Grim scenario if earthquake strikes Valley
Asobering assessment of likely outcomes if an 8.1 magnitude earthquake that rocked southern Mexico Thursday should strike Imperial County remarked an area seismologist.
The Mexican quake occurred off the coastline about 450 miles from Mexico City, reported the Los Angeles Times. As of Friday, 61 pedestrians have died, 200 were injured and power was cut briefly to 1.8 million.
“You’ve got people a pretty long way from it,” said seismologist Lucy Jones. “But we’d have a lot of people right on top of it. It could cause damage in every city from the Salton Sea to San Luis Obispo.”
Forecasting what may result in Imperial County was Jose Ortega, disaster program manager for the American Red Cross, Imperial Valley Service Center. He was also a volunteer partner for the disaster program manager during the 2010 Easter quake.
“We’d probably have a loss of electrical power, a lot of damage to businesses, cell phone service may not work with so many making calls at once and tourists, shoppers and business people here could be stranded,” said Ortega. “Between here and Riverside, bridges could be damaged, I-8 could be compromised, although alternate state routes would probably still be passable.”
During the 2010 Easter Quake, Ortega did damage assessment. He also distributed Comfort Kits comprised of travel size toiletries. Red Cross then, secured shelter sites at Kennedy Middle School, Desert Trails RV Park and Imperial Valley College.
“We then opened the Emergency Operations Center in Heber coordinated by Tony Rouhotas and Rosa Hernandez,” said Ortega. “They worked to reduce the cost of disaster operations by pooling supplies and sustaining lines of communications between nonprofits, faith-based and government agencies.”
The U.S. Geological Society recently published a hypothetical scenario of what a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault would do. A big threat to life will be collapsed buildings that could tumble down such as brittle concrete foundations and high-rise steel buildings, also often seismically vulnerable.
Southern California could be isolated for a time as the area is surrounded by mountains. The Cajon Pass, which I-15 runs through, the main route to Las Vegas, is also where the San Andreas Fault traverses, as well as a mix of gasoline and natural gas pipelines. Scientists caution there could also be many landslides and restoring power would take several days.
As fires spread across the southland after a quake, firefighting efforts will be hindered because of a lack of water from broken pipes and traffic gridlock. And deaths could mount as firefighters are unable to rescue people before flames burn through buildings.
Valley residents will need to reach out beyond the county for resources noted Tony Rouhotas, Imperial County Fire Department chief and Office of Emergency Services coordinator. “You won’t have power or water so focus on preparing to have potable water, batteries, medicine and critical personal items for 72 hours,” said Rouhotas.
He recommended to visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website: www.fema.gov beforehand to view their checklist of priority items. He also cautioned to secure bookshelves or dressers to a wall and avoid storing anything heavy on overhead shelves. And similarly to a fire drill, prepare a family meeting place ahead of time because of downed telecom; people could be cut off from their own neighborhood.
“For successful outcomes, preparation is not just going to the FEMA website, but actually formatting a plan of action,” said Rouhotas.