However, LeRoy W. Hooton Jr., director of Salt Lake City Public Utilities, predicted in 2006 that restoration of at least emergency water service would be much quicker, at least in areas served by his agency, because of extensive preparations it had made.

He said his agency for years studied and practiced how to operate its system if key components were to be knocked out, a possibility deemed important before the 2002 Olympics because of the threat of terrorism. The agency uses that expertise now to route water around breaks, out-of-service pumps and reservoirs and other problems.

With key pump stations down because of power outages, another piece of preparation by Hooton's agency now comes in handy. It purchased numerous mobile generators for just such a problem.

"We've gone through and wired our pump stations and other facilities with plugs so we can drive up with mobile generators and simply plug them in," he said in 2006.

To provide emergency water service to hillside areas with localized outages from pipe breaks, Hooton said his agency worked out methods with hoses and pumps to use fire hydrant systems to pump water to higher zones.

His agency also stockpiled a variety of pipes and other supplies it figured might be needed in such disasters so it would not need to wait for delivery. It also signed many emergency contracts beforehand with outside contractors to allow them to quickly help with repairs.

Over time, the city also installed pipes that it figured could better handle earthquake shaking. "We use a ductile iron pipe on the east side that has enough flexibility that it seems to hold up well," he said. In areas with corrosive soils, "we use a plastic pipe that seems to react well under earthquake conditions."

Learning from California, where a recent earthquake shook some large steel tanks off concrete pads and led to their collapse, Hooton said his agency has anchored similar tanks it has to help them survive quakes. Also, water treatment plants and offices received seismic upgrades.

And Hooton's agency bought satellite phones in 2006 to help ensure smooth communications, because he said they were "about the only form of communication that worked well in Hurricane Katrina" in 2005.

Maybe the biggest improvement to help in the disaster is that water agencies in Salt Lake County no longer depend on just one east-side aqueduct to deliver water from canyon treatment plants or Deer Creek Reservoir to local water agencies. The Jordan Aqueduct also provided a west-side alternative, in case either aqueduct had outages.