PREPARING FOR THE BIG ONE - L.A.

[Sunshine123]

Preparing for The Big One

http://www.dailynews.com/editorial/ci_9292405

By Ruth Galanter, Columnist
Article Last Updated: 05/17/2008 09:04:58 PM PDT

EVERY so often, nature reminds us just how puny and helpless we really are, whether we are government officials or just regular folks. Earthquakes in China, typhoons in Myanmar, tornadoes in the U.S., volcano eruptions in Chile - the list unfortunately goes on and on. Natural upheavals of all kinds have occurred through the history of our planet, but as the world's population grows and we live increasingly in high-density settlements called cities, each event takes more lives and causes more disruption.

In a region that's had its share of earthquakes, wildfires, floods and mudslides, it's a phenomenon Southern California residents know all too well. We try to prepare, to the limited extent we can, but too often we get complacent, setting us up for far greater disaster if and when the Big One should strike.

After a disaster, governments and private organizations around the world rush to assemble aid and move it to those in need. Sometimes it works, but as experience tells us, sometimes it doesn't.

Think back to some of our local disasters. The 1994 Northridge Earthquake knocked out power all over Los Angeles, but Department of Water and Power crews had it back on within hours. They had to improvise to do it; they took a giant crane out on the hill above the San Fernando Valley and basically **** the transmission lines from it until towers could be repaired.

But sometimes it's smaller, unexpected problems that can be the most vexing.
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After the 1992 Rodney King verdict, when power was out for several days in the Crenshaw area, city officials were stunned when local churches pleaded for flashlights for seniors trapped in their apartments. Apparently years of earthquake-preparedness warnings about the need to keep a flashlight on hand had been forgotten.

Without for a moment forgetting the lives lost and disrupted, so far we have been relatively lucky. Victims of disasters elsewhere have had a far tougher time. Sometimes the problem is corruption, sometimes tribal enmity, sometimes the sheer scope of the problem, and sometimes simply ineptitude.

In Myanmar, a typhoon has basically destroyed a very large area, leaving thousands stranded and facing hunger and disease. Though foreign governments and aid organizations have mobilized immediately to offer aid, Myanmar government officials seem to be taking the foreign contributions and distributing only tainted food to the communities destroyed by the typhoon. In China, damage from the massive earthquakes includes blocked roads keeping supplies out, and the weather has put a damper on delivering relief by air.

But the U.S. is hardly immune to massive failures in emergency response. We have only to look at the New Orleans floods to see that. In one of the richest countries on Earth, it was not a lack of resources that caused the failures to help but, apparently, an inability to take the situation seriously.

And here in California, we could be beset by an even greater threat - the failure to plan.

Despite the well-known dangers and frequent destruction, we routinely allow building in flood plains, on barrier islands, in fire-prone areas, and along known earthquake faults - all disasters waiting to happen. We also fail to to take the basic precautions necessary for dealing with the inevitable. Think Malibu.

Since fire knows no jurisdictional bounds, it makes sense to put it out wherever it starts. But we even permit building in fire-prone areas where there is no local fire department.

San Diego County, for example, does not have a county fire department. So when San Diego County burns, the rest of us California taxpayers fund the firefighting. And with what do we fund it? The money that ought to be available for building and repairing roads, reservoirs and levees; for keeping state college tuition affordable; for managing our public parks and all those other services facing cutbacks.

But government can't do it all; the rest is up to us.

We all know by now what we should to do to prepare for an emergency. We know we should have a flashlight and extra batteries handy. We know we should keep a supply of extra water. We know we should have a wrench at the ready to turn off a leaking gas line. We know that our cars should be stocked with sturdy shoes, a jacket, an extra pair of glasses and enough supplies for a day or two just in case we can't get home.

And yet how many of us actually take these precautions? If the shortage of flashlights in Crenshaw in 1992 is any indication, nowhere near enough.

Even when relief products and aid workers are available and planes are ready to fly them in, most governments and families are caught less prepared than they should be. That's not altogether surprising, given the daily pressures on every government in the world and many families as well. But it does mean that assuming we're adequately prepared to handle a major catastrophe is probably not realistic.

In anticipation of the next Big One, Los Angeles needs other forms of social organization to take care of ourselves when government can't.

In some places, these sorts of organizations are already in place. Long before there ever were neighborhood councils, and without waiting for government, block clubs in Crenshaw and Leimert Park and Neighborhood Watch groups all over Los Angeles had organized their own crisis networks. They collected and stored information on the number of people and pets living in each house, medical needs, people to notify if a resident is injured.

Today, neighborhood councils can play a vital role in keeping track of people, delivering information, and assisting government authorities. While the paramedics are rescuing someone from a damaged building, someone has to get the fallen trees off the street.

The huge earthquake in China is a wake-up call for Los Angeles. If we're not careful and we don't plan ahead, the next big tragedy filling the world's TV screens could well be ours.

Ruth Galanter is a former member and president of the Los Angeles City Council, on which she served for 16 years.

[Shiloh]

Re: PREPARING FOR THE BIG ONE - L.A.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357096,00.html

Scientists: Gigantic Earthquake Would Devastate Southern California
Thursday, May 22, 2008

LOS ANGELES ? The "Big One," as earthquake scientists imagine it in a detailed, first-of-its-kind script, unzips California's mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border. In less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly.

The jolt from the 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes ? 15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake.

Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse.

Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead.

Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region ? too many for firefighters to tackle at once.

A team of about 300 scientists, governments, first responders and industries worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for preparedness, including a statewide drill planned later this year.

Published by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, it is to be released Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Researchers caution that it is not a prediction, but the possibility of a major California quake in the next few decades is very real.

Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California.

The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.

"We cannot keep on planning for Northridge," said USGS seismologist Lucy Jones. "The science tells that it's not the worst we're going to face."

USGS geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut said scientists wanted to create a plausible narrative and avoided science fiction like the 2004 TV miniseries "10.5" about an Armageddon quake on the West Coast.

"We didn't want to stretch credibility," said Hudnut. "We didn't want to make it a worst-case scenario, but one that would have major consequences."

The figures are based on the assumption that the state takes no continued action to retrofit flimsy buildings or update emergency plans.

The projected loss is far less than the magnitude-7.9 killer that caused more than 40,000 deaths last week in western China, in part because California has stricter building-code enforcement and retrofit programs.

The scenario is focused on the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other.

The fault is the source of some of the largest earthquakes in state history, including the monstrous magnitude-7.8 quake that reduced San Francisco to ashes and killed 3,000 people in 1906.

In imagining the next "Big One," scientists considered the section of the San Andreas loaded with the most stored energy and the most primed to break. Most agree it's the southernmost segment, which has not popped since 1690, when it unleashed an estimated 7.7 jolt.

Scientists chose the parameters of the fictional temblor such as its size and length of rupture and ran computer models to simulate ground movement. Engineers calculated the effects of shaking on freeways, buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure. Risk analysts used the data to estimate casualties and damages.

A real quake would yield different results from the scenario, which excludes possibilities such as fierce Santa Ana winds that could whip fires into infernos.

The scenario: The San Andreas Fault suddenly rumbles to life on Nov. 13, 2008, just after morning rush hour.

The quake begins north of the U.S.-Mexican border near the Salton Sea and the fault ruptures for about 200 miles in a northwest direction ending near the high desert town of Palmdale about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

Scientists chose the scenario because it would create intense shaking in the Los Angeles Basin and neighboring counties ? a region with nearly 22 million people.

The scenario will be released at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources meeting in Washington.

Here are the major elements:

? 10 a.m.: The San Andreas Fault ruptures, sending shock waves racing at 2 miles per second.

? 30 seconds later: The agricultural Coachella Valley shakes first. Older buildings crumble. Fires start. Sections of Interstate 10, one of the nation's major east-west corridors, break apart.

? 1 minute later: Interstate 15, a key north-south route, is severed in places. Rail lines break; a train derails. Tremors hit burgeoning Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.

? 1 minute, 30 seconds later: Shock waves advance toward the Los Angeles Basin, shaking it violently for 55 seconds.

? 2 minutes later: The rupture stops near Palmdale, but waves march north toward coastal Santa Barbara and into the Central Valley city of Bakersfield.

? 30 minutes later: Emergency responders begin to fan across the region. A magnitude-7 aftershock hits, but sends its energy south into Mexico. Several more big aftershocks will hit in following days and months.

Major fires following the quake would cause the most damage, said Keith Porter, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studied physical damage for the scenario.

The quake would likely spark 1,600 fires that would destroy 200 million square feet of housing and residential properties worth between $40 billion and $100 billion, according to the scenario.

Once the shaking stops, emergency responders would do a "windshield survey" that involves rolling through neighborhoods to tally damage and identify areas of greatest need, said Larry Collins, captain of the Urban Search & Rescue Task Force at the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Collins said the scale of the disaster means firefighters would not be able to put out every flame.

"We're going to have to think about out-of-the-box solutions," he said.