"A tanker truck holds at least 25,000 litres of water, 100 such trucks each making 10 trips a day can supply 25 million litres a day. In an emergency, such tankers can be hired or requisitioned from dairies, breweries and other industries handling potable liquids in bulk."

As a long-term solution, say within 4-6 weeks after a major quake, I think your idea would be fine. There are a lot of logistics to be figured out. Roads have to get re-built, and debris removed. A large number of trucks, driving constantly, also requires fuel depots. Somebody has to set up distribution points around L.A., and organize how water supplies can be given to victims. All this stuff can be done - but it's a major logistics challenge.

BUT I don't see how any of it happens in the first 2-3 weeks after the quake. There will be a lot of confusion in the city. Many roads broken, or with debris. There could still be fires burning in some neighborhoods. So there won't be any simple logistics paths. The situation really needs someone like the US Marines and the US Army Corp of Engineers working together ... to establish new supply routes. I'm not sure that we have any such plan. So I still think there is a time window, maybe 4-10 days after the quake, when supplies of food and water will be critically low for millions of people in the quake zone. It's possible that California will try and put the city under martial law. But that won't stop people from dying from dehydration.

I think that one of the things that people forget - there are TWO sides to an earthquake fault. There is major damage on both sides. For the San Andreas, on one said you have LA and all the communities. But on the other side you have major towns that are "bedroom communities". The general area of Lancaster-Palmdale now holds over 300,000 people. There will be heavy damage there, and major destruction in Palmdale. The area over by Victorville, with a sprawling population of 100,000 people (incl. Apple Valley) will also see very heavy damage. And looking south down to Palm Springs and Palm Desert, with a population (60,000-100,000 seasonal) - those cities will be wiped off the map. They are sitting at the epicenter for the Southern San Andreas rupture location. So the bottom line is ... there are easily half a million people in the bedroom communities of LA who will be in desperate shape ... and those people are on the OTHER side of the fault line. It would take 2-3 weeks just to stabilize all these people - but that job is do-able because outside access roads are more direct.

Pete