Loma Prieta Earthquake

On October 17, 1989 at approximately 5:04 PM, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook the Oakland and San Francisco areas. The earthquake lasted for 20 seconds. The epicenter was located approximately 60 miles south of San Francisco, and could be felt hundreds of miles away. Two major factors were involved with this disaster. It was rush hour, and game three of the World Series was taking place at Candlestick Park. Many major overpasses collapsed crushing the cars that were beneath them. Many structures collapsed to rubble including the Pacific Garden Mall, in Santa Cruz that was packed with shoppers. This earthquake caused nearly 10 billion dollars in total damage to the entire affected region. Scientists had predicted that a major earthquake would happen in this area, but were not able to give a specific date and time.

Prior to the earthquake, many of the emergency response organizations had been training for such an event. There were procedures already in place for a large-scale earthquake. These organizations such as the fire department knew the risks of being in a seismic region. Although most of the emergency workers where prepared many of the citizens were not. A combination of apathy and not being educated of the risks and hazards led to thousands of people being displaced and not knowing what to do next.

The response of multiple fire departments was not a problem. Most of them had Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) for such an event. The fire department’s main concern was search and rescue efforts. There were also several fires reported in the area due to ruptured natural gas lines. An evacuation of citizens also was one of the responsibilities of the fire department. Without mutual aide agreements with neighboring agencies, the fire department would not have been able to accomplish search and rescue along with hazard removal successfully.

The Loma Prieta earthquake required local fire departments to use all of the equipment and personnel that they had available. Mutual aide was sent in from all over the state and country. All of the fire departments resources were being exhausted in efforts to remove hazards and rescue trapped people. In order to effectively manage such an event the Incident Command System (ICS) was used. The ICS allowed units and personnel to be assigned to specific tasks without interfering with other agencies efforts. The ICS had multiple scenes with in the structure of it. Each scene had an Incident Commander who then reported all information to the ICS. It was well organized and very few problems aroused.

Another issue was the news media and its perpetuations. At first the news reporters and stations were showing pictures of the collapsed bridges and stating that, hundreds of people were trapped underneath and dead. This information received by the news stations was preliminary and was not confirmed. The news media as we all know love to over exaggerate in order to receive the best ratings. They also like to focus on the myths as well. Some myths that still were being thought prior to the Loma Prieta earthquake was that major earthquakes only occur during "earthquake weather." The common misconception that earthquakes occur during hot and dry weather dates to the ancient Greeks. Earthquakes take place miles underground, and can happen at any time in any weather. Big earthquakes always occur early in the morning. Just as earthquakes do not care about the weather, they cannot tell time. People who perpetuate the time and weather myths tend to remember the earthquakes that fit the pattern and forget about the ones that do not. California could fall into the sea because of an earthquake. The San Andreas Fault System is the dividing line between two tectonic plates. The Pacific Plate is moving in a northwesterly direction relative to the North American plate. The movement is horizontal,