BART to participate in statewide earthquake drill Thursday

BART will be among the more than 10 million participants of the Great California ShakeOut earthquake drill tomorrow, Thursday, October 15, 2015. At 10:15 am, BART engineers will trigger an earthquake alarm that will automatically slow trains to 27 miles per hour and the Operations Control Center will make public address announcements to trains and stations advising passengers of our participation. 

The Great California ShakeOut is an annual opportunity to practice how to be safer during big earthquakes. Thursday's drill is just one of a series of regular drills BART conducts to rehearse and refine emergency responses.

In the event of an actual earthquake, BART's emergency plan calls for three levels of response based upon the severity of the damage.  In all cases, trains will stop for at least five minutes unless they are in the Transbay Tube or Berkeley Hills Tunnel, in which case they will proceed to the nearest station. If there is no reported damage, BART resumes normal operations. In the event of damage, the response is scaled to match the severity of the damage. 

During any emergency, including an earthquake, passengers should listen closely to instructions from the Train Operator. 

BART encourages passengers to use the Great California ShakeOut as an occasion to review our evacuation procedures poster on trains or online.

Check out our special coverage of BART's response following the 1989 Loma Prieta quake.