Despite Its Faults, Quake Drill Helps Test City’s Response

As drama, it couldn’t measure up to most disaster simulations--there were no ersatz victims dripping pretend blood, no firefighters desperately attempting a “rescue.”

As a realistic portrayal of what a given Big One or two would produce, it certainly had its critics.

But for the scores of top Los Angeles officials who spent their morning pretending the city had just suffered two major earthquakes, Wednesday’s playacting was serious business. On the second anniversary of the Northridge quake, civic leaders staged a huge run-through of how to proceed next time.

Pretending that early morning quakes had knocked out the city’s underground Emergency Operations Center, officials swarmed to Parking Lot 32 at Dodger Stadium, where a forest of tents, trailers and communications equipment had been set up. As officials tested their communications equipment by taking “reports” from all over the city, Mayor Richard Riordan solemnly prepared to declare a state of emergency.

He was interrupted by an overeager TV reporter’s question about what officials expected to gain from the drill. Riordan barely missed a beat: “Let me declare the emergency first, then I’ll answer your question.”

Emergency declared, Riordan and assorted department heads and police and fire officials moved to another tent and, seated around a U-shaped table, heard “updates” and grilled their underlings.

The anniversary observances also featured an evacuation of City Hall and an emergency meeting of the City Council at police headquarters and ended with a luncheon at the aptly named Epicentre restaurant.

At City Hall, participation in the drill was halfhearted at best.

Somebody forgot to announce the evacuation, so dozens of staffers remained in their offices or roamed the empty halls far past the supposed alarm. At the Parker Center police headquarters auditorium, City Council members who were supposedly gathered for the faux-emergency session sat at a two-tiered dais complete with tablecloths. Each member had a personal microphone, and their customary private snacks were stashed safely offstage.

“If they have to make these life-or-death decisions, you want them to have their snacks,” joked Francine Oschin, legislative deputy to Councilman Hal Bernson, who helped organize the drill.

“It’s not exactly 100% successful,” Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg said of the evacuation and drill. “But the difference is, in a real earthquake, they all would have felt it. The announcement would have been real clear.”

Los Angeles’ premier quake experts offered their own critiques of the simulation’s scenario--a quake in the low 6s on the Newport-Inglewood fault near Los Angeles International Airport followed by a 6.8 on the Elysian Park fault.

Seismologist Lucile Jones of the U.S. Geological Survey said the “almost impossible” scenario must have been dreamed up by someone who “had a fundamental misunderstanding of faults.” She also said the “six deaths, 1,000 injuries” report invoked in the scenario was sadly optimistic.