Unity Helps to Weather Storms Well

Midway through this winter’s El Nino storms, the consensus among county and city officials is that the separate areas that make up Orange County have achieved an unprecedented level of unity--at least when it comes to disaster.

“One of the things showing up now is a newfound cooperative spirit between emergency response agencies,” said Capt. Scott Brown, spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority. “We deal with the potential for nature’s fury on three plains--flood, fire and earthquake. Preparedness is really a mind-set for living here. It’s almost a lifestyle.”

Some public works employees recall getting sneers from residents this fall, when the balmy winds and clear skies seemed to indicate that El Nino was just a manufactured panic that showed no signs of actually appearing.

“During six or seven weeks there we caught quite a bit of flack,” said Lt. John Blauer of Newport Beach’s Fire and Marine Department. “People would say, ‘What El Nino? This is the nicest weather we’ve ever had.’ During that time, our city manager felt we had bought a little time to work with the citizenry, to tell them what was happening and what we were doing.”

That led to just a fraction of the town hall meetings, flier printings and public service announcements about what could be expected in the months ahead.

Blauer and others carefully explained to the public why they were building huge sand berms along the coast and now they say the massive hype and preparation has paid off.

While scenes of waves, mudslides and the very real devastation hitting parts of the county dominate the newscasts, many of the cities have weathered the storms well, officials said.

The relatively simple efforts of cleaning and monitoring storm drains, trimming trees and nagging residents to get their homes in order allowed the bulk of the rain to go where it could be controlled.

Part of the well-coordinated response to this year’s natural disaster can be traced back several years, county officials said.

A statewide emergency management system, which developed after the huge Oakland Hills fire in 1992, has forced agencies at the city and county levels to jointly prepare for emergencies.

“It underscored the need for all agencies to have the same script and to understand the role their agency plays in the bigger picture,” Brown said.

On top of that, the Orange County Fire Chiefs Assn. adopted new swift-water rescue policies and guidelines that urged all teams to share resources, he added.

Bill Reiter, director of Orange County’s Storm Operations Center, said that he has seen more cooperation recently between the various agencies of the cities and the county than ever before in his 38 years of watching storms.

“We’ve gotten a lot more cooperation from police units than you can imagine,” Reiter said. “It’s been a good positive.”

Reiter said he has also attended more citizen workshops, public works directors meetings and other gatherings than ever before.

The work the county has done to clear and add drainage pipes, monitor the roads and make sandbags available has helped keep the damage costs down.

“We’ve really concentrated very heavily on labor forces just to clean the facilities,” he said. “Most of our roads were not deteriorated to begin with.”

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Although this season has had more than three times the rain of 1995, the costs from damage are not nearly as high as in the past, Reiter said.

But individuals and agencies, who may be facing the worst storms of the season in weeks to come, still need to know that only so much can be done in the face of a fierce storm, Reiter added.

“You can tweak a bit, but in reality, no matter what technology you have, it still comes down to one man with a shovel and a sandbag out there against the elements,” he said.

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Perspective is a weekly column highlighting trends or events that define Orange County. Readers are invited to call Los Angeles Times correspondent Lesley Wright at (714) 966-7700 or send e-mail to Lesley.Wright@latimes.com