“GENTLEMEN, ‘we want to know which office buildings in the city are bomb-proof. We need to know whether our storm drains would make safe air-raid shelters. We have to learn at once the best locations for alarm sirens.” The meeting at which this speech was made was not in a war-threatened European city but in Los Angeles, the fifth largest city in this country. The United States is at peace, yet today, in Los Angeles, the Major Disaster Emergency Council is preparing for an emergency, and in other parts of the country officials are studying ways to defend the noncombatant population if war should come. Recently the War Department announced that it is preparing pamphlets that tell civilians how to help themselves under conditions of modern | warfare, giving information on bomb shelters, first aid, air-raid warnings, and defense against gas. It has already instructed munitions plants and other possible military: targets that their buildings should be arranged in irregular patterns to hamper straight-flight bombing, that underground shelters should be built for employes, and how to camouflage buildings with mottled painting. Because the region is highly important as a producer of petroleum, airplanes and. auto tires, and because it would be impractical to move the population quickly in time of war, Los Angeles people must stay at home. So for the past year the emergency council has been studying safety measures. Several European countries have been asked to outline what they have learned about passive civilian defense, and the replies have helped to guide the work. The first move was to map the most potentially dangerous areas of the city. These are the districts that surround aircraft factories and other probable military objectives, and are classed as “A" zones. “B" zones are congested areas and “C” zones are thinly populated. Voluntary evacuation to the country in time of war would be urged of all inhabitants and in addition all residents of “A” zones would be required to move to the safer “C” zones. Workers who are employed in the “A” zones would be allowed to remain there only during working hours. Los Angeles has some 6,000 buildings more than five stories high and the lower floors of some of these are comparatively safe from the effects of bombs. A committee has studied the construction of each and has listed the relative safeness of all the buildings. Another committee, looking for big air-raid shelters, investigated the storm drains under the city. These drains, built of reinforced concrete, are buried as deep as forty feet below the surface. Some are large enough to push freight cars through "7" and are dry nine months of the year. Engineers have prepared plans for building stairways down into the drains at convenient places and for installing ventilating apparatus. This information, including the materials that would be needed and the places where they may be obtained, is filed away against the time it might be needed. The same committee investigated small air-raid shelters and this information likewise is ready. For small family shelters, architects are abandoning the idea of redesigning cellars because the entrances easily may be blocked by debris. Concrete “pill box” back-yard shelters have been designed that would protect decupants from everything except a direct hit and some of these are being studied by the United States Housing Authority. People are aiready asking what they may do to protect themselves, and in one community several architects and engineers are suggesting that those who can afford it may construct a dual-purpose room, either underground or buried in a hillside, that ordinarily would serve as a game or rumpus room and that in time of need would be an effective bomb shelter. The technical group has designed five different sizes of such subterranean shelters, the most elaborate of which is really a furnished apartment that has its own air-conditioning system, operated by a motor-generator. All such buried shelters could be entered from the house and would have a three-layer roof consisting of a concrete detonation slab a few feet below the surface, a deep layer of sand, and then a thick reinforced concrete ceiling. For new office buildings, roofs that would reduce the destructive effect of direct hits are being considered and in some cases plans have been made to reconstruct the top floors of existing structures. Another part of the work in Los Angeles has been to plan an air-raid alarm system for the city. Hand-operated sirens are preferable to those operated by electricity because of the chance of power failure. The locations for siren stations have been picked out. An information committee is designing placards, posters, and information sheets that tell the public how to act and what to do during an air raid or other kind of invasion. Every school child canbe given instructions within two hours after the need arises and the outlines of radio and newspaper announcements have been pre- pared in advance. The Major Disaster Emergency Council of Los Angeles was formed in 1933 as an official body that could take charge of public safety, health, and comfort in case such a disaster as a major fire, earthquake, or pestilence should ever strike the city. Fourteen committees that contain in their subdivisions some 2,000 trained key men are capable of taking immediate charge of any sort of rescue or rehabilitation work. Each committee chairman has two alternates and no more than two of these three may be out of the city at the same time. The city is divided into fourteen concentration districts and in each of these an assembly area, consisting of a golf course or other large open space, has been selected as a safe place where the residents might gather in an emergency. Red Cross activities are coordinated with the emergency council and committees are ready to erect tents and temporary hospitals and to provide food as well as sanitary and lighting facilities for the concentration camps. The committees have arranged with industrial concerns to release all items that might be needed in a major emergency, from portable lighting plants and trucks to beds and bread. Committee members know where to obtain the supplies and have the authority to requisition what they need. The disaster council is a group of trained volunteers that can do far more than an army of well-intentioned but untrained men in time of need. Under the direction of Basil E. Rice, coordinator, every detail that might hamper its operation has been solved ahead of time as much as possible. The water committee, for instance, has installed shut-off valves at strategic points in the city water system so that if breaks should occur, no matter in what part of the system, the damaged section can be bypassed. Nearly all gasoline pumps these days are electrically driven, so the committee in charge of fuel for emergency vehicles has arranged with the major oil companies to provide manually operated pumps at known locations, against the day when disaster might interrupt the power supply. The headquarters of the council are in a special concrete building regarded as the most earthquake-resistant structure in the world. The council maintains two separate radio stations at its headquarters as well as emergency telephone equipment, magneto-operated, that tie in with the city’s telephone system. Airplane pilots, doctors, demolition contractors, explosives engineers, motion-picture lighting technicians are only a few of the variously trained men who have been selected for volunteer duty. To get the jump on “D” day, if it ever happens, nearly every part of the organization rehearses its duties once or twice a year. Organized at a time when the world was at peace, the emergency council has adapted itself to handle the tasks that the threat of war presents.