Emergency Response Planning for the University of
California at San Diego
Understanding the precautions required to mitigate damage and prevent chaos
during large-scale earthquakes
A research proposal submitted to the Urban Studies and Planning Program
Senior Sequence Class of 2009-2010
November 19, 2009
Emma Reed
University of California at San Diego
Urban Studies and Planning Program
3:00pm Section
esreed@ucsd.edu
Abstract
Recent events suggest that the United States is unprepared to respond to damage caused
by natural disasters. It can be inferred that the nation’s university campuses require
increased attention paid to their own disaster preparedness planning. A lack of direction
at the national level impedes progress at the local level. This research is tailored
specifically to earthquakes in proximity to the University of California at San Diego. The
goal is to ascertain crucial insight into the potential consequences of a large-scale
earthquake in the vicinity and then enact ways to mitigate these. Data will be gathered
through interviews and archival research, in addition to first-hand observation as an
intern for UCSD’s Department of Continuity and Emergency Services. The data
gathered will contribute to the existing literature on disaster preparedness for this region
and aims to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of emergency responses.
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Introduction
Recent catastrophes across the United States have suggested that the nation as a whole is
overwhelmingly unprepared to respond to large-scale disasters. This study aims to determine
how the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) campus could plan effectively to mitigate
damage caused by a major earthquake. To better understand the components of efficient
emergency response planning, this research will analyze the ways in which other regions have
responded to major disasters and then propose improvements and examine how they relate to the
preparedness of the UCSD microcosm. This study seeks to utilize past failures to recognize
where flaws lie and, by so doing, implement new policies and regulations to prevent similar
problems from occurring once again. It also endeavors to understand why so few policy changes
have been made at the federal level to allow for more proficient emergency management. This
research will present a case study of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, an incident that
epitomizes the country’s profound lack of preparedness. The ultimate goal is to provide both
policy-makers and students with a model illustrating how this evidence can be used at the local
UCSD level and, thus, to influence future policy development.
The two fundamental assumptions upon which this study rests are that a large-scale
earthquake, which affects the UCSD campus, will occur at some point in the future and,
presently, not enough direction exists at the federal level to guarantee a well-managed
emergency response. The question, thus, becomes: How can the UCSD community organize
itself at a local level to prepare for potential earthquake disasters and what types of federal policy
changes might aid in the campus’s emergency response system?
The primary issue being catered to here is the intangible chasm between society and
nature. Science tragically has demonstrated throughout recent years that global warming is
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occurring and, as the planet continues to heat up, Mother Nature’s wrath will become more
relentless. This looming threat, however, often goes unheeded by society as a whole. Although
increasingly frequent, large-scale disasters remain fairly rare incidents. Large intervals between
events mean that the federal government tends to place emergency response planning lower on
its list of priorities since money can be diverted to pressing budget issues without being noticed
by individuals who have forgotten about the dire consequences that can occur if they do not take
precautions to prevent them. Investigations into the Hurricane Katrina incident discovered
countless flaws in the nation’s response to the disaster but, most tragically, analysis indicates that
much of the pain and suffering could have been avoided. The Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) has been held most accountable for these mistakes (Calcote, 2006).
The four primary matters with which emergency response planning should be concerned
are mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (Petak, 1985). This study will utilize
analysis done on past emergency response failures to establish ways in which the UCSD
community can improve its own disaster preparedness plan. The first matter the research will
address is the intangible abyss that lies between society and its willingness to understand the
seemingly mysterious behavior of nature. The second matter discussed will be the challenge of
narrowing the effects of potential federal policy changes to the local community level. The final
matter addressed will be how the public entity might participate in effecting the development of
new disaster preparedness policies. All of these issues will be addressed through archival
research, case studies, interviews, and first-hand experience. These matters constitute the
skeleton of an effective plan for the UCSD community to implement in responding to large-scale
earthquakes, and many aspects (such as how evacuations are affected by blocked routes) will
apply to other types of emergency situations as well.
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Current Literature: Discovering flaws and their causes in recent disaster responses
Natural disasters have occurred for longer than human society has existed. Response
mechanisms such as FEMA can be traced back over 200 years to the Congressional Act of 1803
when the first emergency response plans were implemented to respond to widespread fires in
New Hampshire (FEMA History, 2009). The act has since been ratified over 100 times to
include responses to hurricanes, earthquakes, and many other types of natural disasters. The
1960s and 1970s brought with them a string of severe hurricanes as well as the Alaskan
Earthquake of 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake of 1971. These events renewed
legitimacy in the existence of an emergency management organization to keep the public safe
and healthy, though the system remained highly fragmented. This fragmentation resulted
primarily from a multitude of smaller agencies working simultaneously at the state and local
levels. The Carter Administration eventually centralized many of these separate disaster related
programs into FEMA (FEMA History, 2009). Nevertheless, when Hurricanes Rita and Katrina
made landfall on the Gulf Coast in 2005, FEMA’s lack of preparedness and incompetence was
quite apparent.
The consensus among literature relating to the Hurricane Katrina incident is not only that
the situation was handled poorly but that FEMA’s incompetent response actually worsened the
disaster (Pierre and Stephenson, 2007). In their essay After Katrina, Pierre and Stephenson
detail one of the most fundamental oversights made by the agency shortly after Katrina hit.
Federal law guarantees help to disaster victims through FEMA, which includes “financial
assistance to rent housing or the direct provision of a trailer or mobile home” (Pierre and
Stephenson, 2007). Shortly after Katrina struck, Congress appropriated 62.3 billion dollars in
federal temporary housing aid for the disaster victims and placed FEMA in charge of distributing
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the funds. Unfortunately, the agency’s distribution methods fell short (Pierre and Stevenson,
2007). FEMA’s shortfall when it came to placing Katrina victims into temporary housing
situations is very pertinent in this study of UCSD’s disaster preparedness since there are over
10,000 students living in dorms on the campus (University of California, 2007). Many of these
students do not live within easy driving distance of the campus and if a major earthquake were to
occur then students might be unable to make it home for an extended period of time. Funding
for temporary dwellings, thus, becomes crucial for this population.
Studies indicate that factors such as race may play a role in emergency responses. In his
writing Katrina’s America, Michael I. Niman suggests reasons for FEMA’s fundamental
inadequacies. He points out that New Orleans – the city devastated most by Hurricane Katrina –
consists predominantly of African Americans. He indicates that racism played a key role in the
lack of urgency paid to the response as well as in the unnecessarily violent handling of the
situation once military personnel were ordered into the city to “help” in the relief efforts. Niman
exclaims, “There’s something acutely unnatural about this disaster. Because it didn’t have to
happen” (Niman, 2005). Disaster victims were abandoned for days on end living on rooftops to
avoid drowning in the surging waters after the levees broke. Those who managed to arrive at
evacuation shelters like the Superdome were forced to live in crowded and unsanitary conditions
– often without basic food, water, and medicine – until the floodwaters subsided. Questions
were raised about the qualifications of FEMA leaders. The media portrayed the city as in a dire
state of anarchy highlighting stories of looting, rape, and murder. Emergency response efforts
quickly turned away from rescuing the many people still stranded in attics and on rooftops and
focused, instead, on subduing the chaos. (Niman, 2005 and Calcote, 2006). Since the majority of
the victims of the Katrina disaster were middle to low-income citizens, few owned property and,
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of those who did, most did not have insurance that covered damage caused by natural disasters.
This population, hence, has been unable to rebuild their homes and their lives in New Orleans
and many are still living in refugee centers in neighboring states (Niman, 2005). The concern is
that the poor will not be considered in the reconstruction of New Orleans and that the
gentrification that had begun before Katrina struck the region will be perpetuated at a much
faster rate. The African American culture in New Orleans will become a part of its history.
Racism’s affect on FEMA’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster could potentially
play a role in this study. A future large-magnitude earthquake near UCSD could prompt an
extensive evacuation of students living on and around the campus. Although the university has a
minuscule African American population, the percentage of the student body comprised of
minority races is quite startling – over 43 percent is Asian or Pacific Islander (University of
California, 2007). This statistic begs the question: if a major disaster were to occur in this
region, would FEMA tend to focus their aid to university campuses and other communities
whose populations are predominantly white? The hope is that the answer is ‘no,’ but if the
agency’s incompetent response to Katrina was indeed fueled by racism then the UCSD
community cannot count on this response. Thus, the need for research into ways for UCSD to
perfect its own local level emergency response plan becomes all the more pertinent in preventing
unnecessary tragedies similar to the ones in New Orleans.
On a more practical note, implementing innovative technological systems to aid in
emergency responses could be an effective manner in which to deal with large-scale disasters on
the local level. In their article Information Technology, Chan et al detail the challenges
authorities had with responding to the chaos in New York City during the September 11, 2001
terrorist attacks. The biggest problem experienced by emergency responders was a lack of
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efficient communication (Chan et al, 2004). Too many victims were taken to certain hospitals
and too few were transported to others. Many were moved much further than necessary for
treatment. Although terrorist attacks are not natural disasters, the emergency response
techniques certainly can overlap. The most effective method for triaging disaster victims Chan
et al discovered was by assigning each person a barcode and then entering his information into a
universal database so that it could be conveyed quickly from the ground zero to surrounding
hospitals. Preparing a similar system for the UCSD community does not appear unreasonable
given the university’s scientifically advanced reputation. For instance, a system in which a
student’s identification card is scanned as they climb onto a bus could enable an efficient system
for keeping track of which evacuation center they are sent to. This would allow parents and
relatives to locate their students faster and reduce panicking.
Preparing to handle disasters before they strike seems key. According to an essay
(Collective Intelligence in Disaster) analyzing the Virginia Tech University campus’s response
to the school shooting in 2007, Vieweg et al emphasize that the most important technique for
mitigating disasters on school campuses is problem solving ahead of time. Although earthquakes
cannot be prevented through prior problem solving like most shootings can, problems that
perpetuate the damage earthquakes cause undoubtedly can be resolved prior to the occurrence of
a large-scale event.
Four overarching issues that contributed to FEMA’s response failures throughout
Hurricane Katrina are defined in the May 2006 Senate Report titled Hurricane Katrina: A Nation
Still Unprepared:
Long-term warnings went unheeded and government officials neglected their
duties to prepare for a forewarned catastrophe; government officials took
insufficient actions or made poor decisions in the days immediately before and
after landfall; systems on which officials relied on to support their response
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efforts failed; and government officials at all levels failed to provide effective
leadership. The committee also noted a failure, over time, to develop the capacity
for a coordinated, national response to a truly catastrophic event” (Calcote, 2006).
In addition to tragic loss of life and widespread suffering, Hurricane Katrina undermined the
country’s confidence in the government’s ability to prepare for and respond effectively to
national disasters. Although hurricanes and flooding clearly are quite different catastrophes from
earthquakes and the tragedies of the Gulf Coast occurred in a different corner of the United
States, the Katrina case study remains relevant to this research. All three – hurricanes, floods,
and earthquakes – are natural disasters that have the potential to cause immense amounts of
damage even though they tend to occur in different regions. And, despite the fact that the events
appear so different, the emergency responses for all of them actually would be quite similar in
terms of triaging and evacuating victims.
Nearly every emergency management case is a cycle of rescue and relief efforts, which
turn into recovery and reconstruction, and mitigation takes over with the goal of preventing
similar failures from occurring again (Cutter, 2003). The lack of public confidence in the
national government’s ability to respond effectively to major disasters prompts communities to
plan and implement their own emergency response systems at the local level. Although
emergency preparedness studies of other local communities (and countless macrocosmic studies)
have been completed, there exists almost no scholarly literature relating to the UCSD campus’s
earthquake disaster awareness. The importance of small-scale preparedness in the larger picture
is the driving force behind this study of UCSD.
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Methodology
Setting
In order to better understand UCSD’s current emergency response plans and where the
most room for improvement lies, I have obtained an internship with campus’s Department of
Continuity and Emergency Services. I will be collaborating with Phillip Van Saun, the direct of
this program, and observing first-hand the ways in which UCSD responds to smaller-scale
emergencies on a daily basis. Utilizing my observations from this experience, I will work to
develop plans to mitigate injuries and structural damage should a large-magnitude earthquake
affect the university campus.
Data
To answer the aforementioned questions about UCSD’s level of disaster preparedness
and ways that it might be improved, several different research methods will be used. The first
method employed will be the use of archival evidence. This will enable me to find the basic
statistics (like how often and to what degree the San Diego region is affected by major
earthquakes) so that I can use the past to better analyze the current situation on the university
campus. Archival research, logically, will be one of the preliminary steps in this study.
The second method utilized will be extensive case studies. The primary case study will
focus on FEMA’s shortcomings in the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. Although a different
type of natural disaster, the Katrina incident seems most pertinent to this study because its effects
were of such great scale and it is the most recent event of this magnitude in the United States.
The flaws in the Katrina emergency response will be analyzed and compared with the potential
consequences of a major earthquake in the San Diego region. Other events will also be
researched to determine how previous successful response strategies might be applied to this
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study of the preparedness of the UCSD community. For instance, Robert A. Stallings’ and E. L.
Quarantelli’s essay Emergent Citizen Groups and Emergency Management, details the ways in
which an eastern San Diego neighborhood banded together when a deadly wildfire broke out in
1970 and helped each other through the many hardships of the disaster. Despite the fact that this
community was not a university campus, chances are that the UCSD campus could apply this
neighborhood’s strategies to improve its own emergency response plans.
Thirdly, interviews will be used as a method in this research. Experts in the emergency
response planning field – specifically at UCSD – will be most constructive to this research. In
order understand the different perspectives that would have to come together when a major
earthquake struck the university campus, it will also be insightful to this study to interview a
campus police officer to become aware of exactly how they have been trained to lead and
respond in this type of emergency situation.
The final method utilized in this study will be personal observation. Through my
internship position at the UCSD Department of Continuity and Emergency Services, I will have
the privilege to see first-hand the strengths and flaws in the university’s present emergency
response system. I plan to continue participating in UC Ready workshops organized by
Continuity and Emergency Services for departmental business officers, systems administrators,
facilities managers, and departmental safety coordinators. These workshops focus mainly on the
continuity aspect of response efforts and address questions such as how long it will take for
normal daily processes to resume in particular university departments. In addition, I aim to
observe the Campus Emergency Response Team (CERT) – an organization run by Barbara
Haynor of Continuity and Emergency Services focusing on educating campus employees about
disaster preparedness – and utilize its strategies in my research.
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I will also have access to documents (such as detailed evacuation plans) that are not
accessible to the general student body. This unique perspective will allow me insight into a local
level emergency response system. This viewpoint will enable me to advise UCSD campus
authorities as well as policymakers on how they might organize more effectively. The archival
research, case studies, and personal observation will begin immediately, while the interviews and
analysis will commence in January 2010 and be complete a couple of weeks prior to the March
deadline.
Concluding Remarks
This research intends to provide a detailed case study that analyzes UCSD’s current
level of preparedness for major disasters – primarily earthquakes – and then proposes ways in
which the university campus might be able to mitigate some negative consequences. This study
will investigate the events that led to FEMA’s notorious failure in responding to the Hurricane
Katrina disaster and then employ these findings to decide which policy alterations at the federal
level might help smaller communities better prepare for disasters at the local level. A goal of
this research is to fill the gap in current literature, which does not succeed in providing solid
examples of ways in which federal policy changes could dramatically aid communities like
UCSD in preparing and implementing plans to respond to major disasters. This study will then
serve as a model demonstrating how emergency response policies might be altered to prevent
unnecessary tragedies (like the ones perpetuated by FEMA’s mistakes in the Katrina incident)
from occurring once again. It will also provide guidelines specific to the UCSD campus for
damage and injury mitigation in the event of a large-magnitude earthquake. The backbone of the
research will be comprised of individual case studies and personal observation from the
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standpoint of a UCSD Continuity and Emergency Services intern. It is expected that shortfalls
will be discovered in UCSD’s current emergency response plans and a startling lack of reaction
awareness will be revealed among students, faculty, and staff of the university. The ultimate aim
is to bridge the gap between society and its consciousness of the forces of Mother Nature.
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