As Orinda emergency responders and volunteers gathered on Oct. 16 at Orinda City Hall preparing for the annual Great Shakeout drill, they were rocked by an actual earthquake.  Mother nature obviously felt the need to add a little emphasis to the purpose of the drill, which is to hone emergency response skills and promote earthquake preparedness.

    The team convened in the Sarge Littlehale room, which is the Emergency Operations Center for the city of Orinda.  Following an emergency alert announcing the drill, a communication center was set up to use GRMS radios to communicate with trained radio operators in the field.  

    Following the real earthquake, which occurred at 9:23 a.m. centered in Berkeley, an announcement went out at 10:16 a.m. to anyone listening on the radio: “Attention all stations. This is an exercise! This is radio Net Control at the City of Orinda’s emergency operations center. We have just experienced a large earthquake. We have no additional details to report at this time. The City of Orinda has set up its Emergency Operations Center at the City offices. We have set up a public community radio station there using GMRS frequencies to monitor your reports from the Lamorinda area and to provide to you what information we can.”

    Volunteers in the field were asked to report in from their location and report on any earthquake damage.  Because it was only a drill, volunteers could make up and report what might likely occur during a real earthquake.  The radio transmissions, led by net control Michael Brown, frequently stated, “this is a drill,” in the event that anyone overheard reports of the Caldecott Tunnel being totally closed or the building next to the Orinda Police Department collapsing, with cries for help from victims inside.
 
    The second objective was to have a situation team who recorded all damage reported, and would, in a real event, coordinate the responses of first responders.  The situation team was led by Moraga-Orinda Fire District volunteer Bruce Macler and included Jason Matthews, another MOFD volunteer, and James Duff, Orinda’s Education and Outreach Coordinator. Orinda senior management analyst Micki Cronin also attended as an observer along with the city’s communications intern, Sam Rhodeham. 

    Another goal of the exercise was to link the three communities of Orinda, Lafayette and Moraga.  LARIG’s repeaters were linked so that radios from all three locations could connect, and the Orinda EOC also kept in radio contact with Lafayette’s EOC. Volunteers in the room recorded damage reports on wall mounted white boards, while off site damage reports were digitally mapped.
  
    The objectives of the Great Shakeout drill are to test emergency communication equipment, practice perishable radio skills in the GMRS community, practice setting up communications stations for an emergency event, practice communications coordination and information transfer with participating emergency response groups (i.e., radio communications within an EOC environment) and to practice setting up and operating a Situation Unit.