This article examines a practical experiment that was carried out on 6 May 2016 at the University of Udine, in Pordenone, in order to honour the victims of the 1976 earthquake that struck Friuli. The experiment involved a test evacuation of the University’s campus. The test group was composed of 53 students who, before the evacuation drill, had attended a lecture on disaster prevention and emergency management. The control group was a class of 13 students who had been provided with no preventative information. This study made use of two methodologies: 1. audio-visual recordings of the evacuation drill; 2. a questionnaire, which sought to investigate, by means of personal accounts after the evacuation, participant behaviour, their emotional responses, and their views of the efficiency of individual, communal and social responses to the emergency. The results enable us to signal positive and negative elements in preparation for emergencies. Certain areas still require improvement, including the recognisability of the alarm siren and the modes of communication of the disaster.
