Emergency Preparedness

Come hell or high water -- she's actually expecting both -- Nobue Kunizaki will be ready when the dreaded Tokai earthquake finally hits central Japan, whether in the next month or years from now. She's anticipating a temblor that's already got a name as well as estimates on when and where and how mightily it might strike, a guessing game that has rattled even this earthquake-prone nation. But no one, perhaps, is shakier than the petite 39-year-old.

On Long Island, N.Y., hospitals are scrambling to bring extra workers in to handle a 50% surge in visitors to emergency rooms. In Galveston, Texas, the local hospital ran out of flu testing kits after being overwhelmed with patients worried about having contracted swine flu. At Loma Linda University Medical Center near San Bernardino, emergency room workers have set up a tent in the parking lot to handle a crush of similar patients.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday announced a restructuring of the city's emergency management operations, saying the city's blueprint for responding to disasters has not changed since the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Under one of the proposed changes, the city authority that handles emergency preparedness would be chaired by the general manager of the city's Emergency Management Department, instead of the Los Angeles police chief as is the case now. The changes would require approval by the City Council.

Along with California's vigorous efforts to crack down on its own greenhouse gas emissions, state officials have begun preparing for the worst: heat waves, a rising sea level, flooding, wildlife die-offs and other expected consequences from what scientists predict will be a dramatic temperature increase by the end of this century. California's Natural Resources Agency on Monday issued the nation's first statewide plan to "adapt" to climate change.

If meteorologists are right, the storm of the year may be on its way to Steven Hand's backwoods patch of eastern Orange County, potentially transforming the steep, charred slopes encircling his family home into fast-moving rivers of mud and rocks. He knows all this, but on Thursday he just shrugged. "You can't stop a mudslide," said Steven, 16, who has lived on his family's isolated 14-acre plot in Modjeska Canyon his whole life.

In a sobering self-assessment of the response to last year's San Francisco Bay oil spill, a U.S. Coast Guard study released Monday conceded that the first crews on the scene dramatically underestimated the trouble and onshore commanders failed to properly alert the public and local officials. But the 130-page report on the aftermath of the Nov.

Despite raising a record $19.6 billion, the government's recent auction of prime airwaves was branded a failure by several lawmakers Tuesday for failing to accomplish its major goal: producing a national wireless network that would allow police and firefighters to share information during disasters and terrorist attacks.

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.

Groaning and trembling slightly, a three-floor, 400-ton concrete structure was playing its part Wednesday in an earthquake simulation project meant to help prepare California for the Big One. In an obscure area east of Interstate 15, investigators at the UC San Diego Camp Elliott Structural Research Center are testing the strength and flexibility of precast concrete. The goal of the $2.

Six months ago, Orange County transit officials sat down to develop a plan to address a potential nationwide fuel crisis. The worst-case scenario? Gasoline selling for $4.50 a gallon. "Our worst-case is now emerging as our best-case scenario," Art Leahy, chief executive of the Orange County Transportation Authority, recently told KNX-AM (1070) radio. OCTA operates about 475 buses that carry 225,000 riders daily; Metrolink carries an additional 11,000 daily riders in the county.