You won’t know exactly how much time you have once you hear the warning. You might be better off finding shelter in the immediate vicinity rather than being caught in a potentially dangerous area 15sec into your 60sec evacuation route.

Oh geez, the aisles with shelves of heavy objects stacked 20 feet high at home improvement stores would be terrifying during a big earthquake. Had never considered that.

That's definitely one of the worst places to be :-)

Are you assuming nobody else is trying to exit at the same time? I can get out of my sixth floor apartment in 60 seconds but not if everyone in the building is trying the same thing.

The crowd factor is primarily why I don’t think I could get out of a large store within sixty seconds, yes.

The tricks discussed in CERT classes (which are well worth taking - very interesting material) is to go to back of store because few people think to. Same with concerts and other events - people instinctively run to the entrance in which they entered, rather than the nearest.

Secondly, if you're in the midst of huge shelves with no escape (like a home depot) get under the first shelf. the shelving won't collapse downwards, but if a neighboring shelf falls sideways you'll be protected.

Harder to do in a real emergency, but good ideas, and thinking them through can be enough to execute them when needed.

Anyway - I highly encourage taking a local CERT class if you're in the US, or finding the equivalent wherever you live.

Maybe when you're the only person leaving the building.