Drills, baby, drills

At 10 a.m. tomorrow, many students, businesses and the Daily Bulletin will participate in a major earthquake drill that will test our emergency response in an event of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. See our special coverage of the shakeout.

Our editor walked around the newsroom yesterday reminding us to duck under our desks and wait for the imaginary tremor to conclude before heading out to the parking lot. No advice was given on what to do if reporters are in the middle of a phone interview or whether we need to file in a single line, boy-girl, boy-girl.

At Victoria Gardens, students will spend the day learning about safety tips from the most famous natural disaster in town, Quakes' mascot Tremor.

Having grown up in Southern California and through LAUSD schools, fire and earthquake drills are hardly novel. But there's one drill in my childhood memory that I'm sure no Rancho student has ever experienced -- the drive-by shooting drill.

When gang violence hit the San Fernando Valley hard in the late 1980s, administrators at my junior high thought it prudent to conduct a drill that simulates a drive-by shooting. It was held in the P.E. field with a teacher shooting a toy guy into the air. "Pop!" That was our cue to get on the ground then run, while staying low, toward the racquetball court, where we were protected by a slab of graffiti covered concrete.

Somehow I don't think Victoria Gardens is equipped for such a drill.