MySafe:LA and LAFD Marlton School Earthquake Drill

October 15, 2015, 10 am - 2:30 pm, Drill at Marlton School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Event Location:
Marlton School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
4000 Santo Tomas Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90008 (Map)

Event Contact:
Todd Leitz, MySafe:LA, todd.leitz@mysafela.org, 213-379-0021

No contact information available.

Summary:
MySafe:LA, Marlton School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, LAUSD and the Los Angeles Fire Department will all join forces on October 15 to create a realistic earthquake drill. Prior to the drill, the LAFD Fire Chief and LA Mayor Garcetti (invited) will speak. The drill will begin at 12:30 PM with a simulated earthquake. From there, Marlton students and staff will evacuate and discover several people missing. Emergency calls will be made to the LAFD. The drill will include injuries made realistic by a professional moulage artist. Several students and staff will be trapped and there will be a simulated fire in the school's kitchen. The LAFD will respond in degraded mode and will rescue, triage and treat those trapped and injured. The added complication of communicating with deaf and hard of hearing students and staff will make this a very visual and unique training experience for all parties.


Full Description:
Each year MySafe:LA partners with the Los Angeles Fire Department and creates a realistic drill at a LAUSD school where students, faculty and staff perform their earthquake response and emergency evacuation drill, and the LAFD responds to assist with any trapped or injured kids and adults. This year, MySafe:LA has created a drill unlike any other, by choosing Marlton School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in the Crenshaw District of South Los Angeles as the site for its annual ShakeOut Earthquake Drill.



A film makeup artist will moulage 20 students and staff with various injuries common to earthquakes and building collapses, such as broken bones, head trauma, cuts and bruises. Some students and staff will be trapped in two areas in the school - one will be a classroom, the other will be the school's kitchen, where a smoke machine will simulate a fire.



First responders will not be told any details of the number of people trapped and injured. This will provide realistic training for the firefighters who will respond to Marlton. To add to the realism will be the issue of communicating with deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students and staff.



Moulage will begin at 10:00 am.



A short presentation is scheduled for 12:00 pm with remarks from LAFD Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti (invited) and others.



The "earthquake" will begin at 12:30 pm. After the school goes through Drop, Cover and Hold On, all classes will evacuate to the schoolyard, following the LAUSD emergency plan in place at Marlton. Once outside, officials will determine that there are people missing, and call for emergency help. The LAFD will respond in "degraded mode" which means resources typically ordered for such a wide scale disaster and multi-causality incident will not be available, just like in a real earthquake. Firefighters will be forced to work with few resources and effect rescues, triage and injury treatment, all while overcoming the language barrier between English and American Sign Language.



This will be an extremely visual drill and one that will provide necessary training for LAUSD officials, students, faculty and staff at Marlton, and first responders. Lessons learned will be used to further evacuation plans on campus, and move forward training for first responders in best practices when communicating with the DHH public.