Self-Reliance Called the Key to Quake Survival

The Day 2 death count in Kobe had already reached 2,000, and the number of homeless and displaced and waterless and foodless was reaching 200,000. The television images of smoking skeletal buildings and rampant human misery were so thick with pathos as to recall Hiroshima. Making matters eerier still was Kobe’s coincidence with the Northridge quake’s anniversary.

That was last week, when the PTA at Topa Topa Elementary School held an earthquake preparedness seminar, delivered by the Ojai Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.

The public had been invited--generic words for substantial notices in daily newspapers and PTA flyers. Timing would be everything. If ever an event could command a crowd of concerned parents in a home-owning but perilous part of the world, it would be this.

Seventeen--read 17--adults showed up.

Row upon row of folding metal chairs went unfilled. A table with coffee urn and pastries went scarcely jostled.

Was everyone home watching “Jeopardy”? “Entertainment Tonight”?

School Principal Carol Holly, a perfectly comported soul, delivered her frustration through a tight smile.

“People will come out to see their kids performing in something,” she sighed, “but not to something like this.”

*

It was clear from the presentation that low attendance was not the result of a prepared, ready-to-cope, disaster-conscious public bored with more quake talk.

“The civilian population expects help quickly,” said Chris Mahon, a captain from the Ventura County Fire Department. “But, in fact, when an earthquake strikes, we’re a bare-bones staff--and you have to be prepared to deal with it for yourself.”

Ample evidence of pervasive public helplessness was provided in Mahon’s least spectacular but most depressing quake fact:

“The majority of injuries in Northridge or any modern quake are cuts on people’s feet. They’re asleep and have no flashlight or shoes near the bed. A quake strikes, glass shatters inward from windows and overturned lamps, and people just get up and start walking.”

Because most people are not prepared, they are, by definition, victims--even if they are not hurt physically. At and near a quake’s epicenter, they’ll go without water, gas, sewage, electrical and phone services--and sometimes the very roof over their heads.

“If you’re an average victim,” Mahon said, “you’re just not gonna see us for three or four days. That’s because our first priority when a quake hits is securing our station and equipment so that we actually can be of help.”

The notion that fire and police departments are as victimized by a quake as citizens seemed to cast a pall over things. Deftly, Mahon continued:

“Initially, most calls into the station will go unanswered. Each engine company has only three people. We focus on triage, or pulling resources together where we can. That’s why, soon after a quake, we’re going to look for able-bodied civilians who are still together mentally. Such people will help us clear roads, downed lines, and effect rescues. And then help you.”

*

The talk was complemented by the now-dated video, “Living on the Fault Line,” in which a Twilight Zone-ish narrator says, among other things, “Time is running out. There will be an earthquake.” But here, too, an unspectacular truth was emphasized: “Moving ground seldom hurts people.”

Obviously, the narrator was invoking the things we all know: Get in a corner or beneath a door frame or desk, stay indoors, cover your head and neck from falling debris--it’s the crumbling ceiling or collapsing floor or hurtling refrigerator that hurts or kills us.

It was the perfect setup for Mahon’s comments and those of his wife, Glenda, a paramedic. She made it plain that self-reliance not only saves lives but gives any family its only chance at enduring trauma:

“I worked on an ambulance for 11 years,” she said. “And I saw that the people who did the best were the ones who were not helpless.”

It sounds so basic as to be ridiculous.

Learn some first aid, keep a first-aid kit stocked and fresh. Have canned food and bottled water for three days, more if possible. Stock batteries and a transistor radio and numerous flashlights. Keep a wrench with which to turn the gas off. Tell the kids where the fire extinguisher is; make sure it is not dated, extinguished. Know that if a power line goes down on your car, do not step out of it till help arrives. Memorize your phone credit card number, as the first phones to be reconnected are pay phones.

And do the simplest of all things: Keep sturdy shoes and a flashlight near or under the bed so you can safely navigate after the world spasms in the dark.

It would all seem so simple as to make “Jeopardy” a more reasoned choice for a weeknight at home in this topographic paradise of a place. But then there are the images from Kobe and facts from Northridge: All those cut feet, all those panicked and dazed and in some cases helpless people just waiting for aid that is three horrific days away.

It’s something a school play could be about.