memes

I imagine it's how people near fault zones react to most earthquakes

Earthquakes only happen every few decades, so most people in California don't think about them at all. Even when the big ones hit, they typically only hit up in the bay area, or down on southern California. So when a big earthquake hits, most Californians feel it, run under a door frame, wait 10 seconds until it's over, and then talk about how crazy it felt for the rest of the day. Unfortunately the people near the epicenter usually have major damage to deal with, but like I said, they're a rarity. After the SF earthquake that hit in the 80's the State issued new seismic building standards, and all of the old buildings were retrofitted. So the damage from the next major earthquake should be quite a bit less than previous earthquakes.