OU Making Videos For FEMA Showing Earthquake Destruction

Earthquake destruction is taking center stage at the University of Oklahoma.

Students and staff are working on a summer video project to show us what happens during an earthquake.

“Help people understand the things that they can do to get their home ready for an earthquake, so there's not so much damage afterwards,” said the director of the project, Scott Hodgson.

They are making 30 videos using a $150,000 FEMA grant since there are not many earthquake resources involving videos.

“We are probably doing at least a quarter million dollar production on this,” Hodgson told News 9.

They built an entire house inside a studio just to tear it up.

“We've had electrical sparks coming out of a socket and water being splashed on people from water lines that are breaking, so we do a lot of special effects,” said producer Kimberly Larson.

Hodgson said he hopes the videos make people look at their own homes and think about what would fall and what would stay put in a larger earthquake.

“How do you take your bookcase which is right next to your couch and if it fell over on you, you would get smashed, how do you secure that to the wall,” Hodgson said.

The solution is bracing and bolting things down inside your home.

“I don't think a lot of Oklahomans think to do this kind of stuff, but we are right next to California when it comes to the amount of earthquakes that can happen here,” Larson said.

The project still has a few more months of production. The earthquake videos will be released in the late fall.

You can keep up with this project and see behind-the-scenes videos at Earthquakemitigation.com.