EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : ‘Dress-Rehearsal’ for The Big One Offered Invaluable Lessons

Firefighter Patrick Killian of the Los Angeles City Fire Department’s Disaster Preparedness Division is a specialist in earthquake preparedness. In his Sherman Oaks office late last week, he discussed lessons of the Northridge quake with Times correspondent Rebecca Bryant.

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Question. Did the experiences of this earthquake reaffirm everything we believed about how to prepare for a quake and what to do during one?

Answer. It does definitely reaffirm. You have to be prepared, as you can see with the water problems we’re having right now. You need to have a supply of water at your house, and you need to rotate it so that’s it’s good drinkable water. Things like that. Do you have an alternate route to get in and out of places that you want to go? I mean, obviously, the San Fernando Valley was pretty much cut off for a time.

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Q. Has what we should do during an earthquake--heading for a hallway, staying put inside--has anything changed?

A. Yes. We noticed with the collapsed apartment buildings that some beds, because they would compress, left a gap between where the ceiling collapsed and the ground. We have told people in the past to stay on the bed to keep from being thrown hither and yon. We will now suggest that they roll off their bed and be right next to their bed during an earthquake. We don’t know how much difference it will make. It’s all still too preliminary, too early right now. But we will suggest that people roll off their bed.

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Q. We’re always hearing you shouldn’t run outside during a quake. Yet a lot of those killed last week died when their buildings collapsed. Isn’t it prudent to get out of a building?

A. No, it is not. It is worse to run outside, because a lot more things are going to fall on top of you--roof tiles, chimney bricks, that sort of thing. So even though those buildings collapsed, in general people running outside are more at risk of injury or death. You’d be surprised at how many people think, “I’ve got to get out of this building because it’s going to collapse.” But in most cases it’s not.

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Q. What have you learned in terms of preparing? Is there anything that you hadn’t thought of, anything new?

A. Probably the length of time people should prepare for. We tell people basically to plan on camping for a week. If they can camp for a week, if they are totally self-sufficient for a week, we should be able to get supplies into the area via the Red Cross. I would feel very comfortable saying two weeks now. Because this was a moderate earthquake. This wasn’t “The Big One.” And look what it’s done to this city. It has overwhelmed our resources.

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Q. How is The Big One going to be different from the Northridge earthquake in terms of simply surviving and then recovering?

A. It will depend a lot of the type of waves that hit. There are different types of earthquake waves that will help determine the destruction of that particular quake. This one was pretty much centered in the Valley, although downtown and West L. A. had pockets of devastation.

The Big One is going to be farther reaching. It’s going to affect Riverside County, and they’re here helping us this week. It’s going to affect San Bernardino. It’s going to affect L. A. County as a whole. They won’t be able to drop what they’re doing and come help us, because they’re going to be having their own problems. Things will move slower, because everybody will have their own situation, their own areas to deal with. We will be more responsible for our area.

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Q. Is the disaster preparedness office getting more calls than usual in the few days after the earthquake?

A. Oh, yes. The calls range from, “How do I shut off my gas?” to “When can we have you out for a one-hour slide show and lecture on earthquake preparedness?”

One thing you have to realize is that only 18% of the population even cares about The Big One. Only 18% of the population is willing to do anything to get prepared for the major earthquake. Right now it seems we’re going to be flooded with calls, and our phone’s going to be ringing off the hook. But in a few months it will die down and people will get complacent again.

And they can’t do that. They can’t afford to do that. This was the wake-up call. Wake up and get ready, because it’s going to happen. You magnify this 6.6 times anywhere between 10 and 100 and make it citywide, and definitely this type of quake would have been a lot worse. The San Andreas, when it ruptures, they’re guesstimating will be anywhere between an 8.0 and a 9.2.

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Q. So this is almost a dress rehearsal, just a warm-up?

A. Yes, very much so. One thing that it impressed upon me is that people need to be prepared in all aspects of their life. Meaning not just prepared for The Big One, not just prepared with their food and water and medical supplies and things like that, but do they have their information? Do they have their insurance forms where they can get to them readily?

Do they have all their personal items accounted for? Do they have videos or pictures of their personal items, you know, for after the quake and the devastation and they have to turn these in to their insurance people?

Do they have out-of-state contact? You can’t call into the devastated area, you have to have your out-of-state contacts set up. And if you don’t, no one is going to know how you’re doing. You’re going to be that much more isolated from everybody else.

Do you have a next-of-kin-type of notification made out? If you get killed, do you have plans for what you do with your children? You don’t want to think about that. It’s doom and gloom. But that’s the reality. The percentage of people who got killed in this one was extremely low. Even the number of deaths they’re guesstimating in The Big One is going to still be a low percentage. A high number but a very low percentage compared to the number of people it’s going to affect. But still, you could be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Q. What else should people do to prepare?

A. Water, food, first aid, an alternate place to live. That’s another thing to think about. Would these people be in a park now if they had already thought about having an alternate place to live outside of their devastated area, miles away? Do you have someone in Northern California you could stay with? Someone in Nevada? Arizona?

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Q. Some parents I spoke to said the idea of staying in bed, crouching in a doorway, didn’t even occur to them during the earthquake. They were going straight to their children. One woman died trying to reach her child. What do you say to parents?

A. In our presentations, we tell them that that’s exactly what they’re going to do. That most people, the first thought in their mind is, “Is this The Big One? Is it going to get bigger?” That’s what they’re thinking. And we reinforce in our presentation that they have to take an action. The minute the ground starts shaking, don’t sit there and say, “Is this The Big One?” Take your action.

If it’s go for your kids, then go for your kids. We can’t tell someone who’s got a 2-year-old, it’s ridiculous for me to sit here and say, “No no, no, don’t go for your kid. Protect yourself and go for your kids later.” They’re not going to do that. If they take that action immediately when the ground starts shaking, then they’ve got a better chance of getting to their child.

And then have a plan of action once you get to your child. Are you going to just throw your body over your child or are you going to get down and lie by the bed? If you sit there and wait to see if it’s The Big One, you’re going to become a casualty, as opposed to assisting somebody.

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Q. You mentioned that about 18% of the population bother to prepare for an earthquake. Do you think that percentage will rise permanently after this or will it be temporary?

A. I think it will rise, and then we’ll see it peak out and level off and go down again. If The Big One doesn’t happen for five years, I think we’ll be back down to the 18%. People will put all these supplies away. They will have used them in their house, they won’t have rotated them and they will have gone stale. They’ll become complacent again. And it will be back down to where we’re at now.

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Q. Doesn’t that frustrate the heck out of you, doing what you do?

A. It’s frustrating when we go out to a presentation when we know 5,000 notices have been sent out to people and we’re giving a presentation in a school and only 100 people show up or only 40 people show up. Or any school where they’ve got 300 or 400 families and only 10 or 15 people show up. This is information that is potentially going to save lives.

It’s not that people don’t care. It’s that a lot of people don’t want to think about it because it’s a doom-and-gloom-type of subject. And I think human nature is basically lazy.

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Q. Now that you’ve got their attention, what would you say to those people?

A. Get prepared. Take notice. Don’t look at these collapsed apartments and the (55) people who’ve passed away and say, “It’s no use; why get prepared?” Because that is a very low percentage. The percentage is very low of people who are going to die. And chances are you’re going to live.

But the question is how are you going to live? . . . You’re going to be on your own for a period of time. You won’t have the Fire Department, you won’t have the Police Department, you won’t call 911 and get an ambulance there. You have to be able to take care of yourself. And you are going to live, probably, so be prepared.