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November 14, 2008
Earthquake
Yesterday, Southern California conducted one of the largest earthquake drills ever held, Great Southern California ShakeOut. More than 5 million people registered to participate and, of course, all county and city facilities took the opportunity to conduct drills.
My facility did a full blown drill that was weeks in planning, and then from Monday until yesterday the rest of the supervisors (including me) went through meetings about the scenarios we would be facing yesterday. Our drill lasted almost all day and I came home yesterday too tired to write anything.
The start of the exercise began at 10am across the Southland, people expected to drop and protect themselves for a simulated 7.8 quake along the south section of the San Andreas fault that would last about 100 seconds. For comparison, the 1994 Northridge quake lasted 7 seconds.
I work in a facility that is almost like a campus, with scattered buildings. After the initial quake supervisors went to a pre-selected command center where we were divided into teams under section leaders - Operations, Logistics, Planning. I ended up on a Search and Rescue team - six people including a nurse, custodian, and maintenance man. We were given a satelite radio phone for communication then went to assess a designated area of buildings - looking for victims and building damage.
The drill planners had, while we were assembling teams, gone into the buildings and tagged them with scenarios: "this door jammed, find another way in" "faint smell of gas in this room" "this building totally collapsed, all staff inside crushed".
Many of the people selected to be "dead" were charged with being observers or scribes. All sections of staff went to their first evacuation area to find it tagged with a sign it was inaccessible, so a they had to proceed to a secondary area, then fill out written lists of who was present, missing, dead.
In the evacuation area we staged a triage area for medical attention, set up areas for meals, tarps for shade, and sanitation areas.
An earthquake of the size we drilled for would probably knock out electrical power for weeks and also make driving any distance impossible. If I was at work when such a quake happened, I would be unable to go home because I need to travel over freeway bridges that most likely would be gone in a quake. So we have to plan on living where we are at for two weeks.
The drill itself started at 10 am and we ended it (by allowing everyone to go back to their normal day) about 2 pm. All supervisors then took the next hour for an initial debriefing. We will be spending the next few days writing up our notes and evaluations.
I have a lot of suggestions for improvement for our facility, but I noticed one small, but very important thing to pass on to any woman in the California area.
I knew this drill was coming, so I dressed down and wore tennis shoes for a day of walking and being out in the grassy field that was our evacuation staging area. I wouldn't have been able function for such a time if I was caught at work in my usual high heels. Certainly, I couldn't participate on a Search and Rescue team, climbing around broken buildings in heels!
Ladies, if nothing else, have a pair of sneakers in the trunk of your car AND in your desk at work at all times!
Posted by Darleen at November 14, 2008 05:54 AM
Comments
Great. Now how are you going to explain this to the 5,000-10,000 illegal aliens that entered the country since your drill?
Did you do it in both English and Spanish?
Posted by: Digger at November 14, 2008 02:03 PM
I think its gets explained to them in Spangish.
Posted by: ML at November 14, 2008 02:12 PM
Considering that over 10 million live in LA county alone and around 23 million in Southern California, most people did not take part in the latest EQ drill.
Its good practice for local government agencies and businesses with large amounts of employees.
Posted by: ML at November 14, 2008 02:17 PM
Wow, it's great that there's a centralized government in place to look after the safety of the general public. Sounds like a great example of exactly why we need to pay taxes. (Not to mention that Darleen needs your taxes to buy all those extra sneakers.)
Posted by: Leah at November 15, 2008 04:22 AM
Keerist, Leah, give it up. This was a voluntary (what part of "sign up" did you miss?) earthquake drill. Nothing mandatory about it at all.
People coming together in a VOLUNTARY manner to plan for disasters is not the same as having Thermostat Police to come into your home and control how you live.
Again, I work in the judiciary/law enforcement are of government. A legitimate government function.
Posted by: Darleen at November 15, 2008 10:12 AM
Oh, I remember that, Darleen. The only good government is the kind that pays you. It's only all the rest of the government that needs to be drowned in the bathtub.
So when your "facility" volunteered to participate, you did this for no pay? This was off the clock?
Posted by: Leah at November 15, 2008 06:35 PM
The only good government is the kind that pays you
sweetcheeks, take a class or something. You willing ignorance is stunning.
and kinda creepy
Posted by: Darleen at November 15, 2008 07:42 PM