Public Response to a Catastrophic Southern California Earthquake: A Sociological Perspective

This paper describes a hypothetical scenario of public response to a large regional earthquake on the southern section of the San Andreas Fault. Conclusive social and behavioral science research over decades has established that the behavior of individuals in disaster is, on the whole, controlled, rational, and adaptive, despite popular misperceptions that people who experience a disaster are dependent upon and problematic for organized response agencies. We applied this knowledge to portray the response of people impacted by the earthquake focusing on actions they will take during and immediately following the cessation of the shaking including: immediate response, search and rescue, gaining situational awareness through information seeking, making decisions about evacuation and interacting with organized responders. Our most general conclusion is that the actions of ordinary people in this earthquake scenario comprised the bulk of the initial response effort, particularly in those areas isolated for lengthy periods of time following the earthquake

Real-time earthquake hazard assessment in California; the early post-earthquake damage assessment tool and the Caltech-USGS broadcast of earthquakes

A real-time earthquake monitoring system which provides source parameters to user groups through a commercial paging service is now in place in California. A GIS-based system to predict and display near real-time damage and casualty estimates is currently being developed by EQE International under contract with the State of California. These new technologies offer immediate tangible benefits to state and local governments, utilities, lifelines and corporations with facilities or operations at risk. This paper will outline the development of these new technologies, identify the contributions they will make to emergency management and explore some directions these innovative systems may take in the future

Real-Time Loss Estimation as an Emergency Response Decision Support System: The Early Post-Earthquake Damage Assessment Tool (EPEDAT)

At the time of the Northridge earthquake, a number of new technologies, including real-time availability of earthquake source data, improved loss estimation techniques, Geographic Information Systems and various satellite-based monitoring systems, were either available or under consideration as emergency management resources. The potential benefits from these technologies for earthquake hazard mitigation, response and recovery, however, were largely conceptual. One of the major lessons learned from the January 17, 1994 earthquake was that these technologies could confer significant advantages in understanding and managing a major disaster, and that their integration would contribute a significant additional increment of utility. In the two and half years since the Northridge earthquake, important strides have been taken toward the integration of relatively discrete technologies in a system which provides real-time estimates of regional damage, losses and population impacts. This paper will describe the development, operation and application of the first real-time loss estimation system to be utilized by an emergency services organization

Blueberry Progress Reports

The 1982 edition of the Blueberry Progress Reports was prepared for the Maine Blueberry Commission and the University of Maine Blueberry Advisory Committee by researchers with the Maine Life Sciences and Agriculture Experiment Station and Maine Cooperative Extension Service at the University of Maine, Orono. Projects in this report include: 1. Introduction 2. Blueberry IPM Program 3. Guthion Drift Study 4. Control, Biology, and Ecology of Insects 5. Blueberry Diseases: Incidence and Control 6. Physiology and Culture of the Lowbush Blueberry 7. Weed Control in Lowbush Blueberries 8. Pruning Blueberrie

Direct Economic Losses in the Northridge Earthquake: A Three-Year Post-Event Perspective

The Northridge earthquake will long be remembered for the unprecedented losses incurred as a result of a moderate-size event in a suburban area of Los Angeles. Current documented costs indicate that this event is the costliest disaster in U.S. history. Although it is difficult to estimate the full cost of this event, it is quite possible that total losses, excluding indirect effects, could reach as much as $40 billion. This would make the Northridge earthquake less severe than the Kobe event, which occurred exactly one year after the Northridge earthquake, but adds a bit of realism that a Kobe-type disaster is possible in the U.S. This paper attempts to put into perspective the direct capital losses associated with the Northridge earthquake. In doing so, we introduce the concept of hidden and/or undocumented costs that could double current estimates. In addition, we present the notion that a final estimate of loss may be impossible to achieve, although costs do begin to level off two years after the earthquake. Finally, we attempt to reconcile apparent differences between loss totals for two databases tracking similar information

Emergency Response: Lessons Learned from the Kobe Earthquake

The Kobe earthquake of January 17, 1995 was the most devastating natural disaster to strike Japan since the Great Kanto earthquake and fire of 1923. A total of 6,279 persons died as a result of the earthquake; nearly 90% of the deaths occurred as a direct result of building collapse, and the remainder were due largely to the fires that broke out following the earthquake.National Science Foundation Grant No. INT-9512844, a "Center-to-Center" grant on post-earthquake recovery involving the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research and the University of Tokyo's International Center for Disaster-Mitigation Engineering. James Goltz's contributions were supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. CMS 95-21-651, "Emergency Response and Early Recovery in the Hyogo-Ken-Nambu Earthquake of January 17, 1995.

Emergency response and field observation activities of geoscientists in California (USA) during the September 29, 2009, Samoa Tsunami

State geoscientists (geologists, geophysicists, seismologists, and engineers) in California work closely with federal, state and local government emergency managers to help prepare coastal communities for potential impacts from a tsunami before, during, and after an event. For teletsunamis, as scientific information (forecast model wave heights, first-wave arrival times, etc.) from NOAA's West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center is made available, federal- and state-level emergency managers must help convey this information in a concise, comprehensible and timely manner to local officials who ultimately determine the appropriate response activities for their jurisdictions. During the September 29, 2009 Tsunami Advisory for California, government geoscientists assisted the California Emergency Management Agency by providing technical assistance during teleconference meetings with NOAA and other state and local emergency managers prior to the arrival of the tsunami. This technical assistance included background information on anticipated tidal conditions when the tsunami was set to arrive, wave height estimates from state-modeled scenarios for areas not covered by NOAA's forecast models, and clarifying which regions of the state were at greatest risk. Over the last year, state geoscientists have started to provide additional assistance: 1) working closely with NOAA to simplify their tsunami alert messaging and expand their forecast modeling coverage; 2) creating “playbooks” containing information from existing tsunami scenarios for local emergency managers to reference during an event; and, 3) developing a state-level information “clearinghouse” and pre-tsunami field response team to assist local officials as well as observe and report tsunami effects. Activities of geoscientists were expanded during the more recent Tsunami Advisory on February 27, 2010, including deploying a geologist from the California Geological Survey as a field observer who provided information back to emergency managers