Southern California HAZUS User Group

New CA Geologic Map and State Fault Activity Maps

2010-04-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

New editions of the Geologic Map of California and the Fault Activity Map of California have been prepared in recognition of the California Geological Survey’s 150th Anniversary.

Geologic Map

Fault Activity Map

SoCalHUG 2010 Spring Quarterly Meeting

2010-03-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

SoCalHUG 2010 Spring Quarterly Meeting

When: 1:00PM PDT / Thursday / April 8th

Where: EOC, City of Rancho Cucamonga
10510 Civic Center Drive, Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Preliminary agenda...

Dan Henderson / PBS&J
CALEMA's automation of HAZUS-MH

Kevin Miller / CAEMA
HAZUS-MH and CALEMA's Earthquake and Tsunami program

Phillip McCormick / City of Riverside
City of Riverside's HAZUS-MH project

Liz Wojdak / SoCalHUG
The new HAZUS Help Desk and other other HAZUS news

See you there!!

_

California Earthquake Preparedness Survey

2010-03-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

The California Earthquake Preparedness Survey (CEPS) was conducted by the UCLA School of Public Health and Survey Research Center for the State of California. The objective was to provide baseline data describing how prepared California households are for earthquakes and where they get their information about preparedness and mitigation.

Telephone interviews were conducted with a representative sample of 2,081 households in California between June 26 and December 18, 2008. The sample was stratified into: the ten northern California counties at greatest risk of earthquakes, the six southern California counties at greatest risk, and the remaining 42 lower-risk counties. MORE INFO...

Homeowners forced to buy flood insurance after FEMA redraws maps

2010-01-05T10:40:00.000-08:00

Updates in the FEMA Flood Map Program are being met with resistance from tens of thousands of Southern California residents now being forced to buy flood insurance coverage.

The federal government has informed property owners in more than 150 cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties about the new requirement. Most live near rivers and creeks, below dams or in low- lying areas that are at greater risk of flooding than previously believed, according to updated maps developed by FEMA. READ MORE

To find out if your home is in a 100-year-storm flood plain and subject to the insurance mandate, go to: www.floodsmart.gov

HAZUS Training at Loma Linda University

2009-10-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

HAZUS Comprehensive Data Management Worksop at Loma Linda University

November 16-18 / There are a few seats left.

The course cost is $495 to cover course instruction, materials and lab fee.

MORE INFO / REGISTRATION

SoCalHUG Summer 2009 Quarterly Meeting

2009-06-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

When: Thursday / September 24, 2009 / 1:00PM - 3:30PM

Where: City of Riverside EOC - 3085 St Lawrence St., Riverside, CA, 92504 ... for directions scroll down

On-Line: Can't attend the SoCalHUG ? ... compliments of HAZUS.org the meeting will be online, CLICK HERE ... HAZUS.org would like to thank Adobe for the donation of a demo account for Acrobat Connect Pro

AGENDA ...

1:00 Liz Wojdak, SoCalHUG Leader, "Welcome and introductions"

1:20 Philip McCormick, Riverside City Fire OEM "Moving up to Level II Data for a Large City – The time and effort involved”

1:45 Hope Seligson, MMI Inc.“Inventory Database Enhancements in FEMA’s Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino County HAZUS Pilot Studies”

2:05 Break

2:20 Margaret Vinci, Office of Earthquake Programs Caltech, "Earthquake Tools for Quick Response"

2:50 Michael McDaniel, City of El Segundo, “Free HAZUS Training at EMI – Do’s and Don’ts”

3:10 Liz Wojdak, SoCalHUG Leader "HAZUS updates and the Great California Shakeout news"

3:30 adjourn

DIRECTIONS:

From areas West - LA/Orange County/Etc

EB 60 Fwy or 10 Fwy to the 15 Fwy

SB 15 to the 91 Fwy

EB 91 Fwy to Adams

Right on Adams

Adams to Lincoln – 1st Signal past the RR tracks

Left on Lincoln

Lincoln to Saint Lawrence – 1st street on your left (CHP Office on the right – Entrance to Corp Yard on the left)

Left on Saint Lawrence – Go to the dead-end of the street

Turn right into the brick building fenced parking lot.

From areas South – San Diego/Etc

NB on the 15 Fwy

EB 91 Fwy to Adams

Right on Adams

Left on Lincoln

Lincoln to Saint Lawrence – 1st street on your left (CHP Office on the right – Entrance to Corp Yard on the left)

Left on Saint Lawrence – Go to the dead-end of the street

Turn right into the brick building fenced parking lot.

Rock & Roll

2009-05-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

A light earthquake occurred at 8:39:36 PM (PDT) on Sunday, May 17, 2009. The magnitude 4.7 event occurred 1 mile ESE of Lennox, CA. The hypocentral depth is 9 miles.

USGS Real-time Earthquake Map for Los Angeles region, VIEW

GIS Called Key to California's Future

2009-05-13T07:54:00.001-07:00

To successfully integrate comprehensive GIS solutions across state agencies, an enterprise GIS strategy, coupled with strong executive leadership, was deemed California's best hope for dismantling state IT silos and facilitating cross-agency data sharing at the Conference on California's Future. Also vital to the mission is getting the public to better understand the role GIS can play in the state's success. READ MORE

California Appoints Geospatial Information Officer

2009-03-30T08:59:00.001-07:00

California now has a Geospatial Information Officer, GIO. The CA GIO is responsible for ensuring that the state receives the benefits associated with geospatial data, specifically, increased data access and sharing; reduced duplication and costs; development of technology standards; centers of expertise; public outreach and increased collaboration in state and local governments. READ MORE

California's water supply vulnerable to quakes, floods

2009-03-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

The California Department of Water Resources has just released a study that concludes there is a 40 percent chance that a major earthquake will flood 27 delta islands between now and 2030, costing billions in repairs and knocking out the water source for 25 million Californians for more than a year.

Without intervention, it is estimated that about 140 levees of California's could fail in the next century due to storms or rising seas. An earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater could result in fatalities, flooding of islands and costs of $15 billion. In California levees have failed about 160 times in the past 109 years. READ MORE

California Department of Water Resources: Delta Risk Management Strategy - Final Phase 1 Report

CalGIS 2009

2009-03-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

Did you know there is a one-day HAZUS-MH class at the CalGIS 2009 conference? Last we heard there were still seats available. MORE

SoCalHUG 2009 Meeting ...

2009-03-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

OUTSTANDING - SoCalHUG "Spring" 2009 Meeting ... well it was almost be Spring

March 11, 2009, THANKS to the Orange County Sheriff's Department for hosting at the Loma Ridge Emergency Operations Center.

HAZUS.org would also like to thank everybody who participated and to ADOBE for supporting the ADOBE ACROBAT CONNECT PRO on-line meeting.

AGENDA

Dave Montague (ABS): HAZUS Program Update - MR3 Patch 3, MR4. Download Presentation (.pdf, .8MB)

Hope Seligson (MMI Engineering): Update on FEMA's Essential Facility Risk Assessment Projects in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. Download Presentation (.pdf 2.7MB)

Diane Vaughan, CalEMA GIS manager: HAZUS and California

Miles Wagner, (San Bernardino County Fire Department OES), Raymond Cheung (Orange County Sheriff's Dept) and Ken Hudnut (USGS) will lead a discussion on using HAZUS for Golden Guardian, what worked, what didn't.

Liz Wojdak: HAZUS news. Download Presentation (.pdf, 1.1MB)

Soil Liquefaction During Earthquakes Technical Seminar

2009-03-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

Register now for a day-long seminar to be given in Pasadena, CA on March 10th by I. M. Idriss and R. W. Boulanger, authors of the recently published EERI monograph sent to all members in 2008, Soil Liquefaction During Earthquakes. Participants earn 0.7 Continuing Education Units. MORE

Register on-line for Pasadena, CA class

Geospatial Coordination Web Site Launched by California Natural Resources Agency

2009-02-08T12:03:00.001-08:00

The new Cal-Atlas portal facilitates the coordinated and sustainable development, maintenance, licensing and sharing of geospatial data and web map services by California government agencies, partners and stakeholders. California government agencies work with the California GIS Council, regional GIS collaboratives and the broader California GIS community to define the data architecture, systems, standards, agreements and processes for a fully integrated and effective California Spatial Data Infrastructure. GO THERE

The new Web site will centralize a variety of data and information. Cal-Atlas provides a number of important Web accessible services. These include:

* A catalog for use by organizations to categorize and share information about their geospatial information resources (e.g., maps and geospatial data, Web services and applications)
* A library from which interested parties may obtain Geographic Information System (GIS) data and where agencies can place their data to share with others
* Tools to make it easy to find GIS data and services
* A "gallery" of maps and mapping sites contributed by Cal-Atlas users
* A portal to help organizations work together on GIS data and share the costs of acquiring imagery and other kinds of geospatial data.

Southern California San Andreas Overdue?

2009-01-25T10:20:00.000-08:00

New research by University of California Irvine scientists shows the southern stretch of the San Andreas fault has had a major temblor about every 137 years (previous studies indicated a 200 yr cycle). The last major earthquake in the Carrizo Plain section of the San Andreas was the 7.9 magnitude Fort Tejon event of 1857. READ MORE

'Soft-story' buildings at risk in quake

2008-12-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

An on-going seismic study concludes that without a costly seismic retrofit, 80 percent of San Francisco's weakest wood-frame buildings are expected to collapse or to suffer damage beyond repair in the large earthquake scientists say is likely to occur in the region within decades. READ MORE

This is not an issue unique to San Francisco or northern California. The risks associated with "soft-story" construction were evident following both the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquakes. MORE

Magnitude 5.1 earthquake hits near Ludlow, in San Bernardino County

2008-12-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

A moderate earthquake struck California's Mojave Desert on Friday night / December 5, 2008. Effects were felt from San Diego to Los Angeles.

USGS reports say the 5.1-magnitude temblor struck just outside Ludlow on Interstate 40 in San Bernardino County, about 120 miles east of Los Angeles. MORE

California Prepares for Potential Flooding

2008-11-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

Due to the potential for flooding, mud flows and debris in and around recent wildfire fire burn areas, the Governor in California has directed his Office of Emergency Services (OES) to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and prepare to help local agencies if assistance from the state is needed for expected rains. READ MORE

OPINION
HAZUS.org has it doubts if CA OES, the CA Department of Water Resources and CA local agencies are making the best use of HAZUS-MH to assess flood mitigation strategies and to be prepared for response activities when flooding does occur.

San Diego HAZUS User Group

2008-11-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

Check out the developing San Diego HAZUS User Group ... supporting HAZUS Users throughout the greater San Diego region ...

CISN Display V1.0

2008-10-24T10:27:00.001-07:00

The California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN) has recently released CISN Display V1.0 as a tool for integrating earthquake information in emergency response. CISN Display is an integrated Web enabled earthquake notification system, designed for emergency management 24/7 operations centers. The application provides users with maps of real-time seismicity, and automatically provides access to Web-related earthquake products such as ShakeMaps. CISN Display also offers an open source GIS mapping tool that allows users to plot freely available layers of public highways, roads and bridges, as well as private layers of organizational-specific infrastructure and facilities information.

CISN Display is designed to provide earthquake information for emergency response. First-responders, organizations with critical lifelines and infrastructure, and emergency responders are invited to register for an account. MORE INFO

Development of the Golden Guardian 2008 ShakeOut Scenario

2008-10-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

Larry Collins from the LA County Fire Department and a member of the SoCalHUG has a great article in the September 2008 issue of Fire Engineering on the development of the Golden Guardian 2008 ShakeOut Scenario (.pdf), DOWNLOAD

The Great Southern California Shakeout Web Site

CA OES Golden Guardian Web Site

Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation to Strengthen California's Emergency Response Capabilities

2008-09-30T10:48:00.001-07:00

CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a package of legislation that will strengthen the state's ability to respond to emergencies and natural disasters. These include a bill that merges the Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) and Office of Homeland Security (OHS) into the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA). To read the Governor's press release, click here...

The Great Southern California ShakeOut / Golden Guardian 2008

2008-09-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

At 10 AM on November 13, 2008 millions of Southern Californians will participate in The Great Southern California ShakeOut ... the largest earthquake prepardness exercise in U.S. history.

Visit The Great Southern California ShakeOut web site for a schedule of events and to see how you can participate, click here...

The nation’s largest state sponsored emergency exercise will take place November 13-18. Golden Guardian 2008. This exercise will test California’s capability to respond and recover during a major catastrophic earthquake, to go to the CA OES Golden Guardian 2008 web site, click here...

SoCalHUG Meeting Minutes - August 28, 2008

2008-09-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

We had a great meeting last week at Cal Poly Pomona. The presentations were fantastic, informative and timely. Our next meeting will be in February 2009. I hope to have it in Orange County. I want to move the meetings around the region in fairness to all of our users.

One of the items I announced was the creation of a SoCalHUG group forum. It is a place where we can post questions and answers regarding HAZUS, we can post tips and tricks, we can ask surveys about issues important to our user group and we can post documents that we produce. For example, I have posted the answers to the survey I asked awhile back regarding who is using HAZUS in Southern California, level of use and who needs training.

I also have posted directions on how to add a shake map to HAZUS. Our user Sharon Wong wrote the original, but Kevin Mickey has given us an update.

I will also post the presentations from our meetings so if you missed our meeting last week, you can still view them from your desktop. I think this will be a useful tool, especially when we have our next major earthquake and your agency has asked you to run HAZUS but you have forgotten how to do something. This can also be useful for HAZUS runs for Golden Guardian and your agency's Hazard Mitigation plan.

We can help each other out using this forum, I encourage you to sign up to the SoCalHUG forum. To subscribe to the SoCalHUG forum , click here...

I also announced items from the National Conference held in San Diego early August. FEMA says presentations from the August National Conference will be posted on the FEMA HAZUS site in mid-September.

There is a new service pack for HAZUS on FEMA's website that fixes problems with the Flood module from locking up. Also there is a new version of Comprehensive Data Management System (CDMS). CDMS provides users with the capability to update and manage statewide and HAZUS datasets, which are used to support analysis in the HAZUS-MH. Once data are imported in the statewide datasets, the CDMS will allow users to query, sort, export and print information. Please discard the previous version if you downloaded it as it was a beta version. Both the service patch and the CDMS can be downloaded from the FEMA web site.

The third major announcement was there are two HAZUS certification programs being offered at EMI. You can check these certification programs as well as other Emergency Management classes at the EMI web site, click here.

The next version of HAZUS is scheduled to be released in late winter (late February or early March). This version will also use ArcGIS 9.3. I'll make sure to inform you when it is released.

Again, I encourage each of you to subscribe to our forum so we can share more information to assist each other out. As Dr. Lucy Jones has been telling us this last two years "we are all in this together".

Liz Wojdak

SoCalHUG Leader

Welcome to the New and Improved SoCalHUG BLOG

2008-09-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

The SoCalHUG has joined the Web 2.0 era. The SoCalHUG home page is now in a blog format. This will allow the SoCalHUG to quickly update content and more important it will allow the SoCalHUG community the ability to directly participate in content and comments.

Moderated SoCalHUG user posting and comment capabilities has been activated.

If you have any comments or suggestions or want to be granted posting privileges on this blog send us an email ... click on the "SoCalHUG Contacts" hot-link in the menu on the far right or click here ...