Emergency Preparedness

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.

Four southern Louisiana parishes were under a state of emergency Tuesday after heavy rains poured through the region, causing flash flooding. According to the governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness , a state of emergency was declared in Acadia, St. Landry, St. Martin and Lafayette parishes. No injuries were reported, but at least 77 residents had to be rescued from high water in Carencro , a town in Lafayette Parish, the state agency said.

In the event of a major disaster resulting in massive injuries, ordinary citizens throughout Southern California could call the police or fire departments, hospitals or other agencies that would provide aid within any city.

Four major Los Angeles hospitals are expressing alarm over plans to shut down the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass for 53 hours next month, saying transportation and law enforcement agencies have not adequately prepared for getting medical employees to work on time. The unprecedented closure, required to demolish a bridge as part of a widening of the 405, is expected to cause major delays. It has prompted some institutions in the area — including the Getty Center museum and the Skirball Cultural Center — to close during the July 15-18 weekend.

Ventura County firefighters and Cal State Channel Islands officials will meet today to discuss a grand jury report that questions whether the campus near Camarillo is adequately prepared for emergencies. The May 2 report found, among other things, that the nearest fire station to the new university is at least a 10-minute drive away -- three minutes longer than the National Fire Protection Assn. recommends for a safe response time.

Delivering an impact that knocked her pictures off walls and sent bookcases tumbling, the 1994 Northridge earthquake was pure trauma for Janine Perez. A block wall collapsed at the Santa Clarita house where she lived, the gas line broke and her boyfriend was almost trapped in a room because the door was blocked by fallen debris. "I was scared," said Perez, who is grateful that they escaped with no injuries.

An Orange County helicopter program, grounded during the Laguna Beach firestorms, is being recommended for takeoff, according to a county Fire Department review of local emergency preparedness. The report was completed after last week's catastrophic Northridge earthquake but provides few details about cost and operation of a firefighting air force. Nonetheless, the proposal is expected to get general support today when it is presented to the Board of Supervisors.

A Community Emergency Response Team training is being scheduled. Residents, local businesses and civic groups interested in disaster and emergency preparedness training can contact the Emergency Services Office of the Police Department. Information: (714) 229-6625.

The city will continue to provide emergency preparedness services to neighboring Yorba Linda for a second year, the City Council has decided. Under the agreement, Brea will provide employee education for Yorba Linda city staff members and emergency preparedness education for the public, and will update Yorba Linda's emergency response plan. The contract will bring in about $14,000 a year for Brea, officials said. Brea also provides police protection for Yorba Linda.

Registration is now open for the Fire Department's emergency preparedness training course, which runs from Feb. 27 through May 18. The training is designed to teach participants life-saving skills in the event of an emergency and to help patients survive until other help arrives, officials said. Subjects covered will include emergency preparedness, medical aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and search and rescue techniques.

Structural engineer Kit Miyamoto was giving a speech in Japan on earthquake safety when this month's record quake struck, giving him a front-row seat for the unfolding disaster and what steps might save lives next time. "This disaster basically paralyzed the whole country," said Miyamoto, president of West Sacramento-based Miyamoto International, standing amid the wreckage in this battered coastal city. "We can learn a lot of lessons for California. " What worked, and what didn't?

Officials tried to reassure Californians on Monday that the kind of nuclear crisis facing Japan was highly unlikely at the state's two nuclear power plants. Southern California Edison officials acknowledged that the San Onofre nuclear power plant was built to withstand a magnitude 7.0 quake ? not the 9.0 temblor that hit Japan. But quake experts said the chance of a similar-sized quake ?and a tsunami ? occurring in the southern half of California were highly unlikely. "There's no offshore fault in any of Southern California that's exactly like the one that broke in Japan," said Thomas H. Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at USC. Photos: Scenes of earthquake destruction Steven Day, a seismology expert at San Diego State, said the highest magnitudes believed to be possible at the nearest significant fault lines to the two Central and Southern California plants ?

The threat level has never gone below yellow, once went to red and now may fade to black. The Homeland Security Department is poised to end its five-tiered, color-coded terrorism warning system, a post-Sept. 11 endeavor that has been called too vague to be useful and has been mostly ignored or mocked by the public. So forgotten is the system that the Homeland Security Department hasn't changed the alert level in four years, even after the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

Dennis Walaker, the mayor of this flood-threatened city, closed a meeting Saturday by handing out celebratory cigars to officials -- to be smoked after the swollen Red River had crested. The city had spent an anxious week stacking 1 million sandbags to hold back the river, which was expected to near last year's record height of 40.8 feet. But on Saturday, with flood threats looming throughout the Upper Midwest, all signs seemed to indicate that the city would avoid calamity. The Red River, which flows north through tabletop-flat corn and beet fields, is projected to reach a high mark of 37 feet Sunday -- 19 feet above flood stage.

For all the attention generated by the massive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, experts in California remain skeptical that residents of this quake-prone region are any better prepared for the inevitable Big One. California saw a rise in quake awareness and retrofitting after the state recorded a series of major temblors over seven years: Whittier in 1987, Loma Prieta in 1989 and Northridge in 1994. But there hasn't been a devastating temblor in the state since the Northridge quake, and experts are concerned that quake preparedness may have declined in recent years.

The crisis began when college basketball fans downloaded a free March Madness application to their smart phones. The app hid spyware that stole passwords, intercepted e-mails and created havoc. Soon 60 million cellphones were dead. The Internet crashed, finance and commerce collapsed, and most of the nation's electric grid went dark. White House aides discussed putting the Army in American cities. That, spiced up with bombs and hurricanes, formed the doomsday scenario when 10 former White House advisors and other top officials joined forces Tuesday in a rare public cyber war game designed to highlight the potential vulnerability of the nation's digital infrastructure to crippling attack.

Emergency Services Coordinator Gerald Shamburg will discuss earthquakes and emergency preparedness at a public forum to be held today by Councilman Larry Zarian. The monthly forum, open to audience questions, will be from 7 to 9 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 613 E. Broadway.

Residents who want to learn more about the city's emergency preparedness and want to help in case of a disaster may take part in a drill Saturday at City Hall, 10200 Slater Ave. Sponsored by the city's Disaster Preparedness Advisory Committee, the drill will focus on the likely outcome of a 6.7-magnitude earthquake followed by strong aftershocks, severe damage citywide and a failure of electric and phone service.

With a faraway shudder of the Earth, Californians last week went from contemplating the fates of two multimillionaire late-night comics to confronting horror in a painfully poor country. Half a hemisphere away, homes shattered, entombing young and old. Roads clogged with debris and bodies. The injured begged for help, unheeded. Elsewhere in the world, the portrait was enough to wrench the heart. In California, it was that and more: a chilling look into the future. For those whose livelihoods involve a constant gaze in that direction, there was a fleeting hope that the Haiti disaster would change California's reality: Despite decades of ever more urgent warnings, not enough here are really ready for the big earthquake to come.

When the rain started to fall, Janet Blake started to worry. From the picture window of her home, she could see the stream that was once her street become a torrent of stones, branches and mud. The fire was easier, she thought; that was only six days of worry. The possibility of the mountain sliding down upon her is indefinite. Her husband, Brian Hodge, worked in the other room, and Cooper, their yellow lab, stood beside her, his tail merrily striking the ornaments on the Christmas tree.