A quake drill to end all quake drills

Ham radio is about to take part in one of the most intensive mock earthquake drills ever held in California.

Amateur Radio Newsline's Burt Hicks, WB6MQV, reports from Los Angeles :

A magnitude 7 point 8 earthquake anywhere would be considered a true killer quake. One that strong rippling along California' San Andreas fault line would likely bring widespread devastation to the region.

Older buildings would crumble and fall. The power grid would likely fail and normal lines of communications would be cut to millions of residents. Even emergency alerts might be hard to deliver because there would be no Internet access
and many of the regions broadcast towers might be felled by the severity of such a quake.

Who would be left to shoulder the communications load? Some experts believe it would fall to the region's ham radio operators to become a lifeline into and out of the area.
And that theory will be tested on November 13th in an exercise that will simulate just such an emergency.

The drill is part of the Great Southern California ShakeOut. It's taking place in coordination with the Golden Guardian 2008 exercise of the California Governor's Office of Homeland Security and is expected to be the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history.

To get a better sense of what things will be like after such a powerful quake, those coordinating the emergency response from San Bernardino's central command, will spend two hours without computers, lights or telephone communication.

Megan Blaney of the county's Office of Emergency Services says that the region will fall back on its backup or redundant
communication. She describes this as being primarily ham radio operators and their own emergency radio gear.

A similar drill will be taking place at the Riverside County Emergency Operation Center in Riverside, California. That’s where 120 people will be reacting to the fictional quake.

According to spokesperson Zuzzette Bricker, KI6PPO, on November 15th that county will also host two large field-day activities for trained community emergency response teams.

California emergency agencies have had quite a bit of experience reacting to large-scale disasters. Destructive wildfires have provided experience in dealing with sheltering displaced residents, gaining access to damage-affected areas and post emergency cleanup.

However, the scope of destruction from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake would dwarf those operations, but experts say that’s the one to plan for.

Burt Hicks, WB6MQV
Amateur Radio Newsline

• This mock earthquake drill takes place at 10 a.m. November 13th.

Source: ARNewsline, KI6BNP, Press Enterprise