Mitigation, communication two keys to county preparedness
When it comes to emergency preparedness, there is no final
answer and there is no perfect plan.
James Clark, the emergency services manager for the County’s
Office of Emergency Services, is close to completing an update of
the county’s emergency plan. The plan is updated every five years,
and it is constantly evolving based on new technology, the outcome
of emergency drills and responses to past emergencies.
In many ways, the current plan reflects the lessons learned in
past disasters such as the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in
2005.
Mitigation, communication two keys to county preparedness
When it comes to emergency preparedness, there is no final answer and there is no perfect plan.
James Clark, the emergency services manager for the County’s Office of Emergency Services, is close to completing an update of the county’s emergency plan. The plan is updated every five years, and it is constantly evolving based on new technology, the outcome of emergency drills and responses to past emergencies.
In many ways, the current plan reflects the lessons learned in past disasters such as the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“I don’t know if anybody can be all the way prepared, but we are taking every thing [we’ve learned,]” Clark said. “We have moved forward. In a sense, 1989 was a huge eye opener – a local event of such large magnitude.”
On Oct. 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m., a 7.1 temblor shook the Bay Area. The quake, centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains, brought parts of Hollister to the ground. For the most part, Hollister residents were on their own as emergency personnel from the greater Bay Area responded to densely populated areas such as San Francisco and Oakland.
United States Geological Survey geologist Steve Walter said most Bay Area residents live within eight miles of a fault.
“Now knowing that, what do you do?” he asked. “Pack up and move back to Iowa? No. You retrofit your bridges, houses and hospitals. As a community or society, you need to look at it.”
Regional plan in the works
With the 20-year anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake just weeks away, Clark said a group in the Bay Area is working on a project that could give emergency services managers throughout the region the answer to which places are most in danger of collapse.
The Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative, a coalition that looks at emergency preparedness on a regional scale, received a grant from the Regional Catastrophic Planning Grant Program, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The grant will allow USAI to review a mass transportation/evacuation plan, a mass fatality plan, a debris removal plan, a mass care/sheltering plan and a volunteer management plan.
The group has been collecting data on the population and infrastructure in 12 counties, including San Benito, and three core cities, including San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. The information will be input into a computer program that will simulate a 7.9 magnitude earthquake along the San Andreas Fault, equivalent to the 1906 quake. The results will show which structures from bridges to roadways to buildings are most likely to be damaged, and how many people are likely to be displaced.
“The end result is a huge regional plan,” Clark said. “It will create a series of local plans that will dovetail into one regional plan. It will help with local planning. We may not have a lot of people or skyscrapers, but we’re still people who have the same needs.”
The regional plan should be done next March.
Shake map determines emergency response
Walters, with the USGS, added that geologists are constantly working to update their understanding of how different areas would react to a large quake. Part of this is done with a network of seismometers that record the shaking all along Bay Area faults. Scientists compare these recordings to submissions from residents about how the shake felt to them. Both the shake map and the “Did You Feel It?” map is accessible at the USGS Web site.
“The shake map is the one that is important,” Walter said. “It is generated within five minutes of an earthquake and it goes up to FEMA and the California Emergency Management Agency. If there is damage, that is where direct search and rescue will be sent.”
One of the lessons learned in Loma Prieta, according to Walter, is that the area with the most damage “you probably don’t hear from for hours because their equipment is so damaged … search and rescue headed to San Francisco and Oakland while Watsonville, Santa Cruz and Hollister were left alone” after the Loma Prieta temblor.
Mitigation a key for local preparedness
In addition to the regional plan, with the help of a committee, Clark is working on a “Hazards Mitigation and Preparedness Questionnaire” to gather information about locals’ concerns for emergency preparedness.
The questionnaire went out in the Sunnyslope water bill a few months ago, and has been given out at community events. So far, 250 surveys have been received back by the Office of Emergency Preparedness, but anyone interested in filling one out can contact Clark’s office. The questionnaire asks what disasters residents are concerned about, how to best reach them with emergency preparedness information, what type of planning they’ve done with their families and what countywide facilities they think are most important to protect in an emergency.
“An earthquake is going to be our Katrina,” Clark said.
Past disasters feed priorities
Clark took over as the emergency services manager in March, but had worked with the county sheriff’s office for nine years. Prior to that, he worked in emergency medical services and as a fire captain with the Salinas Fire Department for 25 years before he retired.
“This is kind of what I do,” he said. “It seemed the logical step. If I’m not going to be actively responding, the logical step is this position in emergency planning, training and exercise.”
Clark lists Loma Prieta, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Oakland Hills fires as events that have refocused attention on emergency planning.
During the Oakland Hills fire of 1991, when firefighters from other cities came in to offer their services, they discovered that their hoses would not thread into the fire hydrants on Oakland streets. One of the changes that came out of that disaster, Clark said, is a movement to get universal equipment to emergency services agencies such as fire departments and police departments.
“There is grant money available to local jurisdictions, and we’ve been working to purchase equipment,” Clark said.
Sept. 11 focused planning on preparing for terrorists attacks.
“Then Katrina and Rita refocused – we had to broaden from terrorists.”
In San Benito County, the most recently updated emergency plan will be 300 pages, broken into four volumes that cover everything from the incident command chain to communication.
Communication a key for response
Clark stressed that communication can be a challenge. In the Loma Prieta earthquake, those regions hardest hit by the quake lost phone service. During Hurricane Katrina, landlines and cell phones went down.
San Benito County has a satellite phone that should be accessible in an emergency, but Clark has also worked with a network of amateur radio volunteers who have agreed to step up in an emergency [see related story, B1.]
“We’ve been working to purchase things like radios so we can switch to frequencies,” Clark said. “We have a satellite phone and Blackberrys, provided they are up.”
Perhaps the most important part of the plan is trying out the procedures. Clark organizes a tabletop exercise once a year, where all those who would be involved in an emergency get together to go through a scenario. The amateur radio volunteers, the police and sheriff’s department, the fire department and other key responders all participate.
“We go out and do an exercise,” he said. “We critique the drill. We try to identify areas of improvement.”
Online
resources
United States Geological Survey “Did you feel it?” map – report how a quake felt to you
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/dyfi/
United States Geological Survey Shake map – records actually shaking from seismometers – http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/shakemap/
Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative – http://www.bayareasuasi.org/
