DRILLS HELP PREPARE RESPONSE TO MAJOR QUAKES

inspected every bridge within a 50-mile radius of the epicenter and found them all to be structurally sound.

“Nevada as a state has the best-rated bridges and roads in the country,” Illia said.

In addition to being built to withstandseismicevents,nevada’s roads and bridges are all fairly new. “We’re not necessarily caught in the same position as California, in terms of resources or financing and reinvesting in infrastructure.”

The disconnect between the needs and resources of the two states has been an obstacle to keeping the California to Nevada roads clear of gridlock. Illia points out that the Nevada portion of I-15 is “smooth, freshly paved, with divided highways,” while the California portion of the highway “isn’t as good as we wish it were.” While NDOT does collaborate with Caltrans District 8, there’s only so much Nevada can do to improve the California portion of the Interstate15.

“They have different priorities and resources,” Illia said.

Every few years, Nevada teams with officials in California and other agencies (the National Guard; Las Vegas Metro Police; Nevada Highway Patrol; the gas, electrical and water companies, etc.) to perform a large-scale coordinated earthquake drill. The most recent one, which took place in 2016, tested a scenario in which an earthquake shook Las Vegas and was followed by a major earthquake in California along the San Andreas fault.

Such exercises help emergency responders prepare and help planners establish steps to be undertaken and roles to be filled. Illia said NDOT just conducted an exercise with Project Neon, testing out the response to a truck spilling toxic chemicals and downing power lines.

“We took a day and came up with a worst-case scenario,” Illia said. The tests determined “what wouldwedo,howtorespondand how we would go about setting up a command center.”

NDOT also looks at what it would do in case of fuel shortages in an emergency scenario. NDOT has a fleet of state vehicles and its own refueling facilities.

In the case of a catastrophic event, however, it would need to ration fuel to save enough to operate needed heavy machinery, say for removing rubble from a roadway or clearing a landslide caused by an earthquake.

“It’s always good to be prepared for the worst as much as you can be,” Illia said.