Were u the only one runnig?

Panic is the deadliest thing in any disaster. Fun fact: if everybody remains calm, the odds of anyone dying during a major disaster are really low. If everybody panics, THEN a lot of people end up dead.

Why does one tiny quake send everybody in the US running? I was 47 floors up in the shower during a 6.9 the last thing I was thinking was to head anywhere. I enjoyed the buildings wobble in fact although made me feel at sea.

So you guys had a little earthquake. Move to California and experience a real one. Until then stop being such a drama queen.

Come on, man. I'm from Christchurch, New Zealand (home of an earthquake that killed almost 200 people in February, that has shut down our Central Business District since. And two pretty major earthquakes four months either side of that, that didn't kill anybody), you don't know shit about earthquakes. For a start, what does an evacuation bell have to do with an earthquake? If it was an earthquake, you'd know about it well before the bell sounded. As far as I'm aware, earthquakes don't trigger fires or terrorist attacks or anything else days later that would set off alarms either. Grow some balls, come on. And 74, you're wrong. About earthquakes, anyway. Panic can help in earthquakes, the only people that survived in the CTV building in our earthquake (the place where most people died, as the building collapsed) were ones that panicked and ran out of the building, or lucky people who happened to be on the top floor and not knocked unconscious by falling debris.

At least you're not dead. Hurray for being cautious.

Going down shouldn't hurt you that bad. Get to a gym.

Did it not occur to OP to see what other people were doing? And if she did, then there must have been a hell of a lot of people with flamin' legs. Or OP just doesn't work out enough--it doesn't take that much energy to run DOWN stairs. There's an 80 year old man living in my building that goes up and down the stairs of 30 floors repetitively every day as a form of exercise. I take into account that OP may have experienced an unknown event that could have caused OP to have an unnatural reaction to an alarm. But, still, the average man/woman would take a quick look around to see if others also thought it was a necessary cause to run down 21 flights.

running DOWN stairs isn't that hard. if it was UP then bro, ouch.

Time to hit the gym. You'll get a much improved cardiovascular system and feel better about yourself too.