Rebooting port after a disaster

LONG BEACH - If the Big One hits the Port of Long Beach or atsunami strikes, one of the main concerns will be to keep thingsmoving.

That's because if goods stop moving through the port, thedisaster area might not be just Southern California, but the entireUnited States.

Together with the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beachaccounts for about 40 percent of all imports into the United States,according to port statistics, and a total port shutdown would costthe U.S. economy an estimated $1 billion a day.

And while the port supports 30,000 jobs in Long Beach and 316,000jobs in a five-county area of Southern California, it also connectsto 1.4 million jobs throughout the country, according to portfigures.

So even as emergency rescue operations to save lives begin in thewake of a disaster, what the port calls its business continuity planwill also get going.

In the port's PowerPoint slide show explaining the plan, there'sa shocking image of rubble with cranes in the background thatmotivates port executives. The photo was taken at the port of Kobe,Japan, after the 6.8 earthquake in 1995. The text superimposed overthe devastation says that Kobe never fully recovered from the quake,going from fifth among the world's ports in 1994 to 41st as of 2007,and that 70 percent of Kobe's companies had not recovered their pre-earthquake sales and production levels a year after the disaster.

"There's no criticism of Kobe, but the idea of this is to keepthe port operational, so we don't lose cargo and remain a viableeconomic force in the region," said Rich Baratta, the port'sdirector of risk management, who is also the planning section chieffor the business continuity plan.

"A lot of the people who used the port of Kobe elected to movetheir freight elsewhere, because the port was so heavily damaged andthey weren't able to recover rapidly," said Baratta, who added thatif this region didn't recover quickly enough, freight would bediverted to Oakland, Prince Rupert in Canada or through the PanamaCanal.

To prevent that from happening, the port is working on plans thatwill allow quick patches to its operations to hold things togetheruntil reconstruction can be done. It has plans that deal withbuilding destruction, casualties, road repairs and housing andfeeding isolated port workers. And it's working with port businessesand other operations to coordinate recovery efforts.

Baratta said that activities are coordinated through the MarineTransportation System Recovery Unit (MTSRU, pronounced mitsroo). "Ithasn't been around very long, about a year and a half," he said.

"The Coast Guard started to realize that there is a businesscontinuity piece to their responsibilities. They, along with police,fire and the FBI, were concerned with the emergency response part:You have a ship sinking, you have a fire in a building. Once theresponse is done, then they all go home, and it's left to thebusiness owner to get his business running again. To staycompetitive, we need to keep our transportation systems going."

If there is a disaster, the Coast Guard will be in charge, saidSteve Ruggiero, deputy director of port security. "The captain ofthe port, Capt. Roger Laferriere, and his group will be calling theshots," he said.

"The Coast Guard has a plan that's security-sensitive, so theykeep it under lock and key. But the plans are just guides. You can'twrite every situation and every little thing that happens."

Baratta is busy finishing his group's own plans, which are in theform of detailed checklists. So, for example, if port engineers areinjured, killed or unable to get to their posts, the plans could beused by any qualified engineers even if they've never worked at theport.

He said these checklists are nearly complete and will be storedin computer software at two locations in the port and one in Phoenixthat's accessible through the Internet. When finished, they willalso be printed out and kept in a binder inside each of his commandtrailers.

The two trailers are parked near harbor headquarters and can bequickly moved away from building wreckage. The headquarters buildingis already scheduled to be abandoned because of earthquake concerns,and the departments housed inside are set to be scattered around theport this year because construction of a new harbor headquartersbuilding hasn't been approved.

Each of the trailers has its own generator, electronics and otherequipment to be used by those directing disaster recovery efforts.Next to them are storage boxes full of food, cots and other suppliesfor 400 harbor personnel. There's also inflatable housing similar toa children's moon bounce structure for command center personnel.

Both Baratta and Ruggiero say the first thing the security andbusiness continuity teams would do when disaster strikes is set upthe command center and then send out teams to assess the damage andsummarize it in reports to the Coast Guard command.

"We would figure out what work-arounds do we have for, say, aspecific span of road, maybe an overpass or a viaduct, to gettraffic over or around whatever the impediment might be," saidBaratta.

Baratta said that there isn't a lot of construction or roadrepair equipment in the port area, because most work is done byoutside contractors. They might not be able to reach the port afteran earthquake, so part of the early assessment would be to see whatequipment is nearby and how it could be put to use. He hopes to seemore on-site resources shortly.

"One of the things we may have in our favor is that FEMA (FederalEmergency Management Agency) wants to use our port and L.A.'s asstaging areas for supplies, along with airports in the area, for amajor disaster. Their scenario is a major earthquake on the SanAndreas Fault.

"So because they want to use our ports, our ports will have to beable to operate. What we're hoping to do is look to FEMA and say,all right, then you need to help us make sure we have the resiliencyto accommodate you when you come in and we'll be able to worktogether to make things smooth."

But whether FEMA supplies resources or not, the businesscontinuity plans are designed to work with whatever is available andpatch things together so they hold up until reconstruction starts.

As Baratta puts it, "All right, this is what we've got, let's godeal with it and let's start doing the work-arounds. Let's getpeople moving."

al.rudis@yahoo.com