Businesses discuss disaster readiness

One photo pairing after another flashed on the wall, comparing the devastation of the 1886 earthquake in Charleston to the February temblor in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Just as the facades of brick buildings fell out onto Broad Street 125 years ago, they broke off earlier this year on Colombo Street in that tourist-friendly coastal city on the other side of the world.

In both places, landmark churches cracked, smaller wooden buildings simply shifted, and there were craters left by "sand blow," an eruption of sediment caused by earthquake liquefaction.

The Christchurch aftershock killed 181 people and caused $20 billion in damage, and similar conditions exist here in Charleston, Steven C. Jaume, assistant professor of geology at the

College of Charleston, told a rapt audience of local business leaders Wednesday morning. Of all the recent earthquakes, the Christchurch event was the "most similar to the sort of thing you would expect here in Charleston," he warned.

A day after a 5.8-magnitude quake rippled from Virginia up and down the eastern seaboard and as Hurricane Irene approached the U.S., Lowcountry businesspeople gathered for a series of presentations on disaster preparedness organized by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce.

"Yeah, we planned for it," joked Joseph P. Stringer, who emceed the day-long expo.

Proof that they hadn't: the state and county emergency management chiefs couldn't make it to their afternoon panel because they were on duty. (The absence of two Google employees who were slated to speak about how their company prepares for the worst was not explained.)

But plenty of other experts, from a Medical University of South Carolina doctor to a Federal Emergency Management Agency representative, did make it, and attendees seemed satisfied with what they got for their money.

Dorothy Roessler of Tidelands Bank said people in the Lowcountry are well aware of the hurricane threat but that the earthquake refresher was a really good reminder. "Earthquakes are like that," she said. "People forget them."

John Odell, facilities maintenance manager for auto tire company TBC Corp. in Summerville, called the talks "very informative, very helpful."

A disaster plan is "something that you gotta be working on all the time," he said. "You have to have a plan and a back-up plan.

"Hopefully when the day comes, you've covered all your bases."

But, Jaume cautioned, the best-laid plans, or construction, can sometimes be no match for larger forces.

For instance, in New Zealand, a bigger earthquake occurred in September, but it happened in the middle of the night in a rural area outside Christchurch. The killer aftershock months later, on the other hand, was just south of downtown Christchurch and happened at lunchtime, when lots of people were at work or out at lunch.

"Timing and location matter, not just that magnitude," Jaume said.

Christchurch still isn't back to normal -- broken water and sewer lines meant importing thousands of portable toilets, Jaume reported -- and Charleston could be similarly affected if an earthquake uncorked here. He said land adjacent to, or reclaimed from, water tends to settle quickly and unevenly in an earthquake, meaning the port and other coastal infrastructure could be badly disabled.

"How far can you get around the Charleston area without crossing a bridge?" Jaume said, prompting murmurs from the audience. "Not very far."

Planning, therefore, is necessary to ensure core business uptime, the day's message seemed to be.

"Business continuity -- it's a mindset," said Gal Nir, a former IDF operative who is now CEO of Scopus Security Solutions, which has an office on Folly Road.

Nir aired dramatic videos reminiscent of the hit television show "24" that showed actual drills run by his company.

"You cannot reduce the threat but you can reduce the impact," he said.

Sharon Sellers, a longtime Charleston-area human resources manager and now a consultant, encouraged employers to hammer out company policies before the next storm strikes. Will paper versions of employees' Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-protected health care data be safe? Should employees be paid for time the company is closed?

"I just caution you not to write some universal policy that you will have to honor and it will break the farm," she said.

Whereas Federal Emergency Management Agency Senior Policy Advisor Ashley P. Moore warned about "black swan" events, Stringer emphasized that natural disasters are much more common here in Charleston.

"We're not in an 'if' area, we're in a 'when' area," he said.