Tag Archives: preparedness

Preparedness

How To Prepare For The Next San Diego Wildfire

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Friday, October 20, 2017

By Brooke Ruth, Maureen Cavanaugh

Aired 10/20/17 on KPBS Midday Edition

RB United President: Personal Preparedness Is Key In Wildfire Situation

GUEST:

Valerie Brown, project coordinator, RB United

San Diego Fire Picture
Flames from the Witch Creek fire light up the early Friday morning sky in northern San Diego County, Oct. 26, 2007.
PHOTO BY JON VIDAR / ASSOCIATED PRESS

In the aftermath of the 2007 wildfires, a fledgling volunteer-run organization called RB United played a key role in helping Rancho Bernardo residents rebuild their homes. The Witch Creek Fire burned down 365 homes in the community.

Following the rebuilding, the organization’s focus shifted to encouraging residents to be prepared for emergencies like fire and earthquakes.

Valerie Brown, project coordinator for RB United, said the biggest missing piece in responding to future wildfires is that people are not prepared to quickly evacuate their homes.

Brown recommends having a to-go bag ready and easily accessible, having an evacuation plan and creating a family communication plan.

“One of the most important things we found that’s facing Northern California today is making sure you’re adequately insured,” Brown said. “We still have lots in Rancho Bernardo that are vacant because people did not have the insurance to ensure that they could rebuild.”

Fire Safe Councils of San Diego County have resources on how to protect your home from fire, Brown said.

Brown joins KPBS Midday Edition on Friday to discuss how residents can be better prepared for the next wildfire.

Evacuation Checklist

United Policyholders, a non-profit organization that provides consumers with resources and information about insurance, prepared this checklist of important documents to take when you evacuate in addition to sentimental items:

Insurance policies and related correspondence

  • Passports and birth certificates
  • Family Photos
  • Tax and loan documents
  • Stocks and bonds
  • Wills and trusts
  • Plans or blueprints of your home
General Information, Preparedness

California Fault Line Overdue for a Massive Earthquake

**GAME CHANGER**

By Associated Press
March 8, 2017


A Highway 14 overpass that collapsed onto Interstate 5 in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles in 1994

 

SAN DIEGO — An earthquake fault running from San Diego Bay to Los Angeles is capable of producing a magnitude-7.4 earthquake that could affect some of the region’s most densely populated areas, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study looked at the Newport-Inglewood and Rose Canyon systems — previously thought to be separate — and concluded they actually form a continuous fault that runs underwater from San Diego Bay to Seal Beach in Orange County and on land through the Los Angeles basin.

The fault poses a significant hazard to coastal Southern California and Tijuana, Mexico, according to the study. It could produce up to a magnitude-7.3 quake if the offshore segments rupture and a magnitude-7.4 quake if the onshore segment also ruptures, according to the study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

Even a moderate quake on the fault could have a major impact on the region, according to Valerie Sahakian, the study’s lead author. “This system is mostly offshore but never more than four miles from the San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles County coast,” Sahakian was quoted as saying in a press release from the American Geophysical Union.

The fault’s most recent major rupture occurred in 1933 in Long Beach and produced a magnitude-6.4 earthquake that killed 115 people.

The study looked at data from previous and new seismic surveys that included sonar studies of the offshore fault. Researchers looked at four segments of the fault that were offset — known as stepovers — and found the disconnections weren’t wide enough to prevent the entire offshore section of the fault from rupturing.

Researchers also looked at the onshore segment of the fault and concluded that there have been three to five ruptures in the past 11,000 years along the northern section and one quake about 400 years ago at the southern end.

Researchers at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory assisted with the study, which was funded by Southern California Edison. It was accepted for publication in the American Geophysical Union’s Journal of Geophysical Research.