Awareness Day Offers Tips on What to Do If the Big One Hits

Every time the earth shakes, Jenny Eiler says, she thinks: “Oh no, this is the big one. . . . What am I supposed to do?”

On Saturday, Eiler decided to find out how to prepare for the major earthquake that scientists predict will strike Southern California in the next 20 years. The Corona del Mar homemaker joined about 1,500 people who attended the first annual “Great Quake Awareness Day” at UC Irvine.

Sponsored by the university, the Orange County Fire Department and the City of Irvine, it was billed as the largest earthquake preparedness event in county history.

About 15 public agencies manned kiosks, while an equal number of companies sold goods ranging from dried foods to wrenches for shutting off gas meters.

Eiler and her husband John, 54, a property manager, said that because of what they learned, they had decided to set aside a suitcase in their home packed with a blanket, a radio and emergency supplies. The Eilers also said they planned to put survival kits in their cars.

“When the earthquake hits, you could be in Los Angeles or San Bernardino,” John Eiler said. “Or you could be hung up in freeway traffic. . . . With a survival kit, you would have enough food and water to last 72 hours.

“The first 72 hours would be the worst because the police and fire departments probably couldn’t get to you.”

A study released last week at the Second International Earthquake Conference in Los Angeles concluded that fires after a major earthquake on the Newport-Inglewood Fault would destroy whole neighborhoods in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Areas in Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Cypress and Buena Park would be ravaged by flames after a quake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, according to the study presented by structural engineer Charles Scawthorn and sponsored by the insurance industry. Each of these county cities along the fault, which stretches northeast from Newport Beach to Inglewood, would lose at least 1,000 homes to fire.

Firefighters aren’t prepared for these firestorms, Scawthorn said. They would be hampered by broken water pipes, hazardous chemical fires, blocked streets and communication breakdowns, he said.

“This is especially surprising since the largest earthquake loss in U.S. history was actually the fire loss following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,” the report said.

Fire Department Overwhelmed

Dale Brown, earthquake coordinator for the Orange County Fire Department, agreed with Scawthorn’s assessment. “We’re going to have to let a lot of fires burn because we’ll be so overwhelmed,” Brown said Saturday as he manned a booth.

Fires will burn out of control because there is no central place to shut off gas lines feeding homes in Orange County, Brown said.

Last December, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a plan to prepare county facilities for earthquakes. But Brown said the Fire Department hasn’t been able to carry out many major parts of the plan because the supervisors have failed to provide the $3.1 million needed.

“We recognize the danger,” Brown said. But, he added, “earthquake preparation is just one of many high-priority programs competing for county funds. The county just doesn’t have a lot of money.”

Marlene Grauwels said she was surprised Californians have done so little to prepare for the big quake. “We just moved here from Wisconsin last December,” the 48-year-old Irvine secretary said.

“The general attitude of Californians is: ‘Ignore it and it won’t happen.’ Nobody’s really concerned about earthquakes.”

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this story.