I live in Northern California, more or less away from the earthquake zones.
However, I lived about sixty miles from the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and it was a real eye-opener. I was at work at the time and we all ran outside - the fucking pavement was rolling like it was on ocean. Very little damage locally near me, but phones and power was out. Lines were down, making it difficult to get around. No power means you can't cook and you can't go to stores. Everything shut down. No telephone for like three days, and the only news we had was a little battery powered radio.
I quickly learned that after two days with without power everything in your fridge melts.
I was lucky because I worked catering at the time and I had a lot of canned food and sterno.
To this day we maintain a large bank of canned food and sterno, and water too.
I'm also signed up for the USGS earthquake emails. There was a 7.3 this morning at the "Loyality Islands", which I'm guessing is east of Austrailia.