REGION: Earthquake drill fizzled out in county

Lack of media involvement criticized; annual exercises possible

By DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Sunday, November 30, 2008 4:08 PM PST ∞

The largest earthquake drill in U.S. history lost steam as the mock shock waves moved south.

While promoters of the Nov. 13 Southern California-wide exercise attracted millions of participants in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, fewer than a half-million San Diego County residents got into the act.

The poor showing in San Diego County was partly the result of a failure to coordinate the event with San Diego radio and television stations, organizers and critics said. And they said the imaginary earthquake scenario that envisioned overwhelming devastation in counties to the north, but little more than strong shaking locally, was a factor, too.

However, San Diego County residents may get another crack at it next year, as organizers weigh making the drill an annual event and expanding it statewide. Organizers also are considering holding a drill exclusively for the San Diego area, against the backdrop of a scenario in which a local fault would trigger a powerful quake.

In this first-ever regional exercise, Riverside County led the way as nearly one-third of residents dropped to the floor, scrambled under desks and held on for the duration of the 90-second drill, said Lucy Jones, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena.

San Diego County was near the bottom, with a 15 percent participation rate.

The majority of San Diego County participants were schoolchildren. Elsewhere, there was a broader mix of grade-school pupils, college students, office workers and government employees.

"When 10 a.m. (Nov. 13) came, it was like, 'What if you held an earthquake but no one showed up?'" said Mark Evans, news director for KOGO 600 AM, one of San Diego's most influential radio stations, in a telephone interview Monday.

"It didn't feel like a drill of the biggest earthquake to ever hit Southern California," Evans said. "This didn't reach the nooks and crannies of San Diego."

Indeed, many were not aware of the exercise. And some of those who were, thought it was only for disaster responders such as firefighters, police and doctors.

"In terms of really engaging the public, no, they didn't," said Steve Erie, a political science professor at UC San Diego.

Jones said Friday there was a direct correlation between participation levels and the amount of damage a particular community would experience in the plausible scenario developed for the drill, and that might explain the low involvement in San Diego County.

The scenario for the Great Southern ShakeOut, as it was called, was for a magnitude 7.8 monster to hammer the San Andreas fault, killing 2,000 people, injuring 50,000 others and causing $200 billion in damage. Much of the damage and carnage would occur in Riverside County and the Los Angeles area, and that is where participation was greatest, Jones said.

The low participation in San Diego County also may have been the result of the two recent rounds of destructive wildfires, Erie said.

"Earthquakes are not the first thing you think about," he said. "Now you think about fires."

The event may also have had trouble getting traction because organizers failed to involve San Diego County broadcast media that have the ability to communicate to the public directly and immediately.

"We should have been more a part of it I think," said Evans of KOGO.

Jones said it didn't help that the drill was organized by scientists, who aren't known for being media-savvy. And by the time they figured out they needed to make a concerted effort to pull in television and radio stations, they focused on the Los Angeles market.

As for San Diego media, "we ran out of energy and time to connect with them," Jones said.

As a result, there was extensive coverage in Los Angeles but only minimal coverage in San Diego ---- and no coordinated effort locally to tell residents a drill was taking place.

That will have to change if there is another such drill, said Ines Pierce, a spokeswoman for the Earthquake Country Alliance, the public-private partnership that organized the event.

And there probably will be another drill, Jones said.

State officials want to make the event an annual exercise, she said, and sociologists say it will take practice to adequately prepare people for the Big One.

"It was good practice," said student Samantha Castagna of Carlsbad, after MiraCosta College's observance of this month's inaugural exercise.

But, Castagna said, when a real quake hits, she is not sure she will duck under a desk, as emergency officials prescribe.

"I'd probably follow everyone else," she said. "If everyone got under their desks, I'd probably do that. But if everyone got up and started running, I'd probably do that. I don't want to be alone."

Jones said, however, that repeated practice, coupled with conversations with family members and friends about the correct way to respond to an earthquake, could help her and others do the right thing. Jones added that the holidays are an ideal time for such conversations. But Erie, the professor, said he doubts people are in the mood to talk about drills.

Besides turning this year's drill into an annual event, there may be a need to tailor an exercise to San Diego County, Jones said. It may be necessary to build one around a realistic scenario for an earthquake on a local fault, such as Rose Canyon, which runs along the coast, or the Elsinore, which runs between Temecula and Julian.

Radio news director Evans suggested a local drill would be a good idea.

"I think San Diego should have its own," he said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.