Program Prepares Volunteers for Next Big Earthquake

When Ellie Vargas of Woodland Hills feels anxious about earthquakes, she comforts herself with this image: thousands of rescue workers in pea-colored helmets and vests freeing trapped victims, fashioning splints out of newspapers for the injured and shutting off gas mains.

The battalions are no fantasy. They are Vargas’ fellow graduates of a city-sponsored program that has trained 10,000 volunteers to respond to the next big disaster.

The 8-year-old program received its first real test after the Northridge earthquake two years ago today and by most accounts, performed well.

Since then, the Los Angeles City Fire Department has made big strides toward its goal of training “community emergency response teams” for every neighborhood and major employment center of the city.

With a budget of about $1 million, the department estimates that it is training 4,500 new recruits a year, compared to 1,000 annually before the Northridge quake.

The seven-week course covers such safety fundamentals as proper quake-proofing of homes and basic first-aid, rescue and firefighting techniques.

But it also delves into the importance of setting up a triage center to evaluate the neediest patients in the event of mass injuries, and the need to mark buildings that have been searched so firefighters do not waste precious time.

“I didn’t have a clue that someone as small and weak as myself could lift something as heavy as they said I could,” Vargas said. “But I can lift a solid piece of concrete that is five feet by five feet by doing this procedure they taught us.”

After the Northridge quake, fire officials surveyed volunteers to determine what skills had proven most helpful.

They learned that many emergency team members worked in their neighborhoods accounting for elderly or sick residents, bandaging wounds, extinguishing small fires, shutting off gas lines and identifying sources of water.

But the survey also showed that the teams were hampered in their efforts because they were drawn from wide geographic areas and did not have a central location at which to convene.

The Fire Department has since tried to set up smaller teams organized around homeowners associations and other groups and has directed team members to meet at their nearest elementary schools, which will be stocked with emergency supplies.