Gates ‘Proud’ of L. A. Plan in Case of Quake

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said at the last discussion session of a five-day International Earthquake Conference on Thursday that Los Angeles is “very, very proud but never satisfied” with its emergency plan for dealing with a quake disaster.

Joining other officials who outlined the emergency plan at the city-sponsored gathering of 400 delegates from 30 countries, Gates said the plan needs frequent practice and those working on it must be periodically reassured that they have the attention and interest of top officials.

Gates said, however, that no matter how complete and well-practiced the Los Angeles plan--with its intricate schedule of deployments and damage assessments--may be, it is important to recognize that improvisation according to the exact circumstances of an earthquake will be necessary.

Campaign for Preparedness

The conference, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City, is the result of efforts by City Councilman Hal Bernson of Northridge, who has waged a long campaign for earthquake preparedness.

Today, some participants are scheduled to tour a segment of the San Andreas Fault north of the city, and others are to see Los Angeles’ Emergency Operations Center or earthquake preparedness activities in the city schools.

An expert on industrial seismic damage said Wednesday at the conference that New Zealand’s massive earthquake last month showed that thin-walled, stainless-steel storage tanks--the kind used to store some toxic materials in California--have a high failure rate.

Dr. Peter I. Yanev, president of EQE Inc. of San Francisco, said that, despite experiments conducted on an artificial “shaking table” at the Earthquake Engineering Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley--which tended to show that stainless-steel tanks could withstand sizable temblors--the New Zealand quake, which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale, showed the reverse.

Yanev, who spent a week in the area of the epicenter of the March 2 quake, showed slides of several such tanks lying on the ground looking like squashed cans.

‘Complete Loss of Such Tanks’

“Even when they were anchored to the ground, there was a complete loss of such tanks that were full,” Yanev said.

He said heavier steel tanks, and tanks that were ribbed with steel bindings, tended to hold up far better.

Contacted later, an expert on storage-tank safety in the state said that, since the 1980 earthquakes in Livermore, when many stainless-steel, above-ground wine tanks ruptured, state authorities have moved to ensure safeguards.

Dale Sands, vice president of Clayton Environmental Consultants Inc., a firm that is an authority on tank safety, said that most such tanks above ground are ribbed and that the state requires underground storage tanks to have secondary containment protection, so that, if a tank ruptures, its contents will be confined to the immediate area.

Underground Storage

Sands said that most toxic substances are stored underground in California--about 15% in fiberglass tanks and the rest in steel tanks. There is a move away from stainless steel to heavier composition steels, he said.

Yanev said another major lesson of the New Zealand quake was that main computers should be securely anchored to prevent movement. He showed a picture of one computer that shifted two meters vertically and half a meter horizontally during the quake, ripping out its cables. “This system will be out an estimated 12 months,” he said.