From: chrisi@spock.usc.edu (Chris Irwin)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: predictions
Date: 16 Aug 1992 19:36:58 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: spock.usc.edu


It appears that I missed the beginning of this thread so my apologies
if this has already been brought up.
 
In article <yyV9oB3w163w@quake.sylmar.ca.us> nateh@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Nate Hawthorn) writes:
> 
>This is why some "officials" will *not* tell the public about a earthquake
>predictions even if it was 100% correct.

I work for the County of Los Angeles Superior Court Departmental
Emergency Coordinator.  What that means is that my boss (which means
me since he has other responsibilities) is responsible for the
Emergency Preparedness program for all of the County Courthouses where
Superior Court is the primary tenant.  Above us is the County Office
of Emergency Management (OEM) and above them (at least in theory if not in
the actual flow of things) is the State Office of Emergency Services (OES).
ANYHOW, earlier this year we received a directive from the County CAO
regarding earthquake predictions and advisories.  In essence (I'm
typing this from home and don't have the directive handy to refer to)
it states that the official policy on earthquake predictions and
advisories is that OES will evaluate all scientifically valid
predictions/advisories and if they feel that there is a high enough
likelihood of a quake striking they will issue an "Increased Seismic
Activity" warning which trickles down through OEM to all the County
departments.  When we receive the OES advisory we immediately FAX a
copy of it as well as a memo detailing "readiness procedures" to all
of our Building Emergency Coordinators (the person responsible for the
Emergency Preparedness program in each individual courthouse).  These
readiness procedures include such things as reviewing the Court's
earthquake plan with all building occupants, alerting Response Team
Members to check their personal protective gear (hardhat, gloves,
flashlight, etc), etc.

Having said all of that, let me point out a few concerns I have with
this system.  First of all, I have no idea what criteria OES uses to
determine whether an advisory is warranted or not.  Second, the
information in the advisory is very vague and sketchy.  There is no
real information as to when the quake is expected, where, what fault
line, anticipated magnitude, or duration of the alert.  I think that
the advisory we got after the Landers and Big Bear quakes put the 
time fram at something like from 3 hours to several weeks (and we
never get notice to call the advisory off).  Finally, due to the
bureaucratic path that the advisory follows, by the time it gets out
to the folks who really need it two or three days could have elapsed
and the event already occurred.

> 
>I think that anyone who has a good idea that there is going to be a 
>earthquake and has some decent data to back it up should be heard by
>any "officals" and the public told about it.
> 
>Let the public decide if they want to listen or not, no "offical" should
>hold back information at all! The "officials" should add their own data
>and information to the data, and can even say what *they* think is the
>percentages of this being true is.
> 
I agree.  Properly educated (about earthquakes), the public has the
right to evaluate the data and make their own decisions.
The only advisory issued to us thus far was after the Landers and Big
Bear shocks.  My experience was that nobody panicked or left work to
"head for the hills".  Rather I got calls from people eager to do
whatever they could to prepare and requesting more detailed
information (see point two above). Of course, we didn't tell the
general public, only the people who work in the Courthouse.

> 
>How would you feel if you read in the paper *after* a big quake that some 
>"official" office had data that told them about the quake but withheld it?
> 

That is why I am so concerned about advisories reaching the proper
people in a timely manner.  We have such a high transient (general
public) population that one of my nightmares is for an advisory to
be issued and received by us late in the day so that by the time we
FAX it out to all the Courthouses  everyone has left for the day and
then for a major event to occur on the Newport-Inglewood fault at 8 or
9 the following morning with the advisory still sitting at the FAX
machine.  Even though we did our best, I'm sure that once the media
learned that we had advance warning and nothing was done they would
rip us a new asshole as only the media can do.

Anyhow, that's my $.02.

Chris Irwin




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