VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
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EARTHQUAKE he calamity that generates the most fear is the earthquake. How do you prepare for the prospect of buildings collapsing and roads buckling at a moment’s notice? What happens if the epicenter of the next “big one” is close to Las Vegas? Are our buildings built with codes that demand “earthquake-proof” standards? Is it possible that a resort could collapse or topple? How sturdy are the parking garages? And how big does the big one have to be? Could an earthquake destroy Hoover Dam and drain our water supply? Or could a little 5.0 on the Richter scale create enough panic to turn a frightening event into a full-scale disaster? Despite the end-of-the-world devastation that occurred in Japan, Carolyn Levering doesn’t believe there’s enough energy in an earthquake to take out the largest concrete arch dam in the United States. “Hoover Dam is a conundrum to us,” she said. “It’s so massive that it’s difficult to conceive of its failure, for any reason. A terrorist could fly a thousand planes into it and it’s not going anywhere. Science does not support an earthquake with significant capability to cause that kind of damage to Hoover, but who knows what happens a thousand years from now.” Levering said to her knowledge, no one has contemplated the long-term effects of losing the water supply in an instant. “I’m not sure there is any community prepared to respond to the entire loss of their water supply, other than to import water from elsewhere,” she said. Her bigger worry is the danger from the tons of glass along the Las Vegas Strip. Levering explained that over time, building codes have gotten better and that there are more structures, particularly the city’s resorts, that are strong enough to withstand a major earthquake. “We do have some unreinforced masonry structures and they are the first to go in an earthquake of 5.0 and worse,” she said. “New buildings meet most of the international seismic standards. For most of the city, it would be safer to be inside than outside. “My concern with the newer structures is not whether the structure can withstand the shaking. It’s whether the plate glass windows stay in place. Those windows popping out and dropping to the ground can kill people and that’s why it’s safer to be inside than out,” Levering said. BLACKOUT mergency management officials at NV Energy won’t tell me which power plants and transmission lines are most critical to maintaining service and what part of the system is most vulnerable and, frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m not going to go Atlantic magazine here and spell out how to build a nuclear device so that any reader could go out and cause trouble. But I have to assume that there’s a part of the system that if damaged by earthquake, rock slide, flash flood or wildfire would create havoc to supplying power to Southern Nevada. How would Las Vegas cope without air conditioning on 110-degree days? How high would the death toll be for people who couldn’t survive the desert conditions? Steve Moyer, NV Energy’s director of corporate security, said he’s comfortable with the power company’s various redundant systems that can steer the flow of electricity from other sources to make sure the lights—and the air conditioning—stay on. He said the company has emergency management personnel at both ends of the state and even though 28 the north and south are not connected with a transmission line, there is plenty of connectivity on the grid to keep the juice flowing. Three people are dedicated full time to emergency management, one for generation, one for transmission and distribution and one to work specifically on keeping information technology systems intact. Carolyn Levering said the concept of having emergency managers working for various utility companies is a relatively new concept, evolving over the past 12 years after the Y2K panic. Now, all major utilities have teams, and Moyer said regionally the Southern Nevada Utility and Pipeline Emergency Management Coordinating Group comprised of security, operations and emergency management experts communicate with each other and cooperate on coordinated responses to emergencies and disasters. In addition to NV Energy, the organization includes Southwest Gas Corp., Kern River Pipeline, Kinder Morgan, CenturyLink, River City Petroleum, the Las Vegas Valley Water District, the Clark County Water Reclamation District and Switch Communications. Moyer said that although transmission lines are in remote locations, NV Energy is prepared to reach them quickly by helicopter in an emergency. | 4 APRIL 2011 | TIFFANY BROWN TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/BLOOMBERG