We are all familiar with the public service announcement following the long and awkward tone that comes across the radio or television and states, "This is a test of the Emergency Alert System…" In 1994, the Emergency Alert System replaced the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) as a tool to warn the public about emergency situations. As a member of the Structural Engineers Association of Washington’s Emergency Preparedness Committee, I toured recently the facility that is responsible for making these announcements when there is a disaster in Washington State.

The Washington State’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at Camp Murray, near Tacoma, Wash., is the state-of-the-art facility that becomes the communications center during any crisis from natural, technological, or manmade hazards. This two-story, 28,000-square-foot, base-isolated, steel braced frame building accommodates 100 staff persons during day-to-day operations and 310 responders, including the governor, during a catastrophic emergency.

The reason we visited and toured the facility was to become more familiar with the center and its operations so that our committee can work successfully with the established state protocol to offer assistance in time of crisis.

The nerve center to this facility is the small, 15- by 25-foot room in which two duty officers work 24 hours a day, seven days each week. Their job is to gather information during an emergency, make decisions, and then implement those decisions while coordinating with state, federal, and local government agencies, non-government organizations, private businesses, and industry. I was impressed by the professionalism, organization, and dedication of all of the staff at the EOC.

Of course, even with the best preparedness efforts, disasters still happen. After response and recovery, hopefully there are lessons to be learned. The Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) headquartered at the University at Buffalo, conducted post-disaster field reconnaissance to examine the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the built environment.

One of its goals is to identify similarities between damage typically observed after earthquakes and damage caused by the hurricane, with the goal of recommending seismic design principles that could mitigate structural damage caused by wind and storm surge forces. See "Preliminary conclusions: Assessing damage to engineered buildings in the wake of Hurricane Katrina," by Gilberto Mosqueda, Ph.D., and Keith A. Porter, Ph.D., P.E., on page 20.

This February marks the 56th anniversary of the Engineer’s Week celebration.

This annual event is dedicated to raising public awareness of engineers’ positive contributions to quality of life. Seize this opportunity to educate one or many people on what structural engineers do, either by joining one of the many activities planned for E-Week, or just by convincing your inlaws that you are not an architect! In fact, one of the biggest challenges that our committee is facing is simply educating the emergency management professions about what structural engineers do and who we are. After that, we want to convince them how we can help in their emergency management efforts.