Earthquake

Hours after I suggested that an earthquake in our area could have the same type of aftermath as hurricane, the Los Angeles Times ran a couple of articles supporting this opinion. One of them compared the 1906 San Francisco earthquake with the effects of Hurricane Katrina and found many similarities: death and destruction, obviously, but also looting, mayhem and fires. The fires, in fact, were responsible for the widespread destruction of the city.

Where is the link between Glendale and New Orleans? For nearly 100 years, practically as long as Glendale has been a city, a catastrophe of the magnitude that hit New Orleans has not been experienced by a heavily populated city in the U.S. The last was the earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906. Since we live in earthquake country, our exposure to a similar fate cannot be ruled out of hand, or to put it in religious terms -- there, but for the grace of God, go we. Like many of the decisions we must face as we decide our course of action, we could choose a moral one: human calamity is deserving of our empathy and our succor, or it could simply be a rational decision to provide our help now so that in some future time we could be the beneficiaries of some else's largesse.

Many of us in Southern California have, at some time or another, experienced one of nature's sudden undulations of the earth's crust. Surviving an earthquake is an experience no one would ever forget. The temblor most people think about when speaking of past earthquakes that damaged our city, is the March 1933 shaker that destroyed a good many of our brick buildings. This week, we look at another earthquake that struck Huntington Beach and how our people reacted to the tremor.

Darleene Barrientos Ocean floor earthquakes and tsunamis leaped out of textbooks and into real life for Glendale Community College oceanography professor Poorna Pal. Pal was in India when disaster struck Asia, but he was far from the areas directly hit by the tsunami, caused by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake on the ocean floor, off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Dec. 26. The tsunami destroyed coastal...

Darleene Barrientos The latest natural disasters to devastate the area have been primarily wildfire-related, prompting residents to clear brush around hillside homes. But residents need to remember Glendale is in the middle of earthquake country, too, officials said. Preparing for an earthquake is as easy as putting away some bottled water and securing a house's water heater, said Robert Reynoso, emergency services director for the Glendale-Crescenta Valley Red Cross.

A reader wants to know where the red brick Methodist Church pictured in the last column stood. The sanctuary was built in 1917 at the corner of Kenwood Street and Wilson Avenue and was covered in a red-brick veneer. In 1929, a five-story education building with a gothic tower was constructed next to it, and both buildings were then covered with a light-colored stucco to unify the two buildings. The 1971 earthquake greatly damaged the sanctuary and it had to be demolished.

Memorial Park will become a virtual command post Saturday as representatives from Los Angeles County Fire and Sheriff's departments descend for the second annual Public Safety Day. The event includes an earthquake simulator able to produce trembling of a 6.0 magnitude temblor, fingerprinting for children and various vehicles on display from both departments. The American Red Cross will also have a blood mobile on site. Demonstrations on proper techniques to extinguish fires and how to remove an injured person from a vehicle will be given.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Seismologist Lucy Jones has helped La Canada Flintridge take steps toward earthquake safety, and will now turn her eye toward the state with her appointment to the Seismic Safety Commission. The commission serves to improve earthquake safety measures in California. As an independent voice, it advises a variety of agencies to stimulate earthquake risk reduction and management. The commission includes people representing many other fields dealing with earthquake safety.

Gretchen Hoffman GLENDALE -- With Earthquake Preparedness Month drawing to a close, safety officials are reminding residents to take steps to make their homes safe in case a quake hits. The Glendale Fire Department has offered a earthquake preparedness program to residents, homeowners associations, school administrators and businesses for 10 years, Capt. Robert Doyle said. The program, Glendale Residents Informed and Prepared, aims to let residents know what to expect if an earthquake hits the area and how to safeguard their home or business.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- The Crescenta-Canada YMCA presents a community forum on earthquake preparedness from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, at the Crescenta-Canada YMCA, 1930 Foothill Blvd., La Canada Flintridge. At the forum, representatives from safety and disaster response organizations will talk about how community members can prepare themselves for disasters, and how their organizations will respond to them. Panel members will include representatives from the San Gabriel Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, Verdugo Hills hospital, the city of La Canada Flintridge, the U.S. Geological Survey and various other organizations.