Posted on 10/15/2005 3:50:14 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Another earthquake is coming - and officials are urging Valley residents to think in terms of when instead of if. In recent months nature has battered farflung locales with hurricanes Katrina and Rita and, more recently, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. The frightening images in newspapers and on TV rekindle, for many Southland residents, memories of the 1994 Northridge the 1971 San Fernando quakes.
"Every time a disaster hits people start to panic," said Mark Bennett, an assistant fire chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. "Katrina had nothing to do with the Valley, but suddenly they remember what can happen here."
During the High Desert Toastmasters'meeting on Thursday, Bennett was invited to field questions on disaster preparedness. He was joined by city and county officials to relay just how equipped the Valley is to cope should an earthquake hit tomorrow.
How prepared are officials?
One of the biggest lessons to come out of Katrina, they said, is the importance of planning - and listeners were assured California has a plan.
Bennett walked through an assumed chain of events from an official's standpoint.
First, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department would set up a command center at the Emergency Operations Center in the Lancaster Sheriff's Station at the corner of Lancaster Boulevard and Sierra Highway.
Simultaneously, Valley cities and the county would set up their own emergency operations centers and send representatives to the sheriff's command station to report back to them.
"This way, we pool all our resources and evaluate what needs to go where," Bennett said. "We did pretty good in the Northridge quake following this strategy."
Bennett is planning a springtime drill that will simulate a disaster scenario and let officials practice inter-agency communication.
Anne Ambrose, Palmdale's public safety manager, responded to audience concerns about the Valley's geographical barriers.
"Those come down when a disaster hits," Ambrose said. "It doesn't matter who lives in Lancaster or Palmdale; we will work from a regional standpoint to deal with this."
How prepared are individuals?
"In any big disaster there are going to be glitches," Bennett said. "The best thing people can do is prepare themselves."
All the officials who spoke reminded the audience not to forget their roles in disasters and not to rely on others for assistance.
"Everyone should be prepared and have a plan," said Bert Perry, Lancaster's disaster prepardness coordinator. "This starts at home and in your community."
Diane Grooms, regional vice manager of United Way, said her family and business has an emergency plan and meeting spot.
"The No. 1 thing people can do is prepare their family first," Grooms said. "In the middle of a movie I will ask, 'Where's our meeting spot?' just to remind my family."
Don Pierce of Juniper Hills organized a meeting in his neighborhood to discuss how he and his neighbors could prepare themselves for a disaster.
"It's amazing the amount of information available from the county," Pierce said. "It's up to us as citizens to seek out that information and not rely on others to provide it for us."
Pierce's neighborhood began a campaign to identify older and disabled residents in the community so these individuals could be cared for in event of a disaster.
"I may be old, but there are people a lot older than me out there," Pierce said. "It's our job as a community to know these things because no one else can."
Bennett said such information is invaluable. He urged other citizens to follow Pierce's example. Informational flyers and preparation pamphlets are available in both Spanish and English at local fire stations.
"Citizens have to step up," Bennett said. "I can't do it for you."
Hasn't been a problem in the past -- but we store more water than 3 gallons per . . .
Getting ready for the Big One
Sep 15th 2005 | LOS ANGELES
From The Economist print edition
California looks better prepared than Louisiana was; and so it needs to be
EARTHQUAKES, s, floods and mudslides: by almost any criterion California, the nation's most populous state, is also its most vulnerable to natural disaster. And perhaps to man-made disaster, too: Los Angeles Airport, the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, San Francisco's Golden Gate and Bay bridges and Disneyland are all targets for ists.
This week, when most of Los Angeles suddenly suffered an electricity blackout, the immediate fear was al-Qaeda. That was misplaced, but it raised an obvious question: faced by a massive disaster, how well would California cope?
It is frighteningly easy to give an alarming answer. The Southern California Earthquake Centre reckons that there is an 80% to 90% chance of a tremor of seven or higher on the Richter scale hitting Los Angeles within the next 20 years. According to the US Geological Survey, an earthquake of that magnitude would kill up to 18,000 in Los Angeles; in San Francisco, a repeat of the 1906 earthquake might kill 5,800 (almost double the last Big One). Six in ten Californians live in areas of high earthquake risk; in Los Angeles County, just about everybody does.
Almost as worrying to the planners, the pipelines and aqueducts that bring natural gas and water from northern California to Los Angeles and San Diego run south across the San Andreas and other fault lines. Meanwhile, one respected geologist says there is a two-in-three chance in the next 50 years of an earthquake or flood breaching the levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, with disastrous consequences for California's agriculture.
...and, what is the plan when you get to the Emergency Operations Center and it is completely destroyed?
I've been in there. Its hard to imagine it being destroyed by anything less than a direct hit.
LOL. I'd have a plan.
I just wonder how SoCal will do if the power and water are both knocked out.
At least Katrina and Rita gave warning, and allowed millions to flee into the American hinterland.
SoCal is almost a perfect people trap, between the ocean and the mountain passes, which lead only to desert.
A week without power and water in LA would not be fun.
It'd be time for a boat ride, huh?
Dam rite.
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