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  • Earthquake Preparedness Exercise

    EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS EXERCISE



    County tests itself with a real-time disaster simulation


    Buildings in King City have collapsed and 3,000 residents need shelter.
    One hospital is down.
    The Nacimiento Dam is bulging, ready to burst.
    Downtown Pacific Grove is in flames.
    Welcome to Sim City.


    It's the simulation room, actually, where Monterey County emergency coordinators spent a few hours doing exactly what they hope they would do if a 7.7 magnitude earthquake had struck near Coalinga at 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The exercise was dubbed "Operation Your Fault."


    Phone and radio calls of casualties and complications sounded like the real thing and the team's responses had to be as near to real as possible.
    "What wasn't realistic," said Salinas Rural Fire Protection District Chief Steve Negro, operations chief for the drill, "is we're all here at once."
    In a real earthquake, he said, the emergency team would have trickled into the Natividad Road command center because of roads closed, bridges out and phone lines down.
    And Negro should know. He worked in similar, but real, emergency operations in Santa Cruz County after the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.
    When Thursday's drill was over, participants found that the team's work was, for the most part, smooth and well-coordinated. But several problems emerged.
    Detailed suggestions for improvement are likely to follow in an upcoming report to the county by the drill's designers, the California Specialized Training Institute.


    The command room in the County's Office of Emergency Services was real, down to desks that are the same ones that would be used in case of a real disaster.
    The people -- they were from cities, fire districts, the sheriff's office, the Red Cross, Waste Management, and the county's health, water resources and finance departments, among others -- were also the real thing. They are the ones who would race to the command center if a real Level Three emergency occurred.
    The drill started at 1 p.m. with the news that a major quake had struck Coalinga an hour and a half earlier.
    For the next two hours, it was on.
    Phones rang, radios crackled and mayhem ensued.
    Events were purposely designed to unfold into potential chaos. Calls went to the wrong desks, South County police and fire services were instantly overwhelmed, and plans had to be continually scrapped as new information surfaced.
    Early calls of casualties came trickling, then pouring, in.
    Mee Memorial Hospital's emergency room couldn't handle the number of walk-ins. Now 68 people had to be moved, somehow, to another hospital.
    "We need three MST buses over there. Or get school buses, or ag buses, if you can."
    "We need 30 to 35 nurses."
    Suddenly there were 90 patients. The buses were found, but the patients were headed to another county.
    "Can we get the media to ask people not to go to the emergency room and to go to outlying clinics?" someone said.
    Fire strike teams were deployed, but at first people weren't sure where to send them.


    Bad news from King City:



    "Water mains are down and our hydrants are going dry on us."
    "We have people trapped in buildings," Negro said to his radio. "We have six strike teams, is that enough?"
    Then the logistics crew got another call.
    "OK, we need an evacuation shelter for about 3,000 folks," one man said. "Damaged houses in Greenfield."
    "We're finding tents and shelters," another man said.
    "All right," Negro called out. "Life just got a little more complicated."
    News of a larger disaster was emerging -- a bulge was reported in Nacimiento Dam. If it burst, King City could be flooded within five hours, requiring the evacuation of thousands.
    Details about the dam's condition were scarce. A park ranger called in from Lake Nacimiento, but was "overwhelmed," he said.
    Finally, the group's section chiefs held a quick conference to hear reports from around the county.
    Sidney Reade, chief of Carmel Valley Unified Fire District, painted a dismal picture.
    In Soledad, a school collapsed. Pacific Grove's commercial district was on fire.
    A school bus went over a cliff on Carmel Valley Road. At least 30 victims, condition unknown.


    The only good news:

    Police and fire crews were on the way from Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties.
    The emergency team in each city must be called. Try to ascertain the condition of the dam. Everyone must prioritize their work, rating situations one, two and three.
    "Rescue of life is the No. 1 priority."
    Meeting over. Back to the phones.
    Highway 101 was in a logjam and a bridge was out. Cmdr. Alan Wheelus of the Sheriff's Office called the California Highway Patrol, asking that no Highway 101 traffic will be allowed north of the San Luis Obispo County line or south of Salinas.
    Evacuations and rescue efforts were quickly taking shape. A portable hospital was being assembled. Shelters were going up at CSU-Monterey Bay and the Salinas Municipal Airport. The largest shelter effort had already started at King City's fairgrounds.
    Then, a moment of panic. Are the fairgrounds in the flood zone? A flurry of calls before Reade called out to a relieved logistics crew that the grounds were safe.
    It grew quiet for a few moments. Feet went up on desks and a few workers grabbed a soda or a Power Bar.
    Then Wheelus got a panicked call from "Ranger Smith" at Lake Nacimiento.
    Dispatches went out fast to all cities in South County.
    "We got an eyewitness that we got a dam collapse."
    Back on the radio, Wheelus spoke to the ranger, who sounded convincingly desperate.
    "What's the extent of the collapse?" Negro said urgently. "Is it just some water over the top or what?"
    Wheelus spoke to the ranger and turned to a small group gathered around him.
    "It has fully blown," he said.
    As if on cue, a man stepped into the room and announced, "The exercise is now over!"
    Disaster averted, for now.
    <hr class="infobox-hr-separator" color="#cccccc" size="1"> Post mortum At the end of Monterey County's emergency training exercises Thursday, participants discussed what went right or wrong. Overall, most seemed to agree that operations went very smoothly. Areas discussed for improvement included:



    Planning

    ? Staff said it took too long to understand what was happening and get organized.

    ? Planners should check in first with dispatchers, police and fire districts -- they know best what's happening on the ground.

    ? Staff wanted to develop a written plan of action within two hours -- that didn't happen. Logistics

    ? Staff did not know the budget limits for acquiring high-cost equipment and supplies.

    ? Could have secured supplies faster if they had a list of pre-approved vendors, such as rental companies. Public Information

    ? "Nobody came to us." The communications crew said they quickly learned they needed to contact local agencies and not wait for briefings.

    ? The group did not use all outlets available to disperse information, including the emergency broadcast system and regular press outlets. Finance

    ? Not enough staff on hand.

    ? No clear procedure for budgeting high-ticket items.

    A full report on the exercise will be forwarded later to the county.
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