Antelope Valley Officials Handle Simulated Quake to Train for Likely Big One

The southern gateway to the Antelope Valley is marked by one of the most ominous geographic features in the Southern California vocabulary: the San Andreas Fault.

This week, about 50 government employees from city, county, state and U. S. military agencies in the Antelope Valley conducted a three-day series of training sessions for what they will do when the San Andreas Fault unleashes a major earthquake. There is a 50% possibility of such a devastating quake in the next 30 years, according to state emergency planning officials.

The training sessions were conducted by officials from the California Specialized Training Institute and culminated in a simulated earthquake that tested the emergency response operation in Lancaster’s newly built City Hall Emergency Operations Center, designed to withstand a quake measuring 8.3. The sessions were the most comprehensive multi-agency training activities in the Antelope Valley to date.

Earthquake preparedness is important in the Antelope Valley because residents are on the front lines; the San Andreas Fault lies just south of Palmdale. That city, Lancaster and the surrounding valley will suffer a stronger shock from a 8.3 magnitude quake than most Los Angeles County areas to the south.

Friday morning’s hectic two-hour exercise involved about 50 representatives from such agencies as the county sheriff’s and fire departments, the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, Edwards Air Force Base and Air Force Plant 42, and the California Highway Patrol. It began with a temporary blackout and high-volume earthquake noises on Sensurround speakers in the Lancaster City Council chambers.

“It gave us a view of reality, a glimpse of what’s going to happen,” said Russ Bird, a Palmdale city employee. “It’s realistic enough to make you nervous about the real-life experience.”

Partly because of its proximity to the fault and partly because of its soil structure, the Antelope Valley is in a “9 intensity zone” on the Rossi-Forel Intensity Scale used by state earthquake planning officials. That zone will experience an “extremely strong” shock in a major earthquake, with partial or total destruction of some buildings.

The San Fernando Valley and surrounding communities are mostly in 7 intensity zones--a “strong” shock causing tumbling of movable objects and falling plaster--or 8 intensity zones, where a “very strong” shock will cause chimneys to fall and cracks in building walls.

“It is difficult to stand or walk in a zone 8 or above,” said Kenneth Murtishaw, nursing director at Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center and designated earthquake preparedness coordinator for the area.

So the Antelope Valley can expect structural damage to many homes, apartment buildings and commercial buildings, landslides in mountain areas and damage to underground pipes, including a natural gas pipeline that runs across the San Andreas Fault and is expected to rupture. The state Office of Emergency Planning predicts one in 1,000 residents will die, four in 1,000 residents will sustain major injuries and one in 100 will suffer a minor injury.

In addition to the quake, residents will have to deal with a number of aggravating factors unique to their isolated high desert location. A major earthquake is expected to shut down the mountain passes of the Antelope Valley Freeway for at least three days and disrupt communications, effectively cutting off the valley from the rest of the county.

“The curtain will come down,” Murtishaw said.

‘Talking North County’

State training instructor Tony Ferrara told the group: “We’re not talking about the Los Angeles Basin, where you have an endless number of resources if you can just get to them. We’re talking about north county. You work with what you have.”

Limited resources and the potential for extreme desert heat, snow or winds will increase the need for effective planning and creativity by those in charge of the emergency response operation, officials said.

Even more than in other areas, they will have to deal with “tremendous family separation” because so many adult residents work in the San Fernando Valley or other areas beyond the mountains and will be unable to return home, said Dave Anderson, Lancaster administrative assistant who heads the city’s disaster preparedness program.

“We’re telling the schools to expect 20% holdovers, students whose parents are stuck down below,” Anderson said.

Friday’s simulated earthquake was scripted and unleashed on participants via phone and radio by a group of simulators from the California Specialized Training Institute, who played the role of all callers from the outside world.

Chlorine Leak

As the “incidents” multiplied--people trapped in a collapsed building at Quartz Hill High School, a chlorine leak at the Antelope Valley East Kern County Water District storage tanks, escaped prisoners at the damaged Mira Loma Correctional Facility--the crowded operations area grew increasingly hectic. There were some smiles when alarmed shouts reporting an aftershock came across radios, but generally the participants played it straight.

“It’s a real overload of information,” said Ron Kallakan, county Fire Department public information officer, who played himself. “The idea is to test how you deal with it. For example, we’re overwhelmed with injured, so we just put out a call for anyone with medical experience to report to Lancaster City Park and directed minor injuries there over the radio.”

The simulation also involved officials and local reporters playing journalists, with a sheriff’s sergeant giving periodic disaster updates on a City Hall video channel. The emergency response operation was directed by top city and county officials, “the policy group,” in a small, quiet conference room separate from the operations center.

Among the observers was Steve Ladd, director of Kern County Emergency Services. In an earthquake, Kern County officials will share resources and information with their Los Angeles County neighbors to the south.

Ladd said the exercise was important because it makes those in charge of public safety in the Antelope Valley realize that they will have to be self-sufficient.

“It gets people thinking about it,” he said.