School District Simulates Quake in Readiness Drill

During a mock earthquake that struck Saddleback Valley Unified School District, search-and-rescue teams “found” 20 people with broken bones and head and internal injuries.

Radio reports from throughout the district were not much better. School buildings had collapsed, with hundreds of students and teachers injured.

Saddleback Valley’s first districtwide drill was designed to test the district’s earthquake readiness after seven years and $75,000 worth of preparations.

“We are very, very serious about” earthquake preparedness, said Ken Anderson, the district’s deputy superintendent and disaster coordinator. “But when you realize that we have 26,000 students, the responsibility of educators after an earthquake is incredible.”

Anderson said each school has stored water and first-aid equipment, and elementary schools have stored food. Battery-powered radios at each school are available for communication with the district’s command post.

“We are assuming that we will receive no outside help for 72 hours, not from the Fire Department, not from the Sheriff’s Department, from nobody,” Anderson said.

He said 20% of the district’s teachers have been given first-aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation training. Heavy jacks are stored on campuses to lift beams, Anderson said, as are firefighters’ axes, picks, shovels and portable radios.

“For the younger children we even have pictures of their parents, because they might not see them for three days and we need that for their emotional well-being,” he said. “We think we have thought of almost everything.”

But the drill was to make sure.

At district headquarters, which was having its first large-scale drill, the alarm sounded shortly after 10 a.m. and 200 or so workers evacuated to the parking lot.

Those employees designated to provide first aid reported to a tent in the lot, while those assigned to search and rescue donned their hard hats, orange blazers and dust masks. Department heads took roll and reported those missing to Anderson, who then sent search-and-rescue teams into the building.

Search-and-rescue team members walked swiftly, ducking into each office, marking those searched with yellow stickers. When they found an “injured” employee, they would radio Anderson, who would dispatch a first-aid team.

The drill went well, but not perfectly, Anderson said. The search teams took too long to assemble and some forgot to check under desks where some of the “injured” were hidden. The first-aid teams were a bit rough in their treatment of patients, dropping one woman on a stretcher on her head. She was not hurt.

“But that is why we had the drill, so we would know where the bugs are,” Anderson said.

At the schools, where earthquake drills are held frequently on a school-by-school basis, the drill went more smoothly.

“They said our (classroom) doors were both blocked and we had to go out a back way,” said Andy Mitchell, an 11-year-old fifth-grader at Del Cerro Elementary School. “But our teacher got us lined up and we made it.”