This has been planned for a long time. I can recall sitting in class 2 years ago talking about the upcoming 2011 drills. Very very big concern, just finally got everything in place for a good scale drill.
It takes a long time and plenty of planning to conduct a worthwhile training exercise; especially one involving all of a state's resources. The state has a dedicated "earthquake planner" whose job it is to coordinate hazard evaluation, mitigation efforts, planned response actions, action plans, and the training required to implement the plans, but plans are worthless without being exercised. This will be the first major earthquake exercise since 1991, and, while it's sadly overdue, there have been other problems to address in the past 10 years that have had higher priority.