ANAHEIM : Center Is Ready for Emergencies

If disaster strikes Anaheim, emergency services officials will no longer head to City Hall to provide direction and coordination.

Rather, control of the city’s fire, police, utility, maintenance and other departments will shift to a room in a nondescript building about a mile away on Vermont Avenue.

City officials gave the media a tour Tuesday of the year-old Emergency Operations Center, which was briefly used June 28 after a pair of earthquakes rocked Southern California.

The center, one of about five city-operated centers in Orange County that are available around the clock, was also opened during last spring’s heavy rains to coordinate flood control efforts. It could also be activated during brush fires in the Anaheim Hills, major chemicals spills in the city’s industrial areas or during a riot, officials said.

“This is the place where we would bring all of the city department heads together so they could direct emergency help and coordinate the city’s relief efforts,” said Robert G. Berg, the city’s emergency services coordinator.

He said that under most disaster scenarios, Fire Chief Jeff Bowman would command the city’s forces, with assistance from Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy and Public Utilities General Manager Edward K. Aghjayan.

Molloy would be in charge in case of a riot, Berg said, while Aghjayan would take control during a major power outage.

They would direct police to areas where crowd or traffic control was needed, maintenance workers to damaged buildings and structures, and utility workers to downed power lines and broken water mains.

In the center, there are tables and telephones set up for about 40 people who will locate and keep track of trouble spots in the city. There are also spots for representatives of the Red Cross and local school districts.

Berg said the key to the operation is communication, and a group of 83 volunteer ham radio operators have agreed to help out.

William A. Erickson, a self-employed engineer and the group’s volunteer organizer, said that during a disaster such as an earthquake, some of the group members would be assigned to come to the center and monitor its 16 ham radios. Others will be asked to drive around their neighborhoods and use their radios to report damage or injuries.

One radio is reserved for communication with Disneyland, which has agreed to be a major staging area for local disaster relief, Erickson said.

“Disneyland will be helpful to us in a lot of ways,” Erickson said. “They have a big parking lot where people who are evacuated could gather, and the facilities to feed them.”

But what will happen if the center itself is destroyed during an earthquake?

“We are converting an old bookmobile into a mobile command center,” Berg said. “If the building were to collapse, we’d pull it up to the curb and go to work.”