Californians Smarter In At Least One Aspect

But don’t worry, we’ll get it right the next time the once-in-a-100-years event happens:

Kelly Huston, assistant secretary of the California Emergency Management Agency, said that watching New Yorkers evacuate on television was “unsettling.”

“If you think about it, the plate-glass windows above them have a potential for shattering,” Mr. Huston said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “That glass has to go somewhere. And it’ll hit people trying to come out of a building.”

What New Yorkers should do, he said, is what Californians are told to do: drop under “anything sturdy” and “brace yourself until the shaking stops.”

That so many New Yorkers did not seem to know what to do should not be that surprising given the e-mail that arrived at Mr. Huston’s home early Wednesday.

New York City officials wanted a conference call because they needed advice on what earthquake instructions they should give the public the next time.