![]() ![]() Many of the critiques should have been directed to the person’s cable provider or can be attributed to FCC rules surrounding emergency messaging, the agency replied to the residents in an email. The messages were unclear, they said, and the automated voice reading out instructions was fuzzy. Two residents, on the other hand, emailed the Federal Communications Commission, complaining about the lack of clarity in the county’s emergency broadcast that interrupted their TV programming. You have to proclaim very loudly and publicly, ‘It’s time to get out now,’” Gorin said. ![]() “It’s a new realization that the fires we had even 20 years ago are not the fires that we have today. In general, more people heeded evacuation orders for the Glass fire than used to, city and county officials said. “The rugged individualist that may be living at the end or middle of a very windy road for generations, they’re the folks that think they can stay to fight the fires and some sadly perish,” Gorin said. Because the county had already broken up Santa Rosa and surrounding areas into evacuation zones, officials could quickly pick areas to alert instead of having to carve out their targets street by street.ĭespite the area’s recent history of fires, including the massive Kincade fire that threatened communities for weeks last year, some residents still refused to heed evacuation orders and had to be rescued or shuttled out later by ambulance, officials said. The emergency operations center was up and running within an hour, along with the first messages to foothill and isolated residents to pack up and either get ready to leave or just flat-out go. Once the fire was reported, other aspects of the county’s updated response rolled out, Godley said. Sonoma County’s alert page now includes a Spanish-language version regardless, community advocates say, there is still more outreach work to be done. Remote weather stations, satellites and supercomputers have begun to show promise as a means of predicting the spread of wildfires.Ĭounties have traditionally overlooked non-English speaking and other marginalized communities in their emergency planning and response. “This isn’t our first rodeo experiencing this, and I think everyone now understands we have to work together to evacuate safely and effectively,” Santa Rosa Mayor Tom Schwedhelm said during a recent community update that included a sign-language interpreter.Ĭalifornia Can technology predict wildfires? New systems attempt to better forecast their spread Traffic backed up on Highway 12 for more than an hour as the evacuations unfolded, but it eventually cleared, officials said. The department is also staffed by at least one person 24 hours a day and has more workers trained on how to write and send out emergency alerts to the public - which was a communications bottleneck three years ago.Īlso, the county had already identified senior care living facilities full of vulnerable residents, so the city of Santa Rosa sent shuttle buses into the evacuation zone to help get residents out when the evacuation orders came, Godley said. The county’s Emergency Management Department, with four to five full-time employees and an $850,000 budget in 2017, now has 11 full-time workers and operates with $2.4 million in county funds and grants, Godley said. ![]() Though less severe fire conditions certainly played a role - the blaze started earlier in the evening with winds topping out at 65 mph instead of more than 80 mph in 2017 - officials say the community’s preparedness was also key in things running more smoothly. And, more significant, nobody was killed. 27, fewer homes were destroyed compared with the 2017 firestorm. Though damage from the Glass fire is still being assessed, it is clear that during its night run Sept. Many cellphones buzzed and beeped, while sirens blared and police darted door to door knocking and shouting for residents to get out. Emergency information was broadcast via TV, radio and the internet. When wildfire evacuations were ordered in and around Santa Rosa recently, the smoke and chaos reminded many of the terrible firestorm that had killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes three years earlier.īut unlike that earlier fire - when first responders were overwhelmed and emergency officials were hesitant to order evacuations - this year was different. ![]()
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