As we celebrated the Fourth of July with our families, two major earthquakes struck near Ridgecrest — the largest to hit Southern California in more than 20 years. Communities across Los Angeles felt the ground shake beneath our feet, and though we were spared significant damage in our city, the initial earthquakes and their aftershocks, as recent as this morning, serve as a reminder to all of us to be prepared and have a plan.

Today, I joined Dr. Lucy Jones to kick off a new campaign to strengthen citywide emergency readiness by bringing preparedness to Angelenos’ doorsteps. 

We’ll make this happen by:

• Calling on every Neighborhood Council to name a Preparedness Officer to serve as a liaison with the City’s Emergency Management Department (EMD).
• Ensuring each of these officers gets trained by EMD, so they can facilitate workshops in their area and develop Ready Your L.A. Neighborhood (RYLAN) plans in each community. 
• Urging every Neighborhood Council to organize and host a local block party to encourage families to participate in the RYLAN initiative.
• Equipping L.A. households with the resources and knowledge needed to be prepared for future earthquakes, fires, or floods.

Our latest campaign is just one step forward in a long-running campaign to build a more resilient Los Angeles — and help you and your fellow Angelenos prepare for any major emergency.

In January, I launched ShakeAlertLA, the first publicly available earthquake early warning mobile app in the nation. The app is a collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that provides critical seconds of warning that a major earthquake has begun and shaking is imminent — to help Angelenos take action to protect themselves.

After the recent Ridgecrest earthquakes, Angelenos had questions about how the app works. It was designed to send alerts to users within L.A. County for earthquakes of Magnitude 5.0 or greater — basically, earthquakes large enough to potentially cause damage in our area. Because the epicenter of the Ridgecrest earthquakes were located in Kern County, and shaking wasn’t strong enough in L.A. to cause major damage, the app worked as designed and didn’t send out alerts.

Many of you felt that the alert threshold should be lowered. We heard your feedback — and as it turns out, we were already working with the USGS to lower the threshold to Magnitude 4.5. That update is expected to arrive on your mobile devices by the end of July.

Bolstering our city’s resilience has been a key priority of my administration from day one. I worked with Dr. Lucy Jones — one of the nation’s leading seismologists — to create the Resilience By Design report, which led to a historic building retrofit ordinance to fortify vulnerable structures and save lives in the event of a major earthquake. To date, more than 2,500 soft-story retrofits have been completed, and just over 10,200 more are in progress, set to be finished within the next five years. We followed that up with Resilient Los Angeles, a plan to make L.A. the world’s safest and strongest city.

Los Angeles is a model of preparedness, and we cannot wait for the next disaster to jolt us into action — we have to keep taking steps every day to empower our neighborhoods and families to be ready before the next earthquake strikes.

Here are a few more ways you can get prepared:

• Get involved in your Neighborhood Council to help prepare your community for emergencies;
• Learn more about our RYLAN initiative and get tips on how to put together an emergency kit and get your family prepared;
• Download the ShakeAlertLA app for iPhone or Android;
• Sign up for our other emergency alert systems by texting READY to 888-777;
• Follow our Emergency Management Department on Twitter.

Thanks for reading.


Eric Garcetti
Your Mayor