I think the point is that 10 seconds of warning really translates to 0-5 seconds of warning given the time it takes to send out the warning (text, radio, emergency broadcast). Then add in time to wake and get oriented.
Unlikely. The Bay Area is an area of "tectonic activity" (as evidenced by Loma Prieta in 1989, and now the the 6.0 from yesterday) - but I"m willing to wager fewer than 1 in a thousand people anchor their fridge to the wall.
Hot water heaters and book cases - Yes. But not fridges. They rarely tip over in earthquakes.
I'm not really afraid of what happens if my fridge tips over, either. I spend very little time in front of the fridge, and never when anything but fully alert. If the room started shaking, I could probably step a little to the left or to the right and be fine. I'm probably more concerned about all the glasses on high shelves, or the knives, etc., in terms of floor hazards after the quake.
The thing which terrifies me is that I'm in a 1971-construction building with a soft story, in a city with a defective police department. My car is parked in that soft story. Assuming the entire building doesn't collapse and kill me, there's nothing above my-standing-height except one projector, which even from projector-height, would be unlikely to kill me. But I'd probably have fallen to my death and been crushed by huge volumes of unreinforced masonry before that.
(Please, please, if there's going to be an earthquake while I'm in the Bay Area, let it happened while I'm in the office, or even better, in a datacenter. The new office is being fully retrofitted right now, so it should be pretty good.)
