County Command Center Ready for Any Emergency

By RENEE TAWA

March 23, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SILVERADO CANYON —

The war room awaits.

By helicopter, by four-wheel drive or other emergency vehicle, 19 top Orange County officials will retreat here after a big earthquake, nuclear accident or other areawide disaster.

The leaders will direct relief efforts from the war room and supervise 128 other trained emergency staff workers and liaisons who also will gather here, in the county’s $5.3-million Emergency Operations Center. High atop Loma Ridge, the quake-resistant center is surrounded by barbed wire and stocked with two weeks of emergency supplies, from freeze-dried beef stew to radiation gauges, from 30,000 gallons of water to 16,000 gallons of fuel.

County emergency officials, still smarting from criticism over their response to the 1993 Laguna Beach wildfires, say the center will be able to provide unprecedented levels of communication and support to law enforcement and other agencies during a disaster such as massive rioting or an explosion at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station, three miles south of San Clemente.

“Most people don’t know that this [center] even exists,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson. “They don’t know the planning that goes into it.”

But the center, which opened 3 1/2 years ago, is still largely untested, and its $80-million emergency communications system won’t be ready until 1999.

Meanwhile, under a new state law, the center’s five-person staff has been quietly organizing monthly drills and coordinating emergency preparedness plans with 107 cities, school districts and other agencies.

Emergency officials are prepared for the worst on the remote hillside, home to cows, tarantulas and rattlesnakes, said the center’s manager, Loletta M. Barrett.

The center’s bookcases, computers and other equipment are either chained or reinforced with sticky strips to withstand tremors. Dorm rooms include bunk beds and showers. Supply cabinets are packed with Military Ready-to-Eat meals and bottled water.

If phone lines go down, even if there is a statewide blackout, officials will be able to work around the clock, using backup generators and satellite communications to run telephones, two-way radios and computers, Barrett said.

“It’s in a very excellent location,” said Laguna Beach Fire Chief William Edmundson, who has toured the center. “The isolation from day-to-day operation allows the brain trust . . . to concentrate on what’s at hand.”

Also, he said, the center provides resources “that other counties only dream about.”

Before the center opened, the county’s designated disaster headquarters was the basement of the Engineering/Finance Building in downtown Santa Ana. The basement, which was not designed for emergency operations, was equipped with only desks, telephones and basic supplies.

County officials started planning the 30,000-square-foot Loma Ridge center in the late 1980s as part of an effort to upgrade their outdated emergency operation plans and equipment.

The site--a little over a mile up an unmarked winding road and behind electronic gates--was selected because it is not in a flood plain or near major traffic intersections. Also, Loma Ridge would not be an easy target in the event of civil unrest, Barrett said.

While the county’s plans were evolving, the state also began rethinking its emergency operations after the devastating Oakland fires in October 1991. At the time, emergency crews who responded to the fires from around the state were criticized for their lack of preparedness. For instance, some crews rushed to the scene, only to find that their fire hoses didn’t fit local water hydrants.

(Crews from other California cities were faced with the same problem when they responded to the Laguna Beach wildfires in October 1993.)

As a result, the Legislature approved a bill requiring the state’s 58 counties to adopt a standard emergency response and communications system in coordination with local agencies. The statewide system, which took effect in December 1996, kicks in whenever an emergency involves more than one law enforcement agency or jurisdiction.

Under the emergency plans, counties will direct relief efforts and dispatch workers, supplies or other necessities from cities and other agencies to hard-hit areas. For instance, if a city needs six dozen large tractors to move rubble, county emergency officials will be in charge of finding them.

The emergency system is being used daily around the state in emergencies including the Northern California floods in January and the North Hollywood bank shootout in February, said Tom Mullins, spokesman for the governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

The system does not require counties to build an emergency operations center. But Orange County’s well-equipped center will allow emergency officials to respond quickly and without distraction, Barrett said.

At the center, all of the county’s emergency communications are housed together for the first time, including the sheriff’s 911 dispatch center and a radio network linking hospitals in the county.

In two years, the Sheriff’s Department will get an updated 800-megahertz communications system at the center. The new Motorola network will replace the 400-megahertz system, which is so overtaxed that officers often must wait several minutes before making radio contact with colleagues in other agencies.

Sheriff’s deputies, who are on site 24 hours a day handling daily communications, will field initial calls if a top county official--such as Sheriff Brad Gates or Fire Authority Chief Larry J. Holms-- activates the center in an emergency.

Not all 147 designated emergency officials--including American Red Cross workers, a military liaison and mental health counselor--will go to the center for every relief effort. For instance, only a few hotline workers were called to Loma Ridge to handle calls from the public during the Laguna Beach fires, which occurred only a week after the center opened.

The center also helped handle calls after the Laguna Beach floods in early 1995 and stood by during the October 1996 Lemon Heights fire in case the blaze spread.

After the Laguna Beach fires, some residents criticized the county response, saying 911 lines were sometimes busy and firetrucks took too long to respond.

The fires were handled from the city’s own emergency operations center. But if the county’s center had been fully operational, it could have helped handle more public calls and directed emergency crews and supplies to the city from other areas, county officials said.

Every city in the county has its own designated emergency operations center, such as a conference room.

But in a big emergency, the designated county officials or their backups will be summoned to the Loma Ridge center by beeper or telephone. If the highways have collapsed, or the roads are clogged, the officials will gather at assigned meeting spots and await emergency transportation to the center. No family members will be allowed.

After checking in at the center, everyone will put on a name tag and colored vest. That way, for instance, messengers will be easily spotted in bright orange.

And then, for the first time, the top 19 officials will retreat to the war room.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Disaster Central

After the Big One or another disaster, 19 top Orange County officials will direct relief efforts at the $5.3-million Emergency Operations Center atop Loma Ridge in Silverado Canyon. The officials, working out of a command center, will oversee 128 administrators, employees and representatives from outside agencies. Command center officials will include one or two representatives each from:

* Board of Supervisors (2)

* Fire Authority (2)

* Planning and Development Services

* Public Facilities and Resources (2)

* Sheriff-coroner (2)

* Health Care Agency (2)

* Social Services Agency

* County executive office

* Cities

* Special districts

* Chiefs of Police and Sheriff’s Assn.

* School districts and community colleges