Worried about the Big One hitting Los Angeles County?
Fifth District L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger is.
That’s why she’s asking the county’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) along with other departments to build a visual and oral presentation as part of a comprehensive readiness plan that will be presented at the Sept. 29 board meeting.
Barger’s set-up motion, “Ensuring Earthquake Emergency Readiness in Los Angeles County” will go before the board on Tuesday, Aug. 4. If approved, it gives county staff about seven weeks to prepare a multi-pronged report on how to deal with a large-magnitude earthquake.
Her motion points the light within the county’s own house.
Barger is asking about the current readiness of County facilities, hospitals and older concrete office buildings possibly including the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, to see if there are “any existing gaps that must be addressed,” she wrote in her motion. The question from Barger is: In the event of a large quake, can L.A. County continue providing emergency services to the public, and will needed departments be at the ready.
She’s asking that experts, such as world renowned seismologist Lucy Jones, as well as other scientists from CalTech in Pasadena and UCLA in Westwood, inform the county staff and help develop an in-house action plan, as well as one for the general public.
The impetus for her motion comes from a recent study from scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa that says tectonic stress on portions of the San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems near the Cajon Pass has reached its highest level in at least 1,000 years.
In a press release about her motion, Barger said researchers emphasize these findings do not indicate a major earthquake is imminent. But she added that accumulated seismic energy often gets released via a large earthquake.
“Science is sending us a clear warning and we have a responsibility to listen,” Barger said in a statement. “No one can predict when the next major earthquake will occur, but we know with certainty that one will happen.”
Lucy Jones, world-renowned seismologist who is back at CalTech in Pasadena after retirement from the U.S. Geological Survey, believes the data from the Hawaii study is nothing new.
“We don’t know the time of the next earthquake,” she said on Monday, Aug. 3. She added that the last earthquake on the San Andreas was in 1857, the 7.8-magnitude Ft. Tejon earthquake, which left a rupture scar over 350 kilometers in length from Paso Robles down to the Cajon Pass.
“So we are coming up on 170 years,” since the last quake on the San Andreas, Jones said. “There’s no such thing as an overdue earthquake,” said the seismologist. “Yes it has been a long time but the time of the next earthquake (on the San Andreas) is more like a random generator.”
Los Angeles County has not experienced a large-scale, damaging earthquake since the 6.7-magnitude Jan. 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake. That quake, the costliest in U.S. history, killed 72 people, including those from heart attacks, with about 9,000 people injured. The quake buckled freeways and left billions of dollars in damage to homes, apartment buildings, businesses, hospitals, parks, roadways and utilities. One estimate placed the damage at $25 billion.
That quake was from a blind thrust fault lying underneath the northern San Fernando Valley — it did not occur on the San Andreas Fault, Jones said.
Jones said since it has been 32 years since a quake damaged Los Angeles County, people are lackadaisical about preparing for the next big one. She said there are more than 200 earthquake faults in Southern California, and of those, about 100 or fewer are in L.A. County.
“In L.A. County, everyone lives within five miles of an active fault,” Jones said.
Barger wants to use the Hawaii study, even if it is not necessarily a predictor of an imminent quake, to get people ready for the next big quake, whether on the San Andreas or one of the many other faults.
Jones said the recent twin earthquakes in Venezuela happened on a similar kind of fault as the San Andreas in California. She said that should serve as a wake-up call for Angelenos.
In her motion, Barger wants the county’s OES, Fire Department and Public Works to consult with Jones in prepping the county to be ready for the damage a 7.8-magnitude quake would cause, one that models suggest would produce violent shaking across the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial.
“The County has an obligation to ensure its residents, infrastructure and emergency systems are prepared for a disaster of this scale before it occurs,” the motion reads. That starts with a plan for how the County will provide emergency services, repair infrastructure and ensure safety of its residents.
Next, she’s asking OES and the county’s Chief Executive Office and countywide communications to develop an emergency earthquake readiness public awareness campaign.
One way is to set up an online “Know Your Risk” portal, so residents can find resources from the state, county and other partners, according to the motion. The site would provide information to help residents, businesses, schools and community-based organizations be prepared for a potential earthquake.
Last, she has asked for publicity and outreach in multiple languages that leads to the “Great ShakeOut Day” on Oct. 15, using traditional media, social media, county facilities and transit partners.
The plan would not just focus on the shakeout day, but provide “year-round public engagement strategies” that would make being ready for an earthquake an ongoing public priority.
“Anytime we can get people just to think about it is good. Because big earthquakes are so infrequent, it makes it hard to keep that in memory,” Jones said.