Pacific Grove is a small city but would serve as a well defined model for comprehensive disaster planning for earthquakes. First, the City has a disaster preparedness educational program for individual and families working through local organizations and civic clubs, homeowner associations, local newspapers, and radio and television stations. Second, the local schools have active educational programs for disaster preparedness. The Fire Department has an educational trailer for teaching elementary children, and the Middle School has earth science courses to teach preparedness for earthquakes, oil spills and hurricanes. Third, the Fire Department has a training program for neighborhoods called "Volunteers in Preparedness" which organizes neighborhood emergency response teams which include amateur radio operators. Fourth, all city employees are being trained in the State of California's new "Standardized Emergency Management System", adopted in December 1996. This new system is designed to facilitate one city's providing mutual aid to another city, and one county's providing additional resources to another county, with further backup from all over the State. Fifth, the Federal Response Plan will marshall the resources of 26 government agencies to help a state in a Presidentially-declared disaster. Sixth, non-governmental community-based organizations will be increasingly important. The American Red Cross not only has its key traditional role to play in providing mass care and shelter for earthquake victims, but here in California the Red Cross is now also assisting in the formation of collaborative associations of community-based organizations for disaster services. Seventh, California businesses and industry have learned the value of cost-effective business continuity planning for efficient business recovery the hard way from past earthquakes.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a concise update on these evolutionary and revolutionary disaster management activities in California. There may be lessons learned from past earthquake disasters in California and the resulting development of our comprehensive disaster preparedness planning which might be of interest and appropriate for other cities.