THE LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE : Best-Laid Plans Prove Solid for Firms After Temblor

Shortly after his 54th-floor office in downtown Los Angeles stopped swaying, Security Pacific Vice President John P. Singleton began to follow a set of corporate rules that had been laid down in the event of an emergency such as Thursday morning’s earthquake.

He quickly called the bank’s computer centers in Brea and Glendale to check for earthquake damage. “People in Glendale were asked to walk out of the building,” Singleton said. “Meanwhile, the computers kept running.”

Planning for the area’s inevitable earthquakes had paid off. “I was very pleased,” said Singleton, who was briefed on operations every 15 minutes. “People kept their heads.”

Los Angeles-area banks, defense contractors, entertainment companies and other firms reported that emergency preparedness plans adopted in recent years held up well in the aftermath of the earthquake.

“This was our first real test,” said Senior Vice President Jack C. Kilhefner at Wells Fargo, which had spent the last year beefing up its disaster plans. “Everything worked out pretty good.”

Carrying out the disaster plans, company officials said, was made easier by the early morning timing of the quake--many employees had not yet arrived at work, cutting down on potential injuries and panic--and the fact that structural damage was limited. Also, telephone lines were working for the most part and, as a result, corporations were able to keep tabs on far-flung branch offices and employees.

Need for Plans Shown

Dianne C. Smith, co-founder of the Assn. of Contingency Planners, estimated that 50% of local companies have plans to deal with earthquakes. And for others, she said, “The quake was an opportunity to show the importance of the need for such plans.”

The quake also revealed gaps in some firms’ disaster plans, said Janet Kugel, president of Extend-A-Life Inc., a Pasadena firm that sells emergency kits of food, water and medical supplies to companies and individuals. One company, for instance, found out that batteries for flashlights and radios were dead. Another found “they trained one person on a floor to do first aid and that person was not at work,” she said.

Officials of California Federal Savings were not prepared for telephone switches to fail when their computer center in Rosemead was knocked out, according Frank M. Piluso, senior vice president for computers and communications. Two employees with mobile phones in their cars were enlisted to help.

But other parts of the plan--including a backup computer center in Rancho Bernardo--helped to restore computer services. “We pulled out the (disaster plan) book at 8 a.m. after we got back up on our feet,” said Piluso, speaking from a circus tent--which had been included in disaster plans--in the computer center’s parking lot. “It would have been chaos if we didn’t have the plan.”

Planned evacuation routes and designated meeting sites kept panic to a minimum, company officials said. At the General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys, 2,500 employees followed routes to designated parking lots and open areas behind the plant, GM spokesman Paul Crook said.

“People were scared,” Crook said, but “most people were walking--there were no injuries from people getting out.”

The quake triggered the formation of special emergency teams and command centers at several companies. At the Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach, the plant security office was transformed into an emergency control center where reports of damage and chemical spills were received and requests for first aid handled, Douglas spokesman Don Hanson said.

Buildings Inspected

Evacuations were followed by inspections of buildings for damage. At Southern California Edison, two miles north of the quake’s epicenter, disaster plans included phoning engineers and contractors to help inspect buildings.

An hour after the quake, Wells Fargo Bank decided to close 11 out of its 200 Southern California branches because of damage, including one with a collapsed roof.

A power outage and damage at the bank’s El Monte data processing center forced the airlift of checks and other materials to Wells Fargo facilities in Northern California.

Security Concerns Told

Defense contractors needed to make sure high security areas remained secure following building and plant evacuations. At Hughes Aircraft defense facilities in several locations, company security officers were ordered to guard at least the perimeter of off-limits buildings and plants, a company spokesman said.

To let employees know of plant and office closings, company public relations officials contacted radio and televisions stations to get word out about plant and office closings. Wells Fargo Bank had previously established a special hot line for employees to call.

Despite its intensity, the quake did not meet the worst-case expectations planned for by some companies. For instance, Atlantic Richfield has contingency plans for everything including destruction of its downtown Los Angeles headquarters. In that event, the company’s offices in Dallas are to take command.

Southern California Edison could operate as five separate divisions--each with its own computer center and management team. At Wells Fargo Bank, emergency planners have established sites where branch managers can pick up cash and deliver records and have installed radio receivers and transmitters at key sites in case phone service collapses. Unocal, which owns Union Oil, has stockpiled a three-day supply of water, food and medical supplies for the 1,300 employees in its downtown Los Angeles headquarters.

To prevent the destruction of valuable records, many companies have copies of corporate records stashed away in advance for safekeeping.