Emergencies

Across Africa, people know what to do when the lights go out: Life chugs along thanks to generators, candles, wood fires, paraffin lamps and windup radios. But South Africa prides itself on being a kind of "older brother" in sub-Saharan Africa, more modern, more industrialized and richer than the rest.

The logistics of escape is the main topic of conversation these days for the people who live near an old mining tunnel. How many cars could make it up the snow-crusted emergency road at a time? What if it's 3 a.m., and they're sound asleep? How would someone in a wheelchair outrun a flood? Overnight, these have become pressing questions for the people who live below the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel, just outside this mining town 85 miles southwest of Denver. The 2.

Orange County's Emergency Operations Center, its nerve center during such disasters as October's wildfires, needs renovation or it may find itself a victim of a disaster, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday. Backup power is inadequate, the sewer system can be overloaded, and smoke wafted in during the fires, prompting people to wear breathing masks, the report said.

Alarmed by reports that Los Angeles County mental health staff -- hobbled by a countywide shortage of beds for the mentally ill -- are increasingly forwarding emergency calls to police, commissioners overseeing the department on Thursday asked that a plan to end the practice be presented by early next month. Department of Mental Health workers have turned to law enforcement officials because hospitals are required by law to take emergency mental health patients transported by police.

Teachers and students at Manual Arts High School were still reeling Monday after they said they spent up to seven hours with no official information or, in some cases, access to a bathroom or food after a reported gunman was seen on campus. The allegedly armed student was seen during a lunchtime scuffle Friday and the school went into lockdown at 1 p.m., according to Los Angeles Unified School District officials.

A winter storm lashed the central part of the nation with another blast of freezing rain, sleet and snow Saturday, causing widespread power outages and tying up highways and airports. The storm was expected to continue through the weekend, laying down a coat of ice and snow from Texas to Illinois, where an ice storm warning was in effect until Monday morning. "We're in the middle of this storm," said St. Louis meteorologist Joe Pedigo of the National Weather Service.

Ronnie Kennedy, a utility supervisor from Louisiana, watched proudly as his crew reconnected a severed power line in this frost-crusted city. As thick slabs of ice fell around them, the men in white hardhats kept working. Within minutes, juice was restored to another house. The painstaking process of repairing ice-coated lines and replacing power poles that had snapped under the strain of frozen rain would need to be repeated hundreds of times.

Colleges nationwide are reassessing how to alert students during emergencies, with hundreds of schools seeking advice from campus safety experts Tuesday, the day after the Virginia Tech shootings. Private security firms also fielded scores of calls. Students at Virginia Tech were informed of the violence via a mass e-mail about two hours after the first shooting, and about 20 minutes before the second. Security experts Tuesday urged universities to use a variety of techniques to reach students.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments voted Thursday to urge President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency in the region because of more than 5,400 premature deaths that the state has estimated are linked annually to air pollution. "When we have a hurricane or earthquake, they declare a state of emergency," said Hasan Ikhrata, director of planning and policy for the regional body. "These numbers are out of this world ...

As fire raged in Griffith Park, coming as close as half a mile to the southern side of the Los Angeles Zoo, staffers did what their emergency plan instructed them to do: They focused on securing the animals in exhibits near that edge of the facility. Zookeepers began shepherding four Speke's gazelles, a diminutive type of antelope, into their off-exhibit barn. But one of the gazelles apparently didn't get the memo on fire procedures. He balked. So as the park burned, keepers let him be.