PREPAREDNESS: Houston offers a grim vision of Los Angeles after catastrophic earthquake.

In recent years, officials have drawn up detailed scenarios of what would happen if a huge quake struck this region, part of a larger campaign to better prepare.

The last two big earthquakes to hit Los Angeles — the 1971 Sylmar quake and 1994 Northridge quake — caused destruction and loss of life. But the worst damage was concentrated in relatively small areas and did not fundamentally bring daily life across all of Southern California to a halt.

Experts have long warned that a significantly larger quake will eventually strike and that the toll will be far greater.

L.A. also lacks the social capital that Houston possesses. Anyway, if you live on the West Coast, or in the (huge) New Madrid zone, or in other earthquake-prone areas, you may want to work on your earthquake prep.

UPDATE: Good advice:

Here are two pieces of advice: However much water you’ve got, store some more. And get a couple of fire extinguishers and make sure you know how to use them. Extrapolating from the 110 fires that occurred after the Northridge and San Fernando and Loma Prieta earthquakes, we have estimated that a big quake creating a strongly shaken hundreds of thousands of square miles will yield 1,600 fires. And you’ll need to fight those fires yourself. You have to be ready to do that.

Good advice for everyone, really. Though I prepare mostly for tornadoes and not earthquakes, I keep some supplies and gear in a shed in my backyard, so that if things are bad they won’t be buried under the house.