There likely won't be any freeway closures, power outages or overturned supermarket shelves, but on Oct. 18 at 10:18 a.m., people they will take cover as if an earthquake has struck.

The occasion is the annual Great ShakeOut, an international disaster-preparedness drill in earthquake-prone areas involving hundreds of government, schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, businesses and individuals.

Wherever they are, at 10:18 a.m. people will drop, cover and hold on for 60 seconds, as if there was a major earthquake at that moment.

The shakeout is an opportunity to get people to prepare for a major quake and become familiar with what to do and check on those earthquake supplies, organizers said. More than 9.3 million people in California plan to take part in the event.

The Great ShakeOut comes on the heels of the 23rd anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which occurred on Oct. 17, 1989. The 6.9-magnitude quake originated in the Santa Cruz Mountains and caused 63 deaths and thousands of injuries.

It sparked a fire and the destruction of homes in San Francisco's Marina district, collapsed a section of the Bay Bridge and flattened a section of the Embarcadero Freeway in Oakland, trapping dozens of cars between layers of concrete.

On the Peninsula, a variety of organizations and individuals plan to take part in the ShakeOut, according the Great ShakeOut website.

More than 18.8 million people have registered for the event globally, including in Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Alaska, Utah, Guam, Puerto Rico and areas in the southeastern and central U.S. International participants include British Columbia (Canada), Italy, New Zealand and Japan.

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