Workers to Participate in El Nino Emergency Drill

The city will stage a two-hour emergency preparedness simulation of El Nino conditions Friday afternoon, run by the California Specialized Training Institute.

Common emergency problems include people calling in a disaster at the wrong location and people mistakenly reporting disasters and road closures when none have occurred, said City Manager Harry Peacock.

El Nino conditions may result in waves up to 20 feet high, landslides and trees toppling because of saturated soil, said Malibu emergency services coordinator Hap Holmwood. About 20 city employees will respond from the Emergency Operations Center in City Hall in what Holmwood described as “a functional exercise to see how the operations center handles any emergency.”

The simulation caps a weeklong emergency training course by institute personnel and will include ringing phones, a large map showing the location of various disasters, and broadcasts on ham radio as well as police and fire department channels, Holmwood said. The broadcasts will include disclaimers every five minutes that the emergency is an exercise, Holmwood said.

Students from Malibu High School will witness the drill, in the hope that they will talk to their parents about emergency preparedness, he said. No vehicles will actually participate in the simulated emergency.