2. Those areas will look a lot like New Orleans did, except possibly there will be less flooding and more bleeding.

3. There will be thousands more physical and trauma injuries, as structures collapse on people, and buildings and cars trap or crush people, and torn power lines cause electrocutions and fires.

4. The Big Quake is likely to be worse than Katrina. I won’t say more; you a

"The Bay Area has the highest concentration of earthquake faults in the world." -Bill Lettis, earth sciences consultant.

What happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of the United States was not only the worst natural disaster in the history of this country, but also the loudest wake-up call ever experienced by our comfortable over-confident society. We never dreamed something of such horror and magnitude could ever happen here - even though all the TV meteorologists told us it might, then days before the storm hit land, told us it would.

“The bad news: The chances of the Big One happening in the next 30 years are about 90%, and the odds are that it will be in our own back yard.” –reporter Chris Treadway, Montclarion January 1999.

Along the West Coast from Canada to Mexico, we still think the Big Quake won’t really happen, even though we’ve been told repeatedly by every geologist and every emergency response and emergency management agency that it will. The odds of Katrina happening were extremely small - less than a 1% probability. The odds of the Big Quake have been reported conservatively at about 70% probability, and by the specialists in the trenches, 90%.

In the next 30 years, by the way, doesn’t mean after 30 more years (hello) it means any time now, within this 30 year span. It could be today, or tonight while you sleep. How prepared are we? There is no question of IF it will happen; the only question is WHEN, and Katrina surely is telling us we’d best not wait till the last minute to do what we can to prepare. That will be way too late..

Here are a few things we DO know:
1. The areas of destruction probably will be vast, and potentially spread over a much larger area than Katrina.

2. Those areas will look a lot like New Orleans did, except possibly there will be less flooding and more bleeding.

3. There will be thousands more physical and trauma injuries, as structures collapse on people, and buildings and cars trap or crush people, and torn power lines cause electrocutions and fires.

4. The Big Quake is likely to be worse than Katrina. I won’t say more; you a

“The bad news: The chances of the Big One happening in the next 30 years are about 90%, and the odds are that it will be in our own back yard.” –reporter Chris Treadway, Montclarion January 1999.

Along the West Coast from Canada to Mexico, we still think the Big Quake won’t really happen, even though we’ve been told repeatedly by every geologist and every emergency response and emergency management agency that it will. The odds of Katrina happening were extremely small - less than a 1% probability. The odds of the Big Quake have been reported conservatively at about 70% probability, and by the specialists in the trenches, 90%.

In the next 30 years, by the way, doesn’t mean after 30 more years (hello) it means any time now, within this 30 year span. It could be today, or tonight while you sleep. How prepared are we? There is no question of IF it will happen; the only question is WHEN, and Katrina surely is telling us we’d best not wait till the last minute to do what we can to prepare. That will be way too late..

Here are a few things we DO know:
1. The areas of destruction probably will be vast, and potentially spread over a much larger area than Katrina.

2. Those areas will look a lot like New Orleans did, except possibly there will be less flooding and more bleeding.

3. There will be thousands more physical and trauma injuries, as structures collapse on people, and buildings and cars trap or crush people, and torn power lines cause electrocutions and fires.

4. The Big Quake is likely to be worse than Katrina. I won’t say more; you a

In the next 30 years, by the way, doesn’t mean after 30 more years (hello) it means any time now, within this 30 year span. It could be today, or tonight while you sleep. How prepared are we? There is no question of IF it will happen; the only question is WHEN, and Katrina surely is telling us we’d best not wait till the last minute to do what we can to prepare. That will be way too late..

Here are a few things we DO know:
1. The areas of destruction probably will be vast, and potentially spread over a much larger area than Katrina.

2. Those areas will look a lot like New Orleans did, except possibly there will be less flooding and more bleeding.

3. There will be thousands more physical and trauma injuries, as structures collapse on people, and buildings and cars trap or crush people, and torn power lines cause electrocutions and fires.

4. The Big Quake is likely to be worse than Katrina. I won’t say more; you a

Here are a few things we DO know:
1. The areas of destruction probably will be vast, and potentially spread over a much larger area than Katrina.

2. Those areas will look a lot like New Orleans did, except possibly there will be less flooding and more bleeding.

3. There will be thousands more physical and trauma injuries, as structures collapse on people, and buildings and cars trap or crush people, and torn power lines cause electrocutions and fires.

4. The Big Quake is likely to be worse than Katrina. I won’t say more; you a

2. Those areas will look a lot like New Orleans did, except possibly there will be less flooding and more bleeding.

3. There will be thousands more physical and trauma injuries, as structures collapse on people, and buildings and cars trap or crush people, and torn power lines cause electrocutions and fires.

4. The Big Quake is likely to be worse than Katrina. I won’t say more; you already know this.

5. All city, county, and state Disaster Planning and Response agencies have been telling us since 1989, very clearly and specifically, that every citizen should expect and be prepared to manage on our own without outside help for at least 24 hours to three days immediately following a major disaster of any kind.

6. An abundance of information and detailed instructions have been published and widely distributed for free, everywhere on the West Coast. Have you read some of it?

7. The State of California (and I believe Oregon and Washington as well) has mandated every county and city to provide disaster preparedness and civilian disaster response training for their citizens. Do you know where to get it? The majority of these training programs are based on a similar framework called CERT (Citizens Emergency Response Training) or NERT (neighborhood Emergency Response Training) and the training is provided through either Police or Fire Departments. Oakland California has its own program called CORE (Citizens of Oakland Respond to Emergency) which contains most of the elements of CERT.

Common weak points in most citizen training programs have been:
1. They often have inadequate staffing and funding (most are free to the citizens) and
2. Most of them use some type of (often sketchy) version of "Standard" First Aid. (See the article “Why Isn’t Standard First Aid Good Enough”)

"One thing we know about the Bay Area is that there is no escape – we all live near a fault-line." -Bill Lettis, earth sciences consultant.

The evolution of Oakland's CORE program began in 1989 with the Loma Prieta Earthquake and the collapse of a mile of freeway at the Cypress Overpass. In that c