Simulating the Big One

There were lots of questions Thursday morning.

“What am I supposed to do?” and “I have no idea what’s going on” could be heard among the mutterings of 50 or so chattering in Costa Mesa’s Emergency Operation Center.

The questions and confusion there were no doubt shared among similar centers across eight Southern California counties Thursday morning. After all, that’s what the day was all about, when more than 5 million people participated in the country’s largest-ever earthquake drill.

From learning who was responsible for rescue efforts, to whom to turn to for bringing back electricity or improving communications, Thursday was the day Costa Mesa and Newport Beach city officials aimed to iron out the process, so when the Big One really does come, they will all be ready to respond.

Newport-Mesa and the rest of Southern California were presented with this scenario: At 10 a.m. Thursday, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake centered at the southern end of the San Andreas Fault causes massive destruction and death in the region.

Are we ready?

In Costa Mesa, city workers casually evacuated buildings shortly after 10 a.m., assuredly more relaxed because it was only a drill.

Meanwhile, city leaders, including City Manager Allan Roeder, Police Chief Chris Shawkey and Fire Department Chief Mike Morgan, worked with other administrators to set up the city’s Emergency Operations Center to deal with the fictional crisis.

By 10:35 a.m., it was up and running. Immediately, phone calls began coming in about the damage.

A building at 611 Anton Blvd. had all its windows blown out, a school had caught fire but the children were safely evacuated, and at least one building had collapsed. Emergency officials said the Neighborhood Community Center suffered a partial collapse, and the bridge from Victoria Street over the Santa Ana River had also collapsed.

In Newport Beach, emergency officials conducted a similar drill, evacuating more than 500 city employees an hour before the “earthquake.” After the 10 a.m. earthquake, city officials and volunteers were deployed throughout the city, checking on local schools and neighborhoods. Every school in the Newport-Mesa school district participated in the drill, along with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

Hospital officials said they reacted as if the roof of the Emergency Room had collapsed, and they had to transport patients down stairwells and send patients to other hospitals.

“How you practice is how you perform,” said Shawkey, who had just finished a mock news conference where he fielded questions from city employees posing as reporters. “You do this to see how you can make it better.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].