Published: Apr 03, 2017 | 09:00 AM

April is California Earthquake Preparedness Month

California is earthquake country and April has been designated as California Earthquake Preparedness Month. We encourage our customers to always be prepared and they can be assured that Irvine Ranch Water District practices this message. Crews are ready to respond 24-hours a day to emergencies. Here are a few ways that IRWD stays prepared:

• Our personnel engage in periodic emergency drills to better serve customers should a genuine disaster occur. In addition, IRWD has equipment to set up the Emergency Operations Center, which is located at the Michelson Water Recycling Plant.
• IRWD has a 16-foot emergency response trailer to assist crews when they are called out to an event. The hazardous materials trailer is equipped with orange cones, rubber boots and gloves, medical supplies, first aid kits, generators and medical monitoring equipment.
• Two 2,000-gallon potable water trailers may be hauled to where there is an emergency or water outage. The polyurethane tanks are mounted on heavy duty trailer chassis and contain 10 spigots for filling containers from water bottles to buckets and jugs. These trailers act as a stop-gap measure between residents’ own resources, the District’s ability to restore distribution, and the time it takes for outside resources to arrive at the site of a major disaster.
• Four water buffalo trailers that hold 500 gallons of water each are used any time there is a water outage. They are equipped with pumps so they may be hooked up to individual buildings.
• Permanent emergency generators were installed at six booster pump stations in response to the 2007 Santiago Canyon fires. During the fire, power outages were experienced at each site, which maintain water pressure for the canyon areas. Permanent generators will ensure a reliable supply of water during emergencies, such as fires.

CodeRED is a one-stop way to receive emergency notifications

Having an emergency supply kit is an important part of disaster preparedness, but there is another tool that IRWD customers can take advantage of – CodeRED, a high-volume, high-speed system for mass emergency notifications.

Customers who sign up for CodeRED have the option of receiving voice, email, or text messages whenever there is a water-related emergency.

Signing up for CodeRED is simple. Just visit www.irwd.com and click on Emergency & CodeRED. From there, click on CodeRED Community Notification Enrollment Form.

In the meantime, customers should be aware that the first 72 hours following an earthquake are critical, so you should be prepared to be self-sufficient for at least that long. A supply of stored water is the most important survival items. Several gallons of stored water per person can last two weeks.