Following a pair of strong earthquakes in Southern California, management at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles wants to assure everyone that the Ravine is tremblor proof.
Team president and CEO Stan Kasten told the Orange County Register that everyone at Dodger Stadium is “as safe as we can be” during these events.
“As in all security things we don’t discuss what the procedures are but we do have them,” Kasten said. “I think it would be comforting for everyone to know among all the things that we have done here, starting with the renovations in 2012. We also began a very exhaustive seismic retrofitting, and we’ve done some every year. So we have done a lot of it since we got here.”
Kasten said Dodger Stadium was given a complete rundown following last week’s 6.4 foreshock and again after the 7.1 quake that hit on Friday.
“We met with stadium ops immediately and we knew immediately there were no breakdowns at all. Everything was operational,” Kasten said. “We had talks about, 'what if there’s another one right away?' — We were preparing for that. Again I don’t want to go into details. But I feel very comfortable about being here myself and inviting everyone else here.”
During Friday’s quake, play continued on the field. Social media posts appeared to show those seated in lower sections of the stadium unaware that anything was happening, while those in the upper tiers were scrambling for safety. Kasten maintained that a complete evacuation was unnecessary at the time.
“For the same reason everyone throughout the Los Angeles area doesn’t leave their home [during an earthquake],” he said. “It just was not called for.”
