What should I do in the event of an earthquake?
Give Up, Cover Up and Hold On, said the Seismic Nations Alliance, a “public-private grassroots” partnership of people, organisations and regional coalitions to improve resilience to earthquakes and tsunamis.
Orange County residents may receive a text reminder Thursday morning encouraging them to do so and to take cover as part of a larger statewide shakeout.
The USGS, first held in Southern California in 2008, returns Thursday at 10:20 a.m., when about 9.4 million people across the state will participate in earthquake drills. Of these, an estimated 865,820 people participated in Orange County.
This includes approximately 5,000 nurseries and pre-schools, 510,000 schools, 47,000 local government agencies and 6,000 elderly facilities.
At one of the senior living facilities, administrators and a team of computer science researchers at the University of California, Irvine will work to implement a new technology alongside the exercise that they say will be able to provide critical information for caring and locating elderly patients. Emergencies and evacuation occur.
“Over the years, I…and our team [have] There’s been a lot of work on disaster response awareness, and one of the things we’ve come across is that, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, if you see any type of disaster, it’s disproportionately impacted,” said Nalini Venkatasubramanian, Calif. Professor of Computer Science at the University of Irvine.
The problem is often that seniors often don’t get the care they need after an evacuation, Venkatasubramanian said, noting that people who rely on oxygen tanks or need dialysis cannot simply be evacuated to school gyms, where, for example, there may be a power outage to leave
The idea of ”CareDEX” was born. The technology was developed by Venkatasubramanian and Nikil Dutt, Distinguished Professors of Computer Science; Sharad Mehrotra, Chancellor’s Professor of Computer Science; Lisa Gibbs, Clinical Professor of Geriatrics; and Geriatrics Program Scientist.
“The idea is to build information preparedness that will enable us, aged care facilities, first responders, government and other stakeholders to track the priorities and needs of older people. This includes dementia, oxygen dependence, [diabetes] —These are situations that need attention,” Venkata Subramanian said. “You can’t say come back in a month to take care of it. “
For the last year, Venkatasubramanian and her team have been piloting CareDEX with the City of Anaheim’s emergency manager Jannine Wilmoth and the Walnut Creek Retirement Community.
“From an operator standpoint, … these people are ultimately my responsibility,” Debbie Infield, executive director of Walnut Creek, said in an interview Tuesday. “Knowing where they are is half the battle.”
Infield said the software could help provide information about a patient’s schedule, and by tracking where a resident was last seen via a WiFi-enabled tag or device, it could help her or first responders find the patient and give them the help they might need.
“Disaster preparedness is as important as response,” Venkatasubramanian said. “If … people don’t know how to use the technology, they probably don’t know how to use it in a disaster. It’s a very useful thing to constantly embed into dual-use processes because people are so used to it.
“The other thing is practice, practice, practice. These exercises are crucial for people to understand what might go wrong and to be able to anticipate and prepare for what might come up. I think it creates an awareness in the community. If I send an alert and message, it may not work for… [the] Blind. Say, ‘Hey, evacuate’, but maybe someone is on the third floor or in a wheelchair. “
A “one-size-fits-all” approach doesn’t always work, especially for the elderly and disabled, Venkatasubramanian said.
“Today, we have some technical capabilities to do that, and the challenge is how do we make it accessible to everyone? … I think there is a way to prepare, we want to make citizens aware of disaster preparedness Crucial because disasters are more frequent these days. You want to know where your loved ones are; you want to know they are cared for and people know how to keep them safe.
“A lot of things can be done before disaster strikes,” she said. If people are prepared and have plans in place for emergencies, they can “remember what to do in the event of a disaster, which can help improve outcomes,” she said.
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