PIERCE COLLEGE : Campus Holds Earthquake Drill

Students, faculty and staff were evacuated from Pierce College buildings and state of emergency procedures were set in motion last week during a statewide community college earthquake drill.

Campus Police Capt. Ken Renolds, one of the event’s coordinators, said the April 2 event was the first earthquake drill at Pierce in the 20 years he has been at the college.

In the nine-college Los Angeles Community College District, only Pierce and East Los Angeles colleges participated in the drill.

“It went real well for the first drill, although we were lacking radios for communication,” Renolds said.

In a critique afterward, officials concluded that emergency information flowed as expected into the command center in the plant facilities building, said David Bush, the college’s building and grounds administrator. The plant facilities building is the college’s primary emergency command center.

Staged emergency situations included “dead” victims and numerous injuries around campus. Someone was “trapped” in the library elevator. There were simulated broken windows, fires, flooding and a computer theft, according to Bush and Renolds.

In areas containing large numbers of students, such as the cafeteria and the library, students followed drill instructions, officials said.

“Everybody cooperated and evacuated in good form with no problem,” said Marty Vargas, cafeteria manager.

“The library was very full, but the students cooperated in taking cover and then evacuating the building. It would probably be a good idea to do this periodically,” said Florence Robin, head librarian.

But some disagreed about the drill’s effectiveness.

“I didn’t think it was useful,” said Jim Lagerstron, speech communications instructor who teaches in one of the bungalow classrooms. “Everybody in my class knew well enough to duck and cover and get away from the windows. But there was nowhere to duck, so we had to move against the walls. . . . There was hardly enough room to get away from the windows,” Lagerstron said.

“The earthquake drill had good intent, but the students didn’t know what was going on. It lacked organization. I don’t think the impact equaled the intent,” said Chandra Pesheck, student body president.