilities and structures as unsafe; use out-of-band communications; begin an incident log. |
| 4–24 hours | Confirm alternate leadership and facilities; assess provider and network status; preserve emergency rosters; notify families accessibly and in appropriate languages. |
| 1–3 days | Establish trusted identity and communications; resume payroll, enrollment, attendance, special education, food, transportation, and records workflows using approved alternate processes. |
| 3–30 days | Recover systems in priority order; reconcile manual transactions; assess buildings professionally; document costs, damage, decisions, and service interruptions. |
| Long term | Rebuild to current requirements, eliminate discovered single points of failure, support displaced students and staff, and close corrective actions from the after-action review. |
Data-professional go-kit
- Encrypted emergency contact and role roster with alternates; no unnecessary student data.
- Printed and protected network/application dependency map, recovery priorities, and vendor escalation paths.
- Offline recovery codes, key-custody procedure, clean administrative devices, power banks, radios, and hotspot options.
- Forms for student/staff accounting, enrollment, attendance, medication, device checkout, damage, expenses, decisions, and manual transactions.
- Current facility maps, utility shutoffs, rack/equipment inventory, insurance records, contracts, and mutual-aid agreements.
Exercise what failure really looks like
Run a functional exercise in which the district office and primary data center are inaccessible, internet and cellular service are intermittent, key staff are unavailable, and an aftershock interrupts recovery. Require teams to account for people, invoke alternate communications, restore a clean identity service, retrieve a protected backup, operate a manual enrollment/attendance workflow, and reconcile it afterward.
Primary resources
Campus safety and security systems
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exacqVison is a leading manufacturer of video management system (VMS) software and servers used for video surveillance. exacqVision believes that the two most important factors at every school are...
Finalsite Mass Notifications supports school and district communication through channels such as email, text, voice, and mobile notifications.
Gaggle is a company known for providing safety management and prevention solutions tailored for schools and districts, focusing primarily on student safety and well-being in digital environments. Gaggle supports...
Student safety monitoring software that analyzes supported school-managed digital activity for signals of self-harm, suicide risk, or violence. It provides context and configurable alerts so designated school staff can...
identiMetrics is a biometric identification platform for school transactions. A scanner matches an enrolled template and supplies an identifier to a connected application. Districts determine their enrollment, notice or...
Student safety monitoring software that identifies concerning activity in supported school-managed digital environments. Lightspeed Alert supplies context and notifications to help school teams investigate potential self-harm, violence, and other...
Milestone XProtect® video management software (VMS) brings all the puzzle pieces for video surveillance together in a perfect combination to create a solution that keeps people and property safe...
Raptor is a school-safety product suite spanning distinct visitor, emergency-management, and student-support workflows.
Raptor Behavioral Threat Assessment supports school teams documenting and coordinating behavioral threat-assessment cases.
A mobile emergency notification application from Motorola Solutions’ Rave portfolio. Rave Panic Button enables authorized staff to request emergency assistance and notify designated on-site responders. Facility information, drills, and...
IDENTITY MANAGEMENT means quick and easy student and staff ID creation and organization. Automated ID Management that is integrated with your SIS and HR software gives...
Student wellness and safety monitoring software for supported school-managed accounts and devices. Aware analyzes digital activity, gives staff contextual alerts, and supports case assignment and follow-up. Coverage and human...
Simple, intelligent hybrid video security designed for reliability and scale. Verkada offers simplicity and added protection to organizations looking to modernize their approach to physical security. The D-Series...
Faced with strict safety demands, dwindling budgets, and students spread across large or multiple campuses, the monitoring of education facilities brings special challenges. Ensuring student safety and reducing vandalism...