In fact, no, I didn't. In the first instance, San Francisco 1989, I did indeed start running for the stairs and barely kept my balance as doing so, and as a young man then too! By the time I got to the hallway, the initial action was over.

The second time was a very similar situation, third floor of a wood frame building, this time in Chiayi County. This was I think a 6.4 or something, and really right under us as we vacationed in the mountains. We were as close to the epicenter as anyone. This felt stronger than the SF quake because I was closer to it. It didn't make much news in Taiwan at the time. I think two people died in the village we were in.

When it hit, my wife was on the balcony of our hotel room, and my first thought was, God, get inside before that balcony falls off. By the time she was in, we just held on until it was over. So, yeah, going onto a balcony is a not a good idea. They tend to collapse.

That was a frightening quake. Roads were all closed, landslides for a couple days around us, very unsettling, haha. Helicopters came to take the dead and injured out. Oddly, that was the one time in my life I traveled without a flashlight or candle. I regretted it as I heard things scurrying around in the absolute pitch black of night. This was up in the mountains in a village called Ruili.

The other time would have been the pair of 6+ quakes that hit Pingtung County in the mid 90's I think. It's the one that cut a main communications cable to Hong Kong and cut off Internet to a lot of folks at the time. Again, too fast to take any meaningful action.

Still, I'm not sure about the advice to 'stay in place'. I still think getting the heck out of a structure before it falls down, if possible, is the best thing to do.