Chosen Answer:
The primary preparation for earthquakes is building codes. The next thing that has to be done is forensic examination of different types of structures after an earthquake. For example both the Northridge and the Kobe earthquakes revealed that structures that we thought were ‘earthquake resistant’ actually were not. In fact after the Northridge earthquake we had to modify just about every structural steel building in California because they all shared a basic design error (a specific type of weld was found be unable to resist earthquakes).
The next most important thing is the ability to:
1) Rapidly evaluate the situation and identify the most time-critical needs
2) Match those needs to resources
3) Cordinate the actions of multiple government agencies, private sompanies, and non-profit orginizations.
4) Be able to request resources with standardized capabilities from a nationwide pool of assets.
In the US we have developed the Incident Command System and implemented it on a nationwide scale. In addition we have the National Incident Response Plan that consistes of literally shelves of binders containing response plans for everyt different type of disaster 0 million woth of consultants can think up. These plans are so detailed and so widely distributed that if there is an earthquake in Los Angeles the fire department in San Diego can literally open up a binder and see what specific resources they need to be prepared to send north.
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by: MikeGolf
on: 1st June 11