Agencies Get Feet Wet Planning for El Nino

Compelled by El Nino’s threats of record rainfall, huge ocean swells and turbulent winds, more than 50 representatives of city, county and nonprofit agencies tested the county’s emergency disaster response system on Thursday with a dry run through a hypothetical hurricane.

Organized by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, the four-hour planning session drew an array of key disaster response agencies, from utility companies and sheriff’s deputies to the American Red Cross, fire department and flood control district.

“It is the what-if game to the extreme, because all of the what-ifs happen here,” said Sandi Wells, spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department.

Held in the basement of the Sheriff’s Department headquarters at the County Government Center, the exercise was designed to improve communication within the chain of command charged with managing the response to a countywide disaster.

“We just oil these gears once a year to be sure we’re all familiar with what we need to do,” said Michael LaPlant, a battalion chief with the Ventura County Fire Department. “This, I think, is one of the most important exercises that we have.”

The practice exercise centered on a hypothetical tropical storm bearing down on Ventura County with up to 10 inches of rain. Under this scenario, hospitals were leaking and threatening to close. Roads were shut down. Twenty people drowned in the Santa Clara River and another 50 pulled from the Ventura River were being treated for hypothermia.

The challenge to participants in the exercise was how to prioritize resources such as rescue crews and equipment in order to handle several incidents occurring at the same time.

“What we were trying to do is prepare them to be ready for whatever nature or man throws at them,” said Dale Carnathan, a senior program administrator in the Office of Emergency Services.

Weather forecasters are predicting this could be the rainiest winter in 50 years, with comparisons already being made to the El Nino winter of 1982-83, when a barrage of storms battered and drenched county shores and caused $265 million in damage across California.

“I think that we deal with potential, and the potential for this occurring this year is probably much greater, based on the El Nino predictions,” Sheriff’s Capt. Arve Wells said. “This is not farfetched.”