Nearly a million San Diego County residents will participate Thursday in this year's Great California ShakeOut, the statewide earthquake preparedness drill, now in its 17th year.

A total of 980,458 participants are registered in San Diego to stop everything for a minute to "drop, cover and hold on" at 10:16 a.m. Statewide, more than 10.3 million Californians are registered.

During last year's event, about 10.6 million statewide registered to take part. The exercises began in 2008.

"What we do to prepare now, before the next big earthquake, will determine how well we can survive and recover," according to a statement posted to ShakeOut.org. "Great ShakeOut earthquake drills are a once-a-year chance for everyone to practice `drop, cover, and hold on' and learn other earthquake safety tips

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