1. Maggie Ortiz
Earthquake Engineering Research Institute

2.  Consortium of organizations
 Established in 1972
 More than 10 activations

3.  Facilitate coordination of post-
earthquake field investigations and
shares observations after a damaging
California earthquake
› Badging
› End of day clearinghouse meetings
 Relay relevant information to CalOES
that can inform and speed up recovery
process

4.  Researchers, scientists, and practitioners
will collect a variety of information:
› Structural damage observations
› Ground displacement measurements
 Clearinghouse will monitor all incoming
observations and extract observations
that will provide situational awareness to
emergency responders

5.  Timeline:
› ~5 minutes: Shakemap
› ~30 minutes: HAZUS run initiated
› ~60 minutes: HAZUS results
› ~24 hours: Clear picture of what is actually
happening
 Decisions about aid requests need to be
made in the first 30 minutes - hour

6.  Decisions about aid informed by local
reports and damage estimates from HAZUS
 Decisions made before the physical
Clearinghouse is established
 A virtual clearinghouse concept allows for
sharing observations within a few hours of
the event
 This “ground-truthing” by experts along with
information from local governments can
inform the aid distribution process

7.  Lifelines experts: in investigating effects on
lifelines systems may inform the
Clearinghouse of areas without water
service or power
 Structural engineers: general observations
of damage in different areas can be
compared with HAZUS estimates
 Two-way street: HAZUS results can help
reconnaissance teams decide where to go
and observations in these areas help
calibrate HAZUS models

8.  Researchers and scientists will each have
their own data collection methods
 Need to have an interface that allows
them to report urgent information
outside of their normal protocol
 The Clearinghouse is investigating a suite
of mobile data collection tools as well as
a data sharing app: SpotOnResponse

9.  Basics: Native app for
iOS and Android phones.
Record geotagged and
data and time stamped
notes.
 Features
› long text description
› Annotated and
captioned photos
› Audio and video clips
 Sharing:
› FNZ, KMZ, text file, PDF
› Email, iTunes, DropBox,
FTP

10.  Basics: Operating system
independent Html 5 web
application
 Features:
› Geolocated
› Text, photo
› Discipline specific forms
 Sharing:
› Data stored in
application database
› Records visible on the
application map or
downloaded for viewing
in other mapping
applications

11.  Basics: Situational
awareness tool with data
collection capabilities (in
development)
› Html 5 web application
 Features:
› map giving an overall
sense of the situation
› Can import data from
other sources such as
FieldNotesPro and
Clearinghouse Fieldnotes
 Sharing:
› SpotOnResponse map
can be monitored in SOC
and at Clearinghouse

12.  Continuing to improve ease of
identifying important observations
 A Clearinghouse seat in State Operations
Center (SOC) will make it easier to
communicate directly with emergency
managers
 Clearinghouse Representative
monitoring SpotOnResponse and in
direct communication with
Clearinghouse physical location

13.  The last major Clearinghouse activation was
in 1994 after the Northridge earthquake
 Notes from clearinghouse meetings
informed emergency response
 New technology presents its own
challenges, but through exercises, the
Clearinghouse is working to more quickly
inform emergency responders, speed up
the recovery process, and improve the
resilience of California

14.  The California Earthquake Clearinghouse
www.californiaEQclearinghouse.org