The Beach Reporter – December 22, 2005

Hermosa Beach News

HB City officials host emergency town hall forum (12/22)

By Whitney Youngs

In the hopes of informing the public about emergency preparedness and response in Hermosa Beach, city officials hosted a public forum last week in which representatives from the Fire and Police departments, the School District and the county spoke on how their agencies would react in the event of a crisis such as a natural disaster.

“Last year around this time, we started our renewal process of changing the first part of our emergency preparedness, which we completed and is called the Hazard Mitigation Plan, and that was adopted by the City Council some time ago,” said City Manager Steve Burrell at the opening of the town hall meeting. “Our operation plan is in its draft form now. There will be more added to it and so the purpose of this meeting is to explain it all.”

The Hermosa Beach City Council passed a resolution last year on the city’s Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan that is the city’s federally mandated plan allowing it to receive funding from federal agencies such as FEMA.

Hermosa Beach Fire Chief Russ Tingley has been updating an internal emergency operations plan that is now in its draft form by working with a team that consists of representatives from the Police Department, Planning Commission, Public Works Department and the Office of Disaster Management of Area “G” of Los Angeles County, a region that includes the cities of El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance. The biggest natural disaster facing the South Bay is an earthquake, but unlike tornadoes or hurricanes, earthquakes arrive without warning.

Burrell moderated the Dec. 14 evening meeting inside the council chambers that included presentations from a group of individuals including Hermosa Beach Police Chief Mike Lavin and Tingley, along with representatives from the Hermosa Beach School District and the Beach Cities Health District.  “We’ve assembled a group of people who are experts on a particular subject matter,” added Burrell. “Our idea is to do this on a periodic basis, probably once a year, and cover different kinds of subjects as we go along with the overall goal of making certain that everyone is able to be prepared for three or four days by ourselves because that’s what’s basically going to have to happen.”

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the top three disasters facing the United States as terrorists attacking New York City, the flooding of New Orleans from a hurricane and a large earthquake hitting San Francisco. Among FEMA’s top 10 natural disasters prior to Hurricane Katrina, the Northridge earthquake of 1994 ranks the highest in terms of relief costs that totaled nearly $7 billion from the president’s Disaster Relief Fund.

County official Mike Martinet, the Area “G” disaster coordinator, spoke first and said part of his role is assisting cities within the South Bay with disaster training and planning.  “In California for about 10 years, we have had a statewide emergency management system and now large corporations are using it because they know that’s the easiest way to interface with fire, police, government and so on…,” said Martinet. “Now that the federal government has gotten into the picture, after 9/11, it thought it needed a system, too, and we are fortunate because it was modeled after the California system. The bottom line is that we have ways to manage disasters, we are organized, and we believe that we are far better organized than they were in Louisiana and Mississippi. However, if we have an event the size and scope of Katrina, y’all are going to be on your own for days.”

Martinet said that if a big earthquake did damage comparable to that of Katrina minus the water, pipes that are a part of the area’s three aqueducts that all cross the San Andreas Fault at some point could break and people would be without water.  “There simply aren’t enough government employees, much less enough police and fire officers to take care of everybody,” added Martinet.

“They are going to go to the worst situations and help those people who are most desperately in need of help, and that is not going to include people who are just thirsty and hungry. People need to get this message and it’s a hard message to get across. People have to be prepared.”

One question posed was if the city has any kind of plan for all of the animals in town in the event of a disaster like an earthquake.  “We have an Area ‘G’ veterinary disaster team, about 60 volunteers, that can be activated by local police or county animal control,” said Martinet. “So, that is one of things we have in place that is right here in the South Bay.”

Lavin spoke next about the responsibilities of the Police Department and touched upon the basic mission, which is to provide uniformed police assistance 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  “We are in a pretty good mode for either small disasters or emergencies on a regular basis because that is something we just do all the time,” said Lavin.

Lavin said that the department maintains good relationships with nearby departments in cases when mutual aid is needed but also one with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that he considers the department’s “big brother.”  “The city of Hermosa Beach is part of a four-city dispatch center that is located in the city of Hawthorne,” said Lavin about a network shared with Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne and Gardena that has the capacity to tap into communications with agencies like the Coast Guard in the case of an emergency.

Tingley spoke on the inner workings of the city’s Fire Department. “This year in our budget we have included $50,000 worth of upgrades to our emergency operations center,” said Tingley. “We are also recipients of some federal grant money ($170,000) that we will spend on telecommunications for interoperability and those items would include mobile data computers, handheld radios and portable radios. Last year, we received $32,000 worth of personal protective equipment for both our police and fire. ”

The Fire Department is updating the city’s emergency operation plan and a group of South Bay fire chiefs are working together on a tsunami plan as a way to notify residents uniformly with messages on where to go and what to do.

One question asked was what kind of response does the city have in place for a flu outbreak or something to that effect, and Tingley said that that kind of scenario is a component of the second volume of the city’s emergency operations plan that the department is currently working on now. Although he said that no plan is in place at the moment, the city would follow guidelines established by the county until the plan is completed.

According to Martinet, the county is currently working on plans for mass distribution of medication, setting up regional points of distribution for it and has increased monitoring of such cases. Martinet said it would be a response mainly from health officials working for Los Angeles County and less of a response would come from the city, and that a group called the Beach Cities Reserve Medical Corps would help in putting such plans into motion. Martinet also added that the best choices for getting information on a portable radio in the event of a disaster are KFWB (980) or KNX (1070).

Carol Harshman of Emergency Planning Consultants based in San Diego has been working with the city in updating its emergency operation plan and the hazards mitigation plan.  “The operation plan is very important because it helps the city figure out how it is going to work as a citywide organization in a disaster situation,” said Harshman.

Deborah Nobles, a risk management consultant for the Hermosa Beach School District, appeared on behalf of the administration which was in attendance at a School Board meeting scheduled on the same evening.  “The School District has the ability to communicate directly with the Police and Fire departments in the event of an emergency,” said Nobles. “Students will be kept at school in the event of an emergency and supervised during that time, depending on what kind of direction they get from Fire and Police, if necessary, and this is how they will handle student release.”

The staff and faculty’s first priority is with the students, and they are prepared for various scenarios through the practice of emergency drills.

“They know they are not to anticipate help for 72 hours,” added Nobles. “Each of the school’s disaster plan is updated annually so that every new teacher knows what their responsibilities are at the beginning of the year.”

Stacy Wyatt, a coordinator with a branch of the Beach Cities Health District called the Beach Cities Medical Reserve Corps, also addressed the public. The corps is a volunteer unit that is supported by the Department of Human and Human Services and the Office of the Surgeon General that augment medical services during an emergency in Hermosa, Manhattan and Redondo Beach.  “We currently have about 95 volunteers, most of whom are nurses who are all medical or mental health professionals,” said Wyatt. “Our program has three priorities. The first is supplementing the medical services, the second is providing health education services in the community and the third is promoting emergency preparedness.”

One way that the corps does this is by providing emergency medical supply kits for $42 that provide items for two people for three days.

“For us it doesn’t matter where you get your kit but just that you have one; it’s all about taking that step,” added Wyatt. “If we can help you do that, we want to.”

City Councilman J.R. Reviczky who attended the meeting ended the session with a few comments on the importance of emergency preparedness.  “Disaster preparedness is one of the things that I’ve been very keen on,” he said. “I’d like to continue these forums and do so on specific topics.”

The Beach Reporter – December 1, 2005

Hermosa Beach News

City of HB to address emergency plan (12/1)

By Whitney Youngs

As a way to address any public concerns, comments or suggestions on how Hermosa Beach would respond in the event of an emergency affecting the entire town, school, health and city officials are hosting a public meeting Dec. 14 that will take a closer look at emergency preparedness on a local level.

City Manager Steve Burrell is the moderator of the meeting that is expected to feature several speakers including representatives from the county, the local police and fire departments, the Beach Cities Health District and the School District. The speakers will talk about their roles and their preparedness, and hope to answer questions from the audience.  “This is open to the public and we would really like as many residents to come as they can,” said Burrell. “A lot of cities have been doing this, and I think everyone is concerned and interested in making sure that cities can develop a confidence level among its residents so that if anything happened, people would know how to act and to be prepared.”

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the top three disasters facing the United States as terrorists attacking New York City, the flooding of New Orleans from a hurricane and an large earthquake hitting San Francisco. Among FEMA’s top 10 natural disasters prior to Hurricane Katrina, the Northridge earthquake of 1994 ranks the highest in terms of relief costs that totaled nearly $7 billion from the president’s Disaster Relief Fund.

Burrell said the biggest area of improvement comes in the form of communications out in the field and between different organizations during a crisis.  “Communications, because it is getting better and this is a result of what they call innerconnectability, have created a lot easier ways for us to communicate compared to what we have been able to do in the past,” added Burrell. “But still it’s one of those serious issues because as a city you can become isolated when these things first happen. That’s partly why we want to explain to everyone what we, as a city, have prepared.”

According to the Fire Department, the Hermosa Beach City Council passed a resolution last year on the city’s Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan that is the city’s federally mandated plan allowing it to receive funding from federal agencies such as FEMA.  Fire Chief Russ Tingley has been updating an internal emergency operations plan that is now in its draft form by working with a team that consists of representatives from the Police Department, Planning Commission, Public Works Department and the Office of Disaster Management of Area “G” of Los Angeles County, a region that includes the cities of El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Torrance.

The biggest natural disaster facing the South Bay is an earthquake but unlike tornadoes or hurricanes, earthquakes arrive without any warning.  “What one of our plans looks at is our vulnerability and risk-assessment within the city,” said Tingley. “We have concentrated more on natural hazards than terrorist attacks, being a small town, because I think that is where most of our effort needs to go.”

Tingley is expected to speak at the meeting, and will talk about the department’s responsibilities and the resources afforded to them. The Fire Department already has mutual aid operations in place and aid is based on the kind of disaster.  “It seemed after Katrina in New Orleans there was an expectation as to what the government can and can’t do,” explained Burrell. “We want to make certain that our residents are prepared and are able to deal with these things as much as they can themselves.”

Police Chief Mike Lavin is also expected to speak, also addressing his department’s responsibilities and resources. Area “G” Coordinator Mike Martinet, city-hired emergency planning consultant Carolyn Harshman, Hermosa Beach School District Superintendent Sharon McClain and the Beach Cities Health District’s Stacy Wyatt are all scheduled to speak at the meeting as well.

The discussion forum is slated for Wednesday, Dec. 14, in the council chambers at 7 p.m. and will air on a local channel on Adelphia Cable.

The Daily Breeze – September 18, 2005 

The Daily Breeze – December 12, 2005 

The Easy Reader – April 14, 2005

Tsunami alert

by David Rosenfeld

Scientists say if an earthquake strikes hard enough to knock people in the South Bay off their feet, an underwater cliff off the coast of Palos Verdes with a roughly 2,000-foot vertical drop could give way and trigger a tsunami that would inundate the beach cities.

The worst-case scenario would send 40-foot waves into the South Bay coastline in less than 10 seconds, according to scientists who use computers to map out the scenario.

In Redondo Beach, the surge would put King Harbor under water and crest over the Esplanade bluff, deluging homes. In Manhattan Beach, swells would wash over multi-million dollar homes on The Strand then continue up two blocks to Highland Avenue. Hermosa, whose Strand homes and downtown are just a few feet above sea level, would fare far worse.

The scene would not be as horrific as in Southern Asia last December, but it would be devastating for those close to the beach. There would be no air raid sirens or other public warnings to alert people except for the earthquake’s sudden jolt.

Southern California has warning systems in place for tsunamis generated a great distance away that would alert residents hours in advance. But there is no warning system for a “near source” tsunami.

“People will have to react and recognize that if the ocean suddenly recedes it is not a good time to go tide pooling,” said Redondo Beach Fire Captain Bob Engler.

Following the tragic Southern Asia tsunami, Engler and other fire department officials throughout Southern California stepped up their efforts to prepare for a local tsunami.

Adding urgency to the effort was the 3.4 Richter scale earthquake four miles offshore of Manhattan on March 22. Costas Synolakis, director for the USC Viterbi School of Tsunami Research, said the local quake is “cause for alarm.”

“It shows that some faults are more active than we thought. If a tsunami happens on a Sunday afternoon with thousands of people on the beach, it’s a problem,” Synolakis said.

Synolakis and other scientists, including Mark Legg of Legg Geophysical in Huntington Beach, said that a local earthquake greater than magnitude 6.5 on the Richter scale could trigger a landslide in the Palos Verdes canyon or the 1,500-feet-deep Redondo Canyon that would displace enough water to produce a tsunami.

"A big offshore earthquake could be the worst natural catastrophe this nation has ever seen," Legg said. "People have short memories. How many people 40 years from now will remember about tsunamis?"

Several nearby faults pose a serious quake threat, including the Palos Verdes fault, which runs through the peninsula north to south and into the ocean on either end. A fault running from Newport to Inglewood could also trigger a slide off Palos Verdes. The Newport to Inglewood fault was responsible for the 1933 quake that registered 6.25 on the Richter scale and destroyed much of downtown Long Beach.

A 2002 report by Synolakis, Legg and Jose Borrero concluded that a quake triggered by The Catalina Fault on the west side of Catalina could produce an offshore landslide that would result in surges of up to eight feet in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Parts of San Diego County’s coastline could also be at risk as well as South Bay beach cities.

Synolakis and others also co-wrote an article in the current issue of Civil Engineering magazine in which they concluded that Long Beach would suffer the worst damage in the event of a tsunami formed by a landslide off Palos Verdes. They did not analyze affects to the South Bay beach cities. But damage to Los Angeles harbor and the low-lying areas of Long Beach and Orange County could range from $7 billion to $42 billion, not including human life, the report states. The scientists hope the information will help officials determine how much they are willing to spend on a warning system and other protective measures.    

But when?

Caltech seismologists have dismissed the suggestion that the Palos Verdes fault could shake the earth hard enough to cause a tsunami because of the way the fault turns and bends. The entire fault would probably not rupture at once, said seismic analyst Anthony Guarino.

But Legg disagrees. He said the bends in the fault build up even more pressure than elsewhere, especially near the intersection with the Redondo Canyon Fault. He said a massive earthquake in the area could happen anytime within 1,000 years, but exactly when cannot be determined. The last time the underwater cliffs off Palos Verdes gave way, probably causing a tsunami, was roughly 7,500 years ago, according to geologists who examined the sea floor with submarines.

Earthquakes that cause some sort of significant sea level change occur about once every 100 years, Legg said. The last one was the Lompoc earthquake in 1927, which generated 6-feet-high swells in Santa Barbara but raised the sea only a few inches in the Santa Monica Bay.

“A more likely situation is a tsunami generated in a more distant location,” Guarino said.

The chances of a tsunami occurring in Oregon, Washington or British Colombia from a large offshore quake are much greater. There, major fault lines lie directly off shore. In Southern California, there are plenty of fault lines, but the San Andreas, roughly 100 miles inland, is the most likely to generate a large earthquake. Some scientists believe even a large San Andreas earthquake could trigger an underwater slide near the South Bay.

Preparations for the unlikely

For the past four months, since the South Asian tsunami, Synolakis has traveled the world studying the disaster and educating policy makers. Through high tech mapping, his team is able to predict how much havoc future tsunamis might cause. The most impacted Los Angeles County areas would be the beach cities especially low-lying Venice Beach and Marina del Rey, he said.

County officials heeded his predictions in 1998 when Synolakis said underwater cliffs off the coast of Palos Verdes resembled the conditions that led to the 1998 tsunami in Papua New Guinea, generated by a “submarine” slide after an earthquake. Officials quickly formed the LA County Tsunami Taskforce.

Larry Collins, L.A. County Fire, Search and Rescue Captain and a leader for the Task Force, said the group was ready to make a funding proposal to the federal government on September 20, 2001. But the events of September 11 shifted the national priority.

Collins has studied the probability of a near source tsunami in Southern California for more than 20 years. He said the South-Asian tsunami “definitely kicked it up a notch.” Even before that, the effort to raise tsunami awareness was progressing through a series of seismic revelations in the 1990s.

“From the 1980s on, the one question we always asked was in the event of a local earthquake, do we have to worry about a tsunami because it would impact the way we respond,” Collins said. “After the Northridge earthquake in 1994, it became a maybe. That was a thrust fault and we had no idea there was a thrust fault anywhere in LA County. The presence of that thrust fault right there said we have a potential problem.”

A thrust fault occurs when one piece of earth is suddenly thrust beneath another. A thrust fault is more likely to cause a great wave than the more common strike-slip fault, which occurs when one section of earth moves sideways past another section. The PV fault and the Redondo Canyon fault are a variation of a thrust fault known as right-reverse faults.

The current dialogue between seismologists, engineers and fire fighters, Collins said, has been unprecedented. Fire and police officials in Los Angeles and Orange Counties have been firming up emergency response scenarios. The Task Force meets once a month in Redondo. LA County officials hope to get a large slice of the $35 million pie the federal government will soon dish out for tsunami warning systems.

Officials would like some kind of local sea level detector, either hydrophones or buoys close to shore, wired to air raid sirens on the beaches along, with an automated, reverse 9-1-1 system telling residents to move from the impacted zones.

“We have to have redundancy so there is no way in hell it be would like in Asia, with people sitting on the beach not knowing what’s happening,” Collins said. “We cannot take the position that these are remote possibilities and we won’t do anything about it. Even if it’s a one in 1,000 chance, when that event happens we have to be in place and ready to save lives.”

Based on history

“We know how the earth works today because of processes in the past,” Caltech seismologist Guarino said.

If something happens twice scientists can make a reasonable prediction as to when it might happen again.

Southern California has had five or six small, locally generated tsunamis since 1800, but there has never been anything as big as the tsunami Synolakis and Legg warn against. The biggest recorded tsunami from an earthquake in California occurred in 1812 off the coast of Santa Barbara. Historians know this only from the log of a Spanish sailor who wrote that 40-foot swells crashed to shore after an earthquake.

In 1964, the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska caused a tsunami that sent shockwaves down the coast that killed 20 people in Crescent City and even damaged parts of the L.A. Harbor. The Sumatra earthquake this past December caused a 20-centimeter rise in the sea level in San Diego.

Even assuming the County receives federal funds on an annual basis, a local tsunami warning system would not be in place for several years. ER