Newsletter

Remembering Northridge
On January 17, 1994, Mother Nature gave Southern Californians a wake-up call with a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that damaged areas in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Orange counties. The Northridge California earthquake claimed 61 lives, injured almost 12,000 persons, and has become the costliest natural disaster in American history with accumulated losses now calculated to be $42 billion. 

Several BICEPP Corporate Sponsors and their employees were affected by this quake. For this reason, BICEPP joined other organizations and provided financial support for the conference, "Legacy of Northridge: Five Years Later." 

The two-day conference, organized by the City and County of Los Angeles, Emergency Network of Los Angeles (ENLA), and the State of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services was held on January 27 and 28, 1999, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City, California. 

The conference, which was attended by about 450 persons representing business, education, government, nonprofit emergency services agencies, and community organizations, featured a broad range of lessons learned from the Northridge earthquake. These lessons covered key issues including:

Scientific: What Northridge taught us about Los Angeles Basin geology and seismicity and an assessment of current scientific understanding of the post-Northridge earthquake threat for the Southern California region.

New Technologies: The Northridge earthquake ushered in an impressive array of new technologies which have tremendous potential for emergency response and recovery including rapid post-earthquake maps of ground shaking distribution, loss estimates, and other decision-support tools.

Engineering: The Northridge earthquake taught us that modern steel frame buildings and some woodframe construction, once believed to be earthquake-resistant, had serious vulnerabilities. The programs to reduce these vulnerabilities will be addressed.

Emergency Response: The January 17, 1994, earthquake taught us much about emergency communications, mutual aid, public information, the involvement and contribution of community-based organizations, and the importance of response readiness.

Recovery: The Northridge earthquake required billions of dollars in state and federal disaster assistance for economic recovery; it strained the capacity of the insurance industry; and brought about significant changes in disaster programs, strategies, and philosophies.

Organizational Lessons: The earthquake had a profound impact on both public and private sector organizations in the Southern California region and caused significant policy changes within the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Conference speakers included the new State of California Director of Emergency Services Dallas Jones, FEMA Deputy Director Michael Armstrong, the Institute for Business & Home Safety President Harvey Ryland, the scientific community, media professionals, and leaders of community-based organizations.
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