SENTINEL WATCH October 10, 2005 Issue

DISASTER PLANNING VS. BEING PREPARED

CHANNING WALKER

NO ONE, outside of the immediate participants, paid any attention to it at the time. But an August 2001 training session with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has since taken on a certain prophetic aura. The emergency training session, as you might have heard, focused on preparedness for the three catastrophes FEMA had projected as most likely to hit the United States. The number one most likely: a terrorist attack against New York City. Number two: a devasting, levee-breaking hurricane striking New Orleans. And number three: a major earthquake in California along the San Andreas fault.

With two out of three of those now history, even jaded-about-another-earthquake Californians begin to ask serious questions. As if to multiply their unease, experts recently announced there's an 80 to 90 percent likelihood that an earthquake of 7.0 or greater magnitude will strike Southern California in the next two decades.

With pictures of New Orleans much too recent to forget, and with the political crossfire still ricocheting as to who is to blame for the lack of planning for New Orleans, a lot of folks wonder about what they can do to avoid similar pitfalls—especially here in Southern California, in what's designated "a zone of high earthquake danger."

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