Are you ready for the next quake?

Illustrator and wine label designer Ginny Westcott was sitting at her desk in her home office talking on the phone when she looked up at a shelf display of wine bottles above her head and had a premonition of horror.

In the event of an earthquake, all of those heavy glass bottles would crash down onto her desktop and spill all over the floor. If she happened to be sitting there, she could be pummeled by an avalanche of glass.

“I just thought, ‘Oh my god. I could lose everything,” she said. “All my computer equipment. It was not good planning on my part to put my showcase right above my head.”

Having lived through the 1994 Northridge earthquake when she lived in Venice Beach, the Glen Ellen woman was all too aware that if you live near a fault, you’d better be prepared for the possibility of a shaker.

So Westcott set about securing those bottles and anything else in her house that was heavy, overhead and breakable, with Museum Gel, a clear substance that will safely and invisibly hold valuables in place.

At the same time she screwed her Ikea bookcases into the wall, drilling a hole in the back of them and bolting them to a stud.

She also put door shims underneath all her large bookcases so they would lean slightly against the wall and thus lean backward during a quake rather than forward.

She’s so glad she thought ahead. When a 6.0 earthquake centered near Napa rattled Wine Country Aug. 24, she entered her office fearfully.

She indeed found a mess.

Unsecured cardboard packages that had been on shelves had scattered all over the floor, but only one wine bottle - a new addition she had yet to secure - came down.

The effectiveness of that gel, she said, “totally blew me away.”

Many other people didn’t fare as well. Not only did they lose precious heirlooms, but some were injured by their own objects. A 65-year-old grandmother died last week of brain injuries suffered when she was struck by her television during the Napa temblor.

While the shaking resulted in more than 100 buildings being red-tagged, meaning they are too dangerous to be entered, experts say people are much more likely to be injured by falling or flying objects - such as televisions, lamps, glasses and bookcases - than die in a collapsed building.

Sonoma County is crazed with fault lines, with the Hayward/Rogers Creek fault system running from San Pablo Bay to Santa Rosa predicted to produce a temblor of 6.7 or greater sometime before 2036, according to the Association of Bay Area Governments.

So what can a homeowner do to protect themselves and their possession?

The place to start is at your chimney.

“The biggest residential problem we have is all these chimneys. People have old houses with brick chimneys that are unreinforced and just waiting for something to come along and shake them loose,” said Al Gillette of Alpine Construction.

The Napa-based structural home inspector has been working around the clock since the quake doing triage, taking chimney bricks off roofs and patching and weatherproofing holes created by the falling bricks.

He’s handled 30 downed chimneys himself so far, and figures there are a couple hundred throughout the Napa area.

During the Northridge quake 20 years ago, 60,000 masonry chimneys were damaged or destroyed.

The Association of Bay Area Governments recommends checking the mortar with a screwdriver; if it crumbles, it may be a hazard. ABAG says you can put sheets of plywood above the ceiling framing to reduce the chance of bricks falling through a drywall ceiling.

But the agency warns that retrofitting masonry chimneys with bracing or strapping is not effective because many braced or strapped masonry chimneys typically will still fall when exposed to violent shaking.

Gillette says your best option is to tear it down and replace it with a new chimney with a faux casing of stucco or wood. That could cost anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000.

Michael Skyler, who was inspired after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake to open the Earthquake Supply Center in San Rafael, which specializes in emergency kits and equipment and minor bracing materials, suggests looking at every room in your house with “earthquake eyes” to identify possible threats.

Look for heavy objects that could fall down, furniture that could topple, precious heirlooms, vases or china sitting out and unsecured.

There are many products available now geared to earthquake safety, Skyler said, from putties and gels to secure objects, to braces and bolts and straps for heavy furniture, specially designed picture hooks to latches for cupboard and cabinet doors.

He carries products by QuakeHold, a company that specializes in earthquake safety and emergency products, including straps with heavy Velcro.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.