The Northridge quake actually got me out of bed. The La Cienega overpass, the one with the first onramp to the east of me, collapsed.
The Scrivener provided a nice list. Before I go to it, I was going to suggest having a full tank of petrol in the car. Power was out in my neighbourhood all day. I had virtually no cash, and the ATMs obviously were not working. Having the fuel to get to a different area is a good thing. I drove several miles south (Redondo Beach, IIRC) and was able to get cash and more fuel. Would’ve been a pain if I didn’t have the fuel to get there. Of course, now you have the potential for the house falling on the car and rupturing the tank; but my choice would be to have the fuel to leave the area. (Note: Keep the gas in the car’s gas tank; not in jerrycans, which are not as well protected.)
I’m still on my first cuppa, so I’m a bit lazy. I don’t know if this was already mentioned:
list][li]Don’t turn off the gas unless you have to. Do check to make sure you have no leaks. If there is a gas link, turn it off. But if there is no leak, then leave it alone. It seems that it can only be turned on again by the gas company. (Not sure how that works, but that’s what the gas co. said. Anyone have a picture of the workings of the valve?)[/li][li]Be sure to hang up your phones. Phones are often unhooked in a quake, and hanging them up will allow the system to recover more quickly.[/li][li]Have spares. I fired up the Coleman lantern (there was no gas leak) so I could watch the water slosh around in the pool. My neighbours thought I was bringing out a “community light”. If you have spares, then you can be a good neighbour and have your own supplies as well.[/li][li]Remember to secure your water heater.[/list][/li]
I thought he’d tumbled from his staircase and fell two storeys to the floor first.
Since the Long Beach quake of 1930-something, building rules have been updated to ensure that buildings are more earthquake-resistant. It seems that nature keeps trumping regulations though. After the Loma Prieta quake, freeway bridges that were thought to be strong enough (under older rules) started to be retrofitted with steel encasements. They were still working on them when the Northridge quake hit. In any case; as we learn more about earthquakes, legislators try to update building rules to make structures safer.
It’d be kind of eerie to see Governor Schwarzenegger touring the aftermath of a super quake in LA, wearing a worn leather bomber jacket, his mirrored sunglasses just hiding the redlight glowing from his non-human eyes. A ray of sun cuts through the dust cloud just long enough to glint off his fast action repeating shotgun, as he scans the horizon for any sign of looters.
What will we do? Eh, what we’ve always done- do a little bit to prepare, then forget about it until it happens.
“The big one” has been due ANY MINUTE since I was born (I am 36 now). I barely remember the “big one” that happened when I was a kid, Northridge was bad but in a pretty small area, and I don’t walk around waiting for the next one! I grew up with quakes, and they just don’t bother me.
Yeah, a huge one might bury me under my house, but the odds are against it. My family has lived in the same basic 40 mile area for four generations, and we’ve never had more than a broken teacup or picture fall off the wall. Granted, we are on the Newport-Englewood fault IIRC, and we are due, much more so than the main San Andreas line.
What will we do? Nothing out of the ordinary in most cases, and nothing in a lot of cases!
The one thing I’d add is if you are inclined to have an earthquake kit, store it outside your main house. We have two large plastic bins in our storage shed. Even if it collapsed, the bins would be intact and accessible.
We live in Seattle which also has some significant faults, (the geological kind, as well :)) the movie mentioned eariler is (maybe) going to be shown on NBC.
The City of Seattle is attempting to block its release, because it shows the Space Needle collapsing in a way that (they claim) wouldn’t happen. They also claim showing such a movie, could insite panic.
I’m not going to panic over a movie, and I doubt many others would either. For Og’s sake, its a MOVIE.
As a longtime LA County resident, I know that in the event of a “big one” there’s one thing of which I better have a plentiful stockpile:
DVD and VHS Movies.
Because there will be nothing on TV but “earthquake coverage” for a week, even though the earthquake will have been long over by the time the TV stations get anything aired in response to it.
Other than anchorpersons ducking falling lights, that is.
So. Are you ready for Storm Watch: 2004 on channel 4? “I’m standing here in Malibu, where five years ago a business was washed away from this very spot! It’s not raining now, but we’re hoping to catch this season’s Enormously Rich People’s House Parade into the Sea when the rain does start.”
Yeah, I was gonna say, if LA is overdue for THE BIG ONE, Alaska surely is. The earthquake and the tsunami it caused wiped out small fishing communities in 1964, still tragic and awful, but now these same towns are prime areas of tourism and commerce. Things could get ugly next time around for Alaska.
Seward, AK was at that time the shipping and rail center for South Central Alaska. The entire coastline was dockage and railyard. The tsunami that struck Seward wiped out the entire industrial area. Seward went from a growing population of over 3,000 to nearly half that overnight, and slid into economic depression. It never recovered viability as a shipping center, and instead now relies on sport fishermen and limited tourism. The town of Valdez, now the terminus for the oil pipeline, had to be completely relocated.
The damage in Anchorage (where I was at the time) was severe. Homes slid into Cook Inlet and portions of the business district sank 20-30 feet.
You’re right in one regard, however: Anchorage today is on the order of 250,000 people as opposed to about 70,000 in 1964. The damage and death toll from an earthquake of that magnitude today would be considerably higher.
Actually, it was the Los Angeles City Fire Department that developed what is now a national program for emergency preparedness sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team).
CERT programs are either free or very nominally priced (my husband and I have taken the training through 2 cities in L.A. County; one was free (Torrance) and one was $20 per person (Redondo Beach). Anyone over 18 can take the L.A. City CERT program free of charge. The firefighters volunteer their time to teach the classes and to conduct frequent refresher courses and practice drills.
We are now trained in [ul][li]Disaster Preparedness[/li][li]Disaster Fire Suppression (including not only using fire extinguishers, but fire hoses, as well)[/li][li]Disaster Medical Operations (including basic First Aid and CPR certification)[/li][li]Search and Rescue Operations[/li][li]Triage[/li][li]Disaster Psychology & Team Coordiniation[/ul] We have participated as “victims” in several disaster drills that the local Fire and Police departments put on so they can keep their mass rescue skills fresh, including a 2-city-wide decontamination drill. We attend bi-annual training exercises put on by the City of Los Angeles, and have monthly meetings at the local fire station, where we discuss emergency survival skills, such as whether to shelter in place or evacuate and knowing what our community resources are. [/li]
The Emergency Operations Organization of the City of Los Angeles has also designated the Los Angeles Fire Department to manage its amateur radio program. The Fire Chief has authorized the group to enroll up to 500 licensed Ham operators to be trained to back up the Department’s radio system, provide radio support to CERT members, their families and their Battalion leadership and support to USAR for passing health and welfare traffic.
I’m overwhelmed by all the work these firefighters put into training and preparing the community – they work their butts off and volunteer a lot of time for these programs. I just cannot give enough KUDOS to the fine folks who maintain these programs and make them available to the public. You can get an overview of CERT here, and check to see if there’s a program offered in your communtiy here (though that list depends on local organizations submitting their info, and is therefore incomplete. If you don’t see your city listed, just google your city name with the word CERT, or call your local fire station).
The Scrivener, great list! Don’t forget that your water heater is also a great supply of clean, drinkable water, too.
Regarding point #5, I’d also recommend having drills to practice your evacuation plan at least once or twice a year. Do it when kids are in various rooms of the house so they’ll know how to get out no matter where they are.
Also, it’s rather timely that today marks the first day of Dalight Saving Time, when it is recommended that you change the batteries in your smoke detectors.
Hopefully, Paul in Saudi, you can see that L.A. City, L.A. County and the Federal government are doing quite a bit on an ongoing basis to prepare for eventual emergencies (we all know they’re going to happen, it’s just a matter of when). But it’s also up to the citizens to take part in these programs to make them successful and to better ensure that we’re all able to take care of ourselves and each other when the worst happens.
Sounds like we were neighbors at the time, Johnny L.A. I was living right along the Santa Monica Fwy at Palms Ave.
This thread provides excellent earthquake prepardness suggestions; I’d like to add a few, given my own experience from the Northridge quake. First, keep a flashlight within reach of your bed. With a blinding flash, the transformer outside my apartment blew and the power to my place (along with pretty much the rest of the city) went out. Everything was pitch-black and my flashlights were downstairs. I had to fumble around to find shoes, stepping on the debris from a broken lamp and cutting my foot. Not fun. If you have a large aquarium, like I do, and you’re feeling especially paranoid about these predictions, then empty out about 6" of water…that’s how much sloshed out and went all over my living room. Finally, keep some sort of emergency supply kit in your car: non-perishable snacks, water, change of clothes, toiletries, first-aid, blanket, portable radio and flashlight with batteries. My father was at work when the quake struck and was stuck there for three days, he wishes he was more prepared.
I have to take some issue with this advice. In an earthquake everything moves.
Running out of the house during a serious earthquake is not only foolhardy, but will be nearly impossible in a really big one. If you can get away from the windows and bookcases (which, by the way, should be fastened to the wall), you are probably safest in a structurally sound area of the house, such as a bathroom or narrow hallway, or climbing under a table and holding on to the legs.
Running out of the house exposes you to any of the following: crumbling chimney bricks, shattering or already shattered glass, falling or fallen power lines, out of control cars, parked cars moving of their own volition, falling trees, fracturing earth, flying roof shingles…get the picture?
I made it out of my house in the 64 earthquake only because I was 16 years old, had terrific balance and reflexes, and was incredibly lucky. That’s not to say I wasn’t bombarded by flying glass, dishes, condiments, etc. (we were in the kitchen), then beaten nearly senseless by the doorjambs on the way out. Having survived the exit, I then was flung violently to the ground and rolled back and forth to avoid the birch trees which were slapping the ground with their tops, while watching the parked cars skidding back and forth, tires shrieking.
Evacuation comes after the shaking is over. Everyone should know the rendezvous point and STAY there until everyone is accounted for.
I’m not sure why you’re taking issue with my addition to The Scrivener’s point about having an exit stratety and meeting point, since all I added was to have practice drills. I never suggested running outside while rumbling was going on and agree completely that evacuation should only occur when necessary and when there’s less chance of danger outdoors than in. That doesn’t mean families shouldn’t do practice drills, which is all I suggested. And this is a perfect example as to why – so everyone knows under what conditions to exit in the first place!
