|
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. |
|
| 01:10 |
Interviewer: OK. And how is your division in particular utilizing the science in this scenario? Denise Benson: 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. Interviewer: Can you speak to what it means to you that this scenario is based on real science? |
| 01:53 |
Denise Benson: 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. Interviewer: And this Great Southern California ShakeOut Scenario is obviously a huge event. What about the event inspires you the most? |
| 02:41 |
Denise Benson: 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. Interviewer: And Denise, is there anything else you want to add? |
| 03:36 |
Denise Benson: 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! Interviewer: All right. Well best of luck to you, Denise, and San Bernardino County. Denise Benson: Thank you. |