| | |  Americas & Beyond 
In California, Louder Calls to Prepare for Quakes
 Jesse McKinley - New York Times
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April 06, 2010
| | Items sold for household emergency kits include packaged drinking water; seismic gas valves, which are designed to automatically shut off gas lines when an earthquake strikes; and a portable toilet. (Monica Almeida/New York Times) | |
San Francisco — As residents on both sides of the Mexican border cleaned up after Sunday’s earthquake, the authorities warned that many Californians remained unprepared for a serious quake, and emergency officials said that budget cuts have strained their ability to handle a disaster.
The budget challenges faced by firefighters and other first responders have probably affected preparedness, fire officials say, particularly in remote or lightly populated areas that often depend on larger cities or agencies for help in emergencies. Sunday’s quake registered 7.2 and centered in a largely unpopulated area of northern Mexico.
“We know that there’s going to be an earthquake, and we know it’s going to be a major natural disaster,” said Lou Paulson, president of the California Professional Firefighters and a captain in the Contra Costa County fire protection district. “And I don’t want to be one of the people who stands in front of the state of California and says, ‘We told you so.’ ”
Seismologists say a major earthquake is almost a certainty in coming decades, given the region’s seismic history. But a recent study by the California Emergency Management Agency found the majority of the state’s households failing to meet recommendations for many basic emergency needs, like stockpiling water (a minimum of three gallons per person), reinforcing their homes and making disaster plans.
Such warnings had increased in urgency even before Sunday’s earthquake, which caused aftershocks on Monday in Mexico as well as in the California counties on the border. In a statement issued with its March 5 report, Mathew Bettenhausen, secretary of the Emergency Management Agency, said the recent deadly quakes in Haiti and Chile were “unwelcome reminders” of what could happen in California.
On Monday, Kelly Huston, a spokesman for the agency, added that the continuing failure of Californians to fully prepare was frustrating, but that Sunday’s quake was “a teachable moment.”
“It’s tough trying to get people to think about something bad,” Mr. Huston said. “The only time we can get them to think about it is when the earth moves. Well, 20 million people felt that quake. So there’s 20 million people who now realize that earthquakes can affect them.”
Two people have been confirmed dead as a result of the earthquake, which struck at 3:30 p.m. Sunday outside Mexicali. It also damaged homes and buildings and knocked out power for thousands. But fire officials say the damage could have been staggering if the quake had struck closer to population centers north of the border.
Mr. Paulson said an equivalent quake in Los Angeles could have sparked about 1,500 fires, each of which requiring 20 or more fire personnel to control. And while fire teams in California are used to helping each other, particularly during fierce wildfire seasons like 2008, cutbacks and furloughs have some departments rethinking voluntary mutual aid agreements. “People are not going to saddle up as much as they used to,” he said.
State Senator Christine Kehoe, a Democrat from San Diego and the chairwoman of a joint legislative committee on emergency management, said California’s earthquake response was still “the finest in the world,” citing up-to-date communications equipment, regular multi-agency drills and ample experience in dealing with natural disasters. (California officials like to say the state has four seasons: flood, fire, mudslide and earthquake.)
But Ms. Kehoe admitted that budget reductions had “put a dent in our public safety response,” and that future financing was always questionable in a state facing a $20 billion deficit.
“One of our challenges and shortcomings is we don’t plan ahead for expenses we know we’re going to incur,” she said.
In the private sector, companies — particularly those reliant on communication — seem to be more adept at preparation. The Los Angeles Times, for example, has a downtown printing plant that can withstand a 9.0 quake, which would expend 500 times the energy of Sunday’s quake. But the newspaper also keeps a plant in Costa Mesa, in neighboring Orange County, which “can also be reactivated almost immediately,” said Nancy Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the paper.
California utility companies use satellite phones and social media sites to stay in contact with customers and employees in case of a quake, and keep helicopters on call in case roads are blocked.
At Southern California Edison, which provides power to some 14 million customers in the tremor-prone region, the company went through its emergency protocol on Sunday after the Mexico quake, checking facilities like its nuclear plant and power generation facilities. And over the next week the company will do what it calls a “Lessons Learned” assessment. “We’ll take a look at our response and ask, ‘Who was doing what?’ ” said Steven Conroy, a company spokesman.
The state fire agency, Cal Fire, used the quake as an opportunity to practice for the big one, moving fire trucks into the street — to avoid them being trapped inside station houses — and rolling through neighborhoods in two southern counties looking for damage.
The state budget for emergency management services was $1.4 billion in the current fiscal year, trimmed slightly from the year before. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a 4.8 percent surcharge on property insurance to provide more than $478 million annually in new financing for emergency preparedness.
But that proposal, backed by Senator Kehoe, faces uncertain prospects in a Legislature in which Republicans often block anything resembling a tax.
For some, Sunday’s quake was a boon.
In Burbank, north of Los Angeles, the warehouse for earthquakestore.com, which sells preparedness gear and gadgets, was buzzing, with good sales of survival kits and quake alarms, which purport to pick up seismic waves.
Malia Wollan contributed reporting from San Francisco, and Jennifer Steinhauer and Rebecca Cathcart from Los Angeles.
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