That was a central conclusion offered Thursday from a recent earthquake-preparedness exercise, although officials also noted that this region is better prepared for such a disaster than most parts of the country.

That's not saying much, however, with warnings that unless major — and expensive — steps are taken in planning for a big earthquake here, life afterward is going to be bleak.

"What is very clear is we are 24 hours away from being like Pakistan," which was struck by a devastating earthquake last October, said Glenn Anderson, president of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, a consortium of five Northwest states and three Canadian provinces that hosted the preparedness exercise.

"We are not prepared for it," Anderson said.

The conclusions from the exercise in March were discussed Thursday at a follow-up gathering in Bellevue.

The exercise, called Blue Cascades III, was based on what would happen if the region suffered a magnitude 9.0 earthquake — hundreds of times more powerful than the 2001 Nisqually quake.

More than 330 people from 150 public and private organizations and businesses participated in the drill.

A 38-page summary of the findings was blunt in laying out dozens of problems:

• "Among all the issues explored in the exercise, none was more challenging than the 'Who's in charge?' question and the related problem of sorting out organizational roles."

• "Sheltering a large number of individuals was acknowledged to be a major problem. Schools would have only a day's worth of food and many potential shelters could lack heat and potable water, or would soon exhaust available resources and face sanitary problems."

• "Dealing with large numbers of abandoned vehicles was seen to be an unanticipated significant problem, along with debris removal."

• "The large number of casualties exceeded the surge capacity of hospitals that were not damaged or suspected of having structural damage and forced to evacuate."

• "Most participants had no real idea of the physical effects on their facilities, operational and business systems of a large-magnitude earthquake."

The purpose of the Bellevue session was to begin developing a plan to improve preparedness.

Anderson gave a hint of the costs: Simply creating a redundant communications system to allow hundreds of police and fire departments, medical services and other agencies to communicate with one another could cost $250 million.

Still, progress is being made, said Bob Windus, security manager for the Bonneville Power Administration.

"I know who to call," he said, adding that partly because of such exercises, emergency plans are being created.

"We're not dead in the water," he said.

Paula Scalingi, an expert advising conference organizers, said this region is one of the best prepared in the U.S. But she added: "Clearly, there is a vast amount of work that needs to be done. We need leadership at the state and federal level."

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com

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