BAY AREA QUAKE : Board Wants to Push O.C. Quake Plan, Splits Over Funds

Following reports that the county has spent only a few hundred thousand dollars toward an ambitious $12-million earthquake preparedness program, several county supervisors said Wednesday that they want to push ahead on it. But they were divided over where to get the money.

Supervisor Don R. Roth proposed a countywide vote on new taxes to pay the $12-million bill. Two other supervisors said the money should be allocated as part of the county’s regular budget progress. But the county’s chief executive questioned whether a $12-million expenditure would simply mislead people into believing--falsely--that they’re safe in the event of a temblor the magnitude of Tuesday’s 6.9 Santa Cruz earthquake.

“There’s an assumption among members of the county’s administrative staff that in a 7.0 quake some buildings will be damaged,” Larry Parrish, county administrative officer, said. “If you knew of any building that was likely to fail, you’d want to do something about it. But how do you go in there and do it? There are ways to structure things so that they won’t fall down, but where is the money to do that going to come from?”

Spurred by news reports of Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, however, supervisors acknowledged that more money should be spent to prepare for a major quake here that experts say is all but inevitable.

“I’d like to move ahead (with the preparedness plan),” Roth said. “It’s just going to be a matter of time before we have a serious earthquake like that in Southern California. (But) if there’s a need for $12 million, you have to find another tax source.”

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, however, disagreed with Roth, saying that now is the time to consider shifting existing spending priorities. County officials should take advantage of heightened public awareness in the wake of the Northern California earthquake, he said.

“It’s something that’s hard to get people excited about in the regular budget process because it’s something that seems sort of remote,” Stanton said. “I think we’ve got an opportunity to bring this to the consciousness of the people.”

Roth suggested that voters might be asked to approve more taxes so that the county could hasten disaster preparations already under way. Thus far, the county has spent less than $300,000 on a sweeping earthquake preparedness program first suggested in 1985. But it would cost $12 million to fully fund the program, which includes everything from a public-awareness campaign to dispensing medical supplies during an actual emergency, according to county planners.

Roth said the county, already facing soaring costs for roads and health care, would be hard-pressed to shift funds from other programs. Roth said he was not advocating a specific tax for earthquake preparedness efforts. But he added that if finding new revenue is the only way to pay for it, he believes that the public should be asked if it would consider a new tax.

Shying away from additional public spending, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said the county already has taken “a very serious look” at the potential threat of an earthquake and that a “very progressive program” already is in place. Any additional efforts, he said, should focus on the private sector.

Vasquez cited a program under way to train and equip a network of private physicians to treat the injured in the event of a quake. Under the program begun recently, doctors who volunteer for the training will be equipped with emergency packs to be kept with them at all times.

“Our concept is to have doctors who--wherever they might be, on the highway or at a stadium --would be equipped to deal with the injured.” Vasquez said. “We would have those doctors already trained to deal with the kind of injuries that would be prevalent in an earthquake.”

Parrish, the county’s chief administrative officer, praised such efforts but said he could not assess the merit of Roth’s suggestion to ask the public to consider added taxes for the earthquake preparedness plan.

“You can ask the engineers and the technicians how in a perfect world they would want things to be,” Parrish said. “But that’s probably not what’s realistic in this environment without spending all of your resources getting ready for Judgment Day.”

It would be “unfair” if anyone says “we ought to be prepared to spend $12 million to prepare for a 7.0 earthquake and then promise people that everything’s fixed,” he added. “The effects of such a traumatic Richter Scale number will be serious no matter what, and people will still say government should have done more.

“People should ask themselves what they have done to prepare, if they have their own water heater bolted down, for example. That’s a practical thing to do, but how many people have even done that? It costs maybe $25.”

One thing county officials said the Northern California disaster made clear was that the county needs to work more with other agencies to “coordinate disaster response,” said Christine Boyd, manager of the county’s emergency management division.

“We need to redouble efforts at private work sites to make sure companies are prepared to take care of their employees. We need to redouble our efforts at schools to make sure they are moving forward and preparing to care for and handle students, teachers and staff. And we need to redouble our efforts to build better links with emergency service providers, from utilities to medical, to heavy equipment operators,” Boyd said.

While there exists the Southern California Earthquake Preparedness Project, a multicounty cooperative effort, public works officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties also are finalizing a mutual aid pact for earthquake disasters. The agreement, expected to be considered by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in two weeks, is designed to clear legal and financial hurdles that might otherwise bog down county-to-county public works aid in an emergency.

The agreement would enable the counties to share equipment and personnel that might be needed to clear wreckage or assess building damage. A county receiving such help would pay its neighbor the cost of the services under the agreement. If approved, the agreement then would be presented to Orange County supervisors.

On Tuesday, many local officials wanted to see first hand what lessons could be gleaned from the Bay Area temblor.

Charles A. Nicola, Orange County battalion chief, and Marilee Miller, Emergency Management Division coordinator, were sent to the disaster area to observe and videotape the aftermath, county spokeswoman Helen Lotos said.

Meanwhile, a congressman who represents part of Orange County was planning to fly to San Francisco today to inspect the earthquake damage.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), whose district includes a part of South Orange County, was expected to join other members of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee on an inspection tour of damaged freeways, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, and other public facilities.

An aide to Packard, a senior Republican member of the House committee, said the Congress members expect to meet with officials of the Federal Emergency Planning Agency and Vice President Dan Quayle. The purpose of the trip is to assess damage and make future recommendations about earthquake preparedness.

Next week, Ron Coleman, Fullerton fire chief, and Robert Bade, county emergency services medical director, also plan to tour the earthquake-ravaged area. Coleman, a past president of the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs, said he and Bade did not want to go “rubbernecking” but rather were seeking a personal view of the damage to help improve Orange County’s response to such a disaster.

On Tuesday, UC Irvine civil engineering professor Robin Shepherd headed to the disaster scene with a graduate student to study both structures that collapsed and those that didn’t.

Shepherd, who heads one of several teams from a national engineering research institute that have been dispatched to San Francisco, said gains made in preventing quake damage to buildings and highways come in small increments after experts assess each temblor.

“There are minor changes that occur after each event, and one of our concerns is to see what changes work and which ones fail, or why some buildings are standing even though they’re right next door to others that fell.”

Shepherd said he’s also interested in knowing why the Nimitz Freeway collapsed when other, similar structures did not.

One major issue facing county planners is whether facilities such as John Wayne Airport can withstand a 7.0 quake. The new passenger terminal scheduled to open next April would probably suffer only minor damage in such a quake, officials said, but the old terminal might fare much worse. Built in 1967, the terminal will remain standing, but county officials have yet to decide how it may be used.

In the event of a major earthquake, said Christine Edwards, airport operations chief, John Wayne Airport is expected to remain open but only for emergency flights, even with some runway and taxiway damage. She said the Federal Aviation Administration has portable air traffic control equipment that can be used from card tables out on the field, if necessary.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Steven R. Churm and Lanie Jones from Orange County and Robert R. Stewart from Washington.