DisasterMan

US-Chinese Researcher Exchange Visits I submitted a proposal on December 4, 1996 to the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER) at the State University of New York – Buffalo suggesting that Chinese earthquake preparedness researchers be invited to Pacific Grove to observe the City’s participation in California’s annual statewide earthquake exercise scheduled for April 1, 1997. The Chinese would also learn about: our Fire Department’s educational programs, such as the Volunteers in Preparedness (VIP) neighborhood emergency response teams and training in the State of California’s new Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS). An exchange visit to learn about Chinese earthquake preparedness would be made by me to China. By coincidence, the January, 1997 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Information Science had a paper by a Chinese at the School of Information Management and Systems, University of California, Berkeley who presented an analysis of citations and translations in Chinese library and information science literature. For example, citation data were collected from seven major Chinese journals of library and information science from 1983 to 1990. Appendix A: Most Heavily Cited and Translated Authors, and Appendix B: The 33 Most Heavily Cited English-Language Publications listed names of two Nobel prize-winners, various professors at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Stanford, Cambridge, University of California-Berkeley, Chicago and Coile, R.C. It was indeed a surprise to see a paper written by me in 1977 (in starving student days working on his Ph.D) listed as heavily cited in China. Therefore, a letter was rushed off to Buffalo to the National Earthquake Engineering Research Center pointing out that some Chinese had found his earlier research useful and that it was hoped that some seismologists in Beijing would be given a grant to come to Pacific Grove to find out what useful things I was now involved with. My proposal that Chinese earthquake preparedness researchers be invited to Pacific Grove to observe the City’s participation in California’s annual statewide earthquake exercise scheduled for April 1, 1997 survived initial reviews by to the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research and the National Science Foundation. The NCCER notified me on February 12 that: “Key information from all proposals submitted by the close of business on December 4, 1996 were forwarded to NSF officials for review and discussion with their Chinese counterparts at the US-PRC Protocol coordination meeting in early December. As a result of these discussions, NSF has requested that we submit all eligible proposals to an additional external peer review body, which will assess the technical objectives of each proposal, its compatibility with the objectives of the protocol agreement, and the feasibility of the proposed effort. They will then make recommendations to NCCER on selected candidates. Your proposal is one of those presently under consideration. We hope to receive the recommendations of the peer review panel by the first week in March and we will then contact you regarding your status.” Actually, my proposal was still being reviewed in May and the latest word was that a decision might be made by June 6, 1997. Again by coincidence, Pacific Grove’s earthquake preparedness received national recognition by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). I rushed another letter off to Buffalo pointing out additional reasons why the Chinese should be invited to Pacific Grove since our program “Pacific Grove—A Model for Small City Disaster Preparedness” was included in FEMA’s Compendium of Exemplary Practices in Emergency Management, Volume II after a national search for outstanding projects. I consequently received a letter from the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research advising that the City of Pacific Grove’s proposal for earthquake researcher exchange visits between Beijing and Pacific Grove had been approved. The NCEER’s approved project for earthquake researcher exchange visits between Beijing and Pacific Grove had two phases. First, an invitation was sent from the City Manager to the Chinese Academy of Sciences for Chinese researchers interested in Pacific Grove’s earthquake preparedness to visit here on April 8, 1998 to observe the City’s participation in the statewide earthquake exercise. Second, an invitation was received from the Chinese Academy of Sciences for me as the city’s Emergency Program Manager to visit China from October 10th-31st. Chinese Hopping Parakeets We enjoyed a visit to a special laboratory for earthquake prediction at Beijing Polytechnic. The Chinese are studying different techniques for getting information to help in earthquake prediction, such as: analyzing electrical currents in the earth’s crust; animal behavior – for example, they noticed that just before an earthquake the nocturnal yellow weasels would come out in the daytime; and budgerigars would get excited and hop up and down. An instrument in the cage measured how many times per hour the budgerigars jumped up and down on their perch and plotted their hops on a computer. The scientists stated they could detect earthquakes two hundred miles away based on the bird’s hops. This experimental research was supported by the Geophysical Section of the Academy of Sciences because of a big earthquake in China where 240,000 were killed at Tangshan in 1976. I visited the Center for Disaster Reduction of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Beijing Polytechnic University, the Government’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics and Institute of Geology, and met geophysicists from the State Seismological Bureau. I gave a seminar on Pacific Grove’s earthquake preparedness program assisted by Ellen who gave a talk on Pacific Grove’s Volunteers in Preparedness (neighborhood emergency response teams). I gave the Chinese copies of our earthquake preparedness literature, FEMA and California literature, catalogs of courses at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute and the California Specialized Training Institute, San Luis Obispo, U.S. Geological Survey earthquake literature, disaster journals, Yogi Bear’s facts about earthquakes, etc. In return, the Chinese gave me copies of technical journals and government reports. The Chinese researchers appreciated getting our literature as they are just starting public education efforts. The Peoples Liberation Army responds after disasters as they do not have a FEMA type agency. Ellen and I gave a brief presentation on our visit to China to the Pacific Grove City Council at their December 17, 1997 meeting. I showed council members my 400-page trip report and Ellen presented a Chinese butterfly kite to the Mayor.