With our hypervigilant attention to wildfires over the past several years, a 3.5 magnitude earthquake that jolted the Los Angeles area on Inauguration Day, January 20, was a mere bump and gone, but it reminds us that we live in earthquake country. Maybe it’s time for us to review our emergency plans for earthquake preparedness. This one was centered about a mile west of Willowbrook at 8:35 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones (drlucyjones.com), one of the most trusted public authorities on earthquakes, said this one was “near but not on the Newport-Inglewood (NI) fault. The mechanism which maps the direction motion at all the seismic stations, shows the ground moved up and down; the NI fault moves sideways. Jones is founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society, with a mission to foster the understanding and application of scientific information in the creation of more resilient communities. She is the author of the book, “The Big One� (Doubleday, April 2018), and is also a Research Associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech, a post she has held since 1984. There are earthquake apps available but too many to mention all. To name a few: ShakeAlertLA, Early Earthquake Warning App; LastQuake; and American Red Cross. Earthquakes can happen anytime, anywhere. The best time to prepare for an earthquake is before it happens. • TCEP.org • lacounty.gov/emergency/earthquake-preparedness