The Cupertino Courier

Neighbors cooperate to ready for disasters

By Barbara Doheny

If heavy storms hit Cupertino with mud slides, flooded streets and swollen streams, emergency experts advise keeping one thing in mind: Expect to make it on your own, starting now.

City, county and water district staffs have been busy for months preparing public roads, drainage systems and other facilities for a potentially severe winter.

But residents are responsible for the critical maintenance and monitoring needed to protect their homes from a severe storm.

In Cupertino, neighborhood groups are continuing their efforts to become self-sufficient in an emergency, a process begun after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Seven groups are well under way, according to the city's emergency services coordinator Marie Moore, and 10 more are organizing.

In addition, the fire department offers a formal 20-hour course in Community Emergency Response Training (CERT) to all residents. More than 140 CERT graduates have been trained in first aid and triage, damage assessment, fire suppression and light search-and-rescue techniques.

Many have also become neighborhood organizers. Fari Aberg is organizing 54 homes in the S. Blaney Avenue area into a group called BRIT, which stands for Blaney Rides It Together.

While the group's title refers to quake preparedness, Aberg dedicated a recent newsletter to storm safety. She is also organizing a safety course similar to CERT.

"If I am prepared and my neighbor is not prepared, it can cause problems," she said. "I want everyone to be prepared."

For families living along Phar Lap Drive, in the Regnart Creek triangle and a few other areas, such organization is critical. Some of those homes lie within 100-year flood zones.

Should flooding occur, Mann Drive neighbors have agreed to take in residents from Phar Lap, Moore said.

If evacuation is ever necessary in an emergency, sheriff's deputies are charged with going door-to-door to make sure residents get out. When power and phone lines go down, Cupertino Amateur Radio Emergency Services is set to relay information.

Emergency staffers suggest that all residents learn to recognize flood or mud slide danger and keep enough water, food, prescriptions and blankets on hand for three days.

Motorists are advised to avoid driving through standing water; a foot of water can displace 1,500 pounds, and even two feet of water can lift a car.

Children in particular should be warned against walking through flooded areas and be taught to avoid storm drains, creeks and spillways.

If a stream's level decreases or its water turns muddy, it's likely that a mud slide is blocking water, said Raymond Wilson, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. In such situations, water can exert enough pressure against the obstruction to "blow out," causing a violent flash flood, he said.

For more information on emergency preparedness, Cupertino residents can contact Marie Moore at 777-3355.

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