Sue and folks ... The various thoughts expressed here were quite helpful. I've been thinking about possible solutions, and I am going to go away for a couple of days and put together a trial "plan" for a fast-response to an earthquake in L.A. Then we can take a look. I wonder if anyone at FEMA ever reads these threads???

Meanwhile ... the Great Shakeout is an attempt by many agencies to get the residents of L.A. "involved" in planning for a major disaster in their own city. You would think that everyone would be highly motivated. BUT several factors tend to undermine preparedness.
(1) People in So. Cal have been told that the Big One is coming for at least the last 40 years. So the typical reaction to this news is "Yeah ... heard it all before".
(2) Like many cities, life in L.A. is incredibly busy and stressful these days. Especially in a never-ending economic recession. So families are just struggling to get by each day, while parents try to avoid getting fired from their jobs and bosses demand that people work longer hours. It's tough.
(3) Even when people do get together some earthquake supplies, the pile of stuff gets "eroded" over a period of weeks or months. Things get moved. Water and food are used for other things. Tools are used for other jobs. And pretty soon your earthquake supplies are mostly gone.

I think I said before - but will repeat again. I asked people here in Los Angeles (where I work) how many days of supplies they had put away for a disaster. This was immediately after the Sendai quake in Japan. My co-workers had enough food & water to last maybe 2-3 days - if they were lucky. Many only had 1 container of water in the cupboard at home. And these are professional people (!). I really doubt that anything has changed, since i asked those questions.

So real preparedness in L.A. remains very low - at least at the level of the civilian population. And most local agencies, like fire and police, do have plans. But they tend to be "responsive" - meaning that they will adjust to the real conditions of the incident AFTER it happens. However, if that incident involves a disaster of Biblical proportions, along with a civilian population that is virtually unprepared, then you know what the end outcome is going to be.

Pete2