From his seismically unsound office in a building constructed of unreinforced brick, geologist Jim Tingey is helping to rewrite Utah's earthquake response plan after a fact-finding field trip to the earthquake-devastated Bay area.
"We don't plan on having this a command center in an earthquake," Tingey said of the state's Comprehensive Emergency Management Team's offices in an old armory at Sunnyside Avenue and Guardsman Way.State emergency officials Fred May and Tony Popish joined Tingey and David Christensen, a bridge engineer from the Utah Department of Transportation, for a trip to learn lessons taught by the San Francisco earthquake. The team is preparing a briefing assessing Utah's preparedness for Gov. Norm Bangerter this week.
While a majority of Utahns individually might be prepared for a major disaster with their 72-hour emergency kits, public agencies need more communications equipment and disaster training.
"We have the potential for the same size of an earthquake," Tingey said. The most important lesson for the state is Utah's need to shore up its building code.
"We saw some buildings right at the epicenter that were built to code that were in very good condition. You couldn't even see anything wrong with them." And homebuyers should be asking about seismic stability before signing on any dotted lines.
In Utah, most of the buildings constructed before 1972 have major seismic problems, including the majority of schools and emergency facilities such as fire stations.
"We're more vulnerable than California, because a lot of their new construction is very good. We've got a lot of unreinforced brick. We're looking at a lot of vulnerable type structures on our highways."
While emergency crews were quick to respond to the collapsed I-880 bridge in Oakland, the disaster scene was confusing. "You send teams there. But do those teams know what they are doing?" Tingey said.
Tingey observed that a simple way to speed access would be for all emergency vehicles to be marked with an official seal or a red light.
Emergency management involves people management. In a crisis situation, that includes emergency responders such as Red Cross volunteers and search-and-rescue crews as well as victims' families and sightseers. "This is America. You can't just turn them away. Really, you have to deal with them."