EMERGENCY CENTER'S OWN SOS\Overloaded circuits, safety violations plague state's disaster\headquarters.

Byline: Mark Katches Daily News Sacramento Bureau

The old barracks-like headquarters of the Office of Emergency Services - the nerve center for disaster operations during earthquakes, floods and fires - is itself something of a disaster.

The 46-year-old tin-roofed complex located about 10 miles from the Capitol, has been cited for nearly 50 fire safety code violations - most of which have not been corrected in the past nine years.

The building's electrical circuits and emergency generator, meanwhile, have been overloaded with the onslaught of computers, fax machines and other modern-day equipment used to monitor trouble spots around the state, a report shows.

On top of that, the building is in violation of a state law that requires emergency structures to be located outside of a flood zone.

During a major flood in Sacramento 10 years ago, the National Guard stood by ready to evacuate the emergency workers as flood waters from the Sacramento River crept dangerously close to the building.

"It is clearly an inadequate facility," said OES Director Richard Andrews. "While we've been extremely fortunate to have made it through the last five disasters without compromising our operations, it's not at all difficult to see that circumstances could arise that could have an operation impact."

Officials say they are concerned that a failure at headquarters would cut off links between the areas hit by a disaster and the state emergency workers who help coordinate and dispatch relief assistance and work crews.

"Fixing this ought to be a higher priority," said Assemblyman Richard Katz, D-Panorama City. "If the governor has made requests before, he has not asked me for help, and I'd be one of the first to sign up."

Gov. Pete Wilson, however, has requested money from the Legislature for a new headquarters but his requests have been consistently rejected.

In his latest budget proposal last week, Wilson calls for spending $4.3 million to begin preliminary work on finding a new headquarters, which would likely cost about $25 million to build.

The building's warning and operations centers are linked by satellite and by computer to federal officials, disaster offices throughout the United States and emergency operations in every county in California.

Warning lights are hooked up to the state's two operating nuclear power plants, and seismographs feed reports of tremors instantaneously into a 24-hour warning center.

OES spokesman Tom Mullins said the agency has not made many of the needed improvements on the assumption that it will soon abandon the building for new quarters.

"Each year we thought we were going to get a new building," Mullins said.