Hi. I’m Cindy Pridmore, senior engineering geologist at the California
Geological Survey, and I work within the Seismic Hazards Mapping Program.
I’m also chair of the California Earthquake Clearinghouse.
I’ll be talking about California Geological Survey and the California
Post-Earthquake Clearinghouse earthquake response.
The California Geological Survey, during an emergency,
operates according to the state emergency plan.
The specific functions are defined under a memorandum of agreement
between CGS and the California Office of Emergency
Services established under the authority of an executive order.
The MOA states that the CGS is to provide geotechnical data and advice to
Cal OES regarding natural hazards in support of emergency planning and
information support as required during the state disaster response operations.
CGS coordinates its emergency response with other state, local,
academic, and private entities and coordinates investigations
with the USGS under a memorandum of understanding.
Following an earthquake or other natural hazard, CGS may set up
an emergency operations center and/or an event information center.
The EOC facilitates coordination of CGS response and provides
geohazard info to the Cal OES State Operations Center.
The EIC serves as a hub for exchange of geoscience information.
When the California Earthquake Clearinghouse is activated,
it basically functions as the CGS EOC and EIC.
For earthquake response, CGS has northern and southern California
earthquake response team leads for surface rupture, landslide,
liquefaction, tsunami, and volcanic events.
The CGS team lead coordinates with the corresponding USGS lead.
I’ll talk a little bit now about the California
Post-Earthquake Clearinghouse response.
The clearinghouse is jointly managed by CGS, which serves as the chair,
which is myself; EERI, which serves as the co-chair, occupied by Maggie
Ortiz-Millan; Cal OES; USGS; and the California Seismic Safety Commission.
A physical location close to the event is usually chosen for the
California Earthquake Clearinghouse site, providing a temporary place
that supports coordination and the collection of
critical perishable information and data.
It provides the opportunity for agencies and researchers in the field to
coordinate reconnaissance efforts, manage access to restricted areas,
request overflights and share findings.
Who participates at the clearinghouse? Basically geologists, geophysicists,
engineers, geotechnical engineers, social scientists, private consultants,
and others who conduct post- earthquake-related investigations.
The California Earthquake Clearinghouse activates when an urban
area is struck by a damaging earthquake that has a magnitude 6 or greater
or upon recommendation of the managing members – CGS, USGS,
EERI, Cal OES, and Seismic Safety Commission – when the magnitude
threshold is not met but damage is significant.
It can also activate in a remote less densely populated area
when the earthquake is large enough –
large enough to damage structures and lifelines.
CGS and USGS coordinate their field response to support the rapid delivery
of hazard information to the California State Operations Center
in support of emergency response. Esri Field Maps is the data acquisition
application used by USGS and CGS field teams.
We communicate in a variety of ways at the – at the clearinghouse.
You can come to the clearinghouse site. Ridgecrest was staffed over 12 hours
a day, so usually there was someone to come in the morning,
in the late afternoon, and early evening to speak with.
The clearinghouse – the physical clearinghouse provides the
opportunity for you to connect with other researchers.
You can come and get loaded with the Field Map app
if you don’t have that already.
We can provide suggestions to investigate if you are coming in and
you don’t have a place to map, but you’re a scientist and
you want to help out. We can either connect you with
another team or provide you with some ideas on what you’d like to do.
We also provide the opportunity to volunteer with the clearinghouse
activities, and this is often helpful if we have students arriving.
We can actually put them to work and support the work
we’re doing at the physical clearinghouse.
One of the most important communications we have
are the evening briefings. You can be in person or remote.
The picture over on the left shows
one of the evening briefings at the Ridgecrest site.
The daily field summaries and critical findings are shared out to a broader
group of interested parties, and it also allows for those off-site to share updates
and critical information, such as a new release of satellite imagery.
The briefings also inform the 24-hour Cal OES earthquake hazard duty
officers and the state emergency operations center at the SOC.
Critical information is shared outward from the SOC
to regional and local emergency management.
We also communicate outwards utilizing the EERI
LearningFromEarthquakes.org website. Individual teams can post information
on recently released data, maps, photos, reconnaissance reports,
links to imagery, building performance reviews, a variety of reports.
And EERI also provides information on a variety of ways to be involved
remotely. We actually have students working off-site looking
for information that’s coming out and being posted on the web,
and we’re connecting those reports as well.
Over on the right, you can see what the LearningFromEarthquakes
event resources page looks like. You can’t really see the details,
but this is where we posted our earliest PDF of the fault rupture
and associated KMZ files. This map actually came out about four days after
the event. Future events, I think we’ll be getting it out a lot more sooner.
You can find out about when the clearinghouse is activated after there’s
been an earthquake and you’re wondering, oh gee, is there –
is there going to be a clearinghouse. That information gets posted
on the California Earthquake Clearinghouse-dot-org website.
So you go there. You can see the information,
the location, and when we’ll be there.
You can also join the mailing list, which is on the arrival page when you
first click on California Earthquake Clearinghouse, it’s right there.
And that way, you can be notified automatically of when and where
the clearinghouse is activating. And you can also go to the
LearningFromEarthquakes.org website, which I just mentioned,
and it’ll have the activation and location posted as well.
Thank you.