School Practices Before Quake Hits

Lightning may not strike twice, but Friday marked the second time that a quake had rumbled through Stone Creek Elementary School in Irvine on a day when pupils were involved in an earthquake preparedness drill.

Just before dawn on March 11 last year, the same day school officials had planned a drill, an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 rolled through the area. Scientists said it was an aftershock of the October, 1987, Whittier quake that claimed eight lives. Stone Creek officials went ahead with their drill, said Principal Marilyn Boyd, with the lessons of real life fresh in the students’ minds.

On Friday, students staged another drill at 8:45 a.m., and later that day, real life imitated play, a twist on last year’s lesson. An earthquake registering 4.6 scared the children, but the earlier drill probably kept them from panicking, she said.

“Talk about a coincidence,” said Linda Smith, a clerk at the school.

‘Kind of a Joke’

“The students said, ‘This happened last year, Mrs. Boyd,’ ” the principal said. “It was kind of a joke. Somebody knows when we have earthquake drills. We’re all going to be a little skeptical about drills next year. But there was no panic here.”

While Orange County school officials gave their students high marks for the way they behaved during Friday’s quake, preparedness did not mask the fear that some students felt.

“We’ve had some children come up now after it was all over, who were scared,” Smith said. “Luckily, our nurse was here today, because some children said their stomachs were upset, some were crying. But it’s not mass hysteria. A few came up and wanted to know about mother and father who might work in Long Beach or some other city.

“We try to reassure them that here was the hardest, because it was the center,” she said. “We tell them they felt what we felt.”

Students in Orange County schools closest to the coast felt Friday’s quake the most. The only real damage was reported at Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, where students were told to go home after the quake because of officials’ fear that falling ceiling tiles could contain harmful asbestos, according to Newport-Mesa Unified School District Supt. John W. Nicoll. Cracks formed in the gymnasium walls and in several classrooms.

But the district plans to work over the weekend to clean up the debris in time to reopen the school on Monday morning, Nicoll said. Experts were scheduled to assess the asbestos danger Friday night.

“If what happened to us is characteristic of what happened to everyone else, that’s not so bad,” he said. “It was a sharp quake, but a relatively harmless one.”

One secretary at the district office was hit on the back of her neck by a clock that fell off the wall and hit her as she was in the process of crawling under her desk, Nicoll said, and five students throughout the district were hit by “flying things--books, other randomly described pieces of debris,” he said.

“But no one was hospitalized, there were no paramedics, no blood.”

Officials in several schools said frequent drills have made “duck and cover” reactions almost second nature for students living in an area that has been rocking and rolling with frequency, school officials said.

“People dove under the desks,” said Laguna Beach Unified School Dist. Supt. Dennis Smith, who was at Thurston Middle School when the quake struck. “We have worked real hard on disaster relief. . . . We have preparations in place, and (the students) responded quickly.

“Yes, I dove under, too, under a table. Quickly. I beat everybody there. I may not be from California, but I learn very quickly.”

Judy Bressler, office manager for Mariners Elementary School in Newport Beach, said that after Friday’s jolt students sat outside on the lawn, as they had been instructed, and drank from gallon jugs of water that had been set aside specifically for earthquake disasters.

Bressler said the school’s PTA had provided disaster kits that contained food, water, Gatoraid, blankets, paper cups and radios packed up for a crisis.

“Every student in this school has an earthquake lunch,” she said. “We also have a portable toilet all set up.”

Friday’s quake, which caused scattered damage and no serious injuries, helped convince students of the importance of drills, officials said. Because April is earthquake preparedness month, several schools in the county have planned drills.

In Huntington Beach Union High School District, Jimmie Sharrit, public safety manager, said an earthquake safety drill has been planned for April 19 that will involve police, schools and other agencies in the cities of Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley.

“It was very timely to have the earthquake today,” she said. “It’s really been very motivational. And we didn’t even schedule it.”

Buildings in her district sustained no damage, she said.

Played Role of Injured

At the Stone Creek drill, students played the role of injured quake victims, with teachers or other staff members carrying them out in stretchers to an area designated as the first aid station. Other students moved away from the building to practice avoiding falling debris.

“It took us only 30 minutes to evacuate this morning, even with 25 injured people including those who had to be brought out on stretchers,” Boyd said. “We also had the walking wounded.”

During the real earthquake Friday afternoon, the school’s 530 students evacuated in about two minutes.

But that was not until the earth had stopped moving, Boyd said. The first lesson of the disaster drill requires students to head for the space under their desks.

Then, the next order of business is to account for all the students, Boyd said.

“I stand on top of a hill overlooking the school and make sure all the classes are accounted for,” she said. “The teachers hand me a sheet of all the students who are not accounted for. They have to get out (of the buildings) with everyone they can get out with.”

The students went through the real life earthquake like pros, the officials said, but it was later that some of them showed their apprehensions.

“Some of the students were a little nervous and frightened, but I think they were less frightened (than if the school had not had a drill),” Boyd said. ‘Our theme this year is ‘Be prepared, not scared,’ so that’s what we do.”