Calif. agencies to participate in massive quake drill

October 14, 2009 04:30 AM

By Melissa Evans
The Daily Breeze

TORRANCE, Calif. — Bloody bodies strewn on stretchers. Victims screaming for help. Students scrambling for cover underneath desks.

The second installment of a massive earthquake drill on Thursday will include all of the theatrics as last year’s Great California ShakeOut — with even more people expected to participate.

“The southern part of the San Andreas Fault is 150 years overdue for a major earthquake,” said Lance Webster, spokesman for the Earthquake Country Alliance, which is organizing the drill. “We need to be ready. Everyone should know what to do.”

This year’s mock 7.8 quake - scheduled to hit at exactly 10:15 a.m. Thursday — has been expanded to include all of California, with 7 million people signed up to participate. Hundreds of South Bay school children, emergency personnel, hospital workers and residents are planning to take part.

The Rancho Palos Verdes Neighborhood Watch Council is organizing a series of evacuation drills that will take place Thursday and throughout the next few weeks. Residents will put into practice the earthquake mantra - “drop, cover and hold on” — and then evacuate to designated assessment areas or place signs in their windows alerting rescue workers to their conditions.

Residents throughout the region will also be encouraged to take time to stockpile supplies — including water, food and basic first- aid kits — to be prepared in the event of earthquake.

For hospital workers, a big part of the drill is testing communication systems and computer networks, ensuring that evacuation plans are well organized and manageable for patients.

“We’re pulling out all the stops,” said Judy Retter, director of emergency management at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. “We’re preparing for an earthquake that has caused a lot of damage and injury within the city of Torrance.”

Torrance Memorial, as well as nearby Providence Little Company of Mary Torrance, plans to begin drills at about 8 a.m., a few hours before the statewide event gets under way. Both hospitals will be testing their communication networks and triage capability with “live” patients in the form of volunteers.

Mimicking a real emergency, the volunteers will be made up with injuries, placed on stretchers and organized according to the severity of their injuries. City police, fire and paramedics will also participate.

“We’ll have a number of hypothetical scenarios that we have to respond to, including stairwells that might be damaged and exits that may be blocked,” said Diane Bassett, spokeswoman for Little Company of Mary. “We want this to be as realistic as possible.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District, along with El Camino College and most districts in the South Bay, also will be evacuating students and corralling them into designated areas.

Across Los Angeles County, a number of large-scale events will be held at the California Science Center, the Los Angeles County Fire Department headquarters and the USC Health Science Campus.

Webster said that even in California, many residents don’t know what to do during an earthquake.

“You need to practice things like this, so that when the big one comes, you’ll take action automatically without even thinking about it,” he said. “If a 7.8 earthquake struck, you won’t have time to think.”