Government Technology

California Braces for Fires, Landslides, Chemical Spills and Deaths That Follow a Massive Quake


February 5, 2009 By

At 10 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2008, Southern California experienced a "shaking" unlike anything felt in the region in more than 100 years. A magnitude 7.8 earthquake dubbed The Big One hit the southern San Andreas Fault near the Salton Sea and impacted Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.

The quake and its aftershocks produced between 10,000 and 100,000 landslides. Fires erupted across the region. Five high-rise buildings in Los Angeles collapsed. Roads, railroads and utilities that cross the fault were ruptured. The worst damage was in the Riverside and San Bernardino areas, where the shaking was the strongest and longest. Emergency responders had to cope with chemical spills and potential dam ruptures. Overall, the region suffered 2,000 deaths and more than $200 billion in losses.

Thankfully it was a drill - but one that foreshadowed the chaos that would ensue after a three-minute quake that some seismologists predict is coming.

How ready are the public, first responders and emergency management officials for such a scenario? That's one of the questions regional officials hoped to answer during the November 2008 drill.

Based on this scenario, the Golden Guardian emergency response exercise and the Great Southern California ShakeOut, a drill for the public, were designed to test California's ability to respond and recover during a catastrophic earthquake.


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