MISSION VIEJO : District Schools Take Part in Quake Drill

It may have only been a drill, but when a simulated earthquake of 7.5 magnitude hit the Capistrano Unified School District on Friday morning, the response was not taken lightly.

The disaster scenario included a 50-year-old teacher at Shorecliffs Middle School in San Clemente dying from a heart attack and employees at Moulton Elementary School in Laguna Niguel helping a colleague who went into labor.

Meanwhile, at Capistrano Valley High School, the stadium had caught fire and a student was crushed when part of a main building collapsed.

And two students who were members of the cross-country team at Dana Hills High School--where all communications were lost--had to run crucial damage and injury reports to the district emergency operation center in neighboring San Juan Capistrano.

Nearly 30,000 students and about 2,800 employees in the Capistrano Unified School District participated in “Quake ‘93,” the first time all district schools have participated simultaneously in a major drill.

For everyone involved, the simulated disaster--which has been planned for about six months--was a real learning experience, said Ken Harker, the district’s safety/energy coordinator.

“We were testing our communication skills, our reporting skills and our response skills,” Harker said. “I would like to say it was very satisfactory in regard to all of those areas.”

“Everybody took it seriously, right across the board,” he added.

During the height of the disaster, district administrators communicated with various schools using backup telephone lines, facsimile machines and two-way radios in maintenance trucks and school buses. The schools were also told electricity, gas and water lines were down, and that Interstate 5 was closed because of damage.

Emergency services officials from Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Dana Point, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and the Orange County Department of Education also participated in the drill.