Interviewer: OK. And Denise, how are you connected to
the Great Southern California ShakeOut Scenario?
Denise Benson: Well, the Southern California ShakeOut
Scenario is actually providing the science by which we
are going to be testing and exercising our emergency
management performance measures. And what I mean by that
is that we’ll be activating our Emergency Operation
Center and bringing together all our multiagency partners
together to play to the scenario that science is producing.
So the chaos that it’s producing, the catastrophic earthquake,
the 7.8 catastrophic earthquake, the devastation to hospitals,
the bridge collapses, road closures, the debris,
the casualties and deaths. All of that science is providing
us with an opportunity to test our response capabilities to
how we would respond in an actual event.
OK. And how is your division in particular utilizing
the science in this scenario?
Well, our division is responsible for managing emergency
management for the County of San Bernardino. We bring
together all of the players including county departments,
private industry. Agencies like Southern California Edison,
the gas company, the CHP, Caltrans. All of those agencies
that might be brought together in a real time response,
that is one of our roles to actually do that in an actual
catastrophic emergency.
Can you speak to what it means to you that this scenario
is based on real science?
What it means to us is that we’re not just practicing.
Normally when we do exercising, we come up with some make
believe scenario. So we come up with something that’s
probably going to happen. But the USGS has provided us
with an opportunity to use actual science on which to base
our responses and our play, exercise play if you will.
So it’s very different for us because we can play to and
we can tell the public that we’re playing to an actual
probability of occurrence. That these things are probably
going to actually occur and that’s very unique to this
type of exercise activity.
And this Great Southern California ShakeOut Scenario is
obviously a huge event. What about the event
inspires you the most?
You know I think for us the inspiration has really come
through our multiagency coordination, the partnerships
that we’ve created, the relationships that we’ve
established with our key players and our response agencies.
We have 24 cities and towns in the County of San Bernardino
and over half of those cities are also engaged in the
exercise planning activities.
We have over 400,000 local community members now registered for the ShakeOut exercise scenario. And we have
19,000 county employees also registered. So the inspiration I
think for me comes from that knowing that the partnerships,
the relationships and the engagement that we’ve created,
the momentum that we’ve created for this exercise is really
monumental for our county.
And Denise, is there anything else you want to add?
Yes, I would to issue a challenge to our residence of San
Bernardino County. As you may know you can go online and
register for the ShakeOut scenario on ShakeOut.org.
Currently, San Bernardino County has about 400,000 residents
registered. Riverside County has about 100,000 more than
us registered. I would like to issue this challenge to our
county residents to catch up to Riverside, if not beat
Riverside in this special challenge. So Riverside, just want
you to know we’re going to be nipping at your
heels in this challenge.
If you don’t have access to the internet at home, you can go
to one of your public libraries where they do have computers
that you can get online. Go to ShakeOut.org and register or
you can call our office or your Local Emergency Management
Office and get more information there as well. We’ll be
working with the local media, both print and radio, and
broadcasting this ShakeOut challenge so get ready folks!
All right. Well best of luck to you, Denise,
and San Bernardino County.
Thank you.