Reporting from LA…. The southern CA firestorm is perhaps FEMA’s first major test since Hurricane Katrina. A big task is the evacuation. There are multiple fires and they are traveling fast and in unpredictable ways. People sometimes want to stay to protect their houses in the absence of firefighters. One criticism likely to emerge is that the SD fire dept lacked resources, despite the known fire danger. Another – which is always noted after fires, but does not seem to affect development – is that people should not be allowed to build houses in these zones. So far it seems that the evacuation has been handled in a very different way than New Orleans. According to reports, the 20,000 people in Qualcomm stadium are well-fed, the national guard is there with automatic weapons in case of social disorder. On the other hand it is not clear that there are sufficient resources available for people showing up in evacuation centers, such as the race track in Del Mar. This is a very different situation than Katrina, of course. First, the city is not totally engulfed: most of its infrastructure (communications, electricity, transportation) is operational. Second, the race and class dynamic is different: many of the burned and threatened areas are wealthy suburbs, and residents have resources and networks to find adequate accommodations after evacuating. Third, state and federal leaders know they are under scrutiny and must demonstrate quick response (not to mention that the CA governor is from the same party as the president). FEMA has set up a Joint Field Office in Pasadena; USNORTHCOM, the Red Cross, etc are in action. A lot now depends on how much longer the heat and Santa Ana winds continue….
Lots to comment on here, of course, and I’ll be happy to take a stab at it, esp. as a San Diego native with a pretty vested interest in the subject — and in the safety of several family members near three separate fires throughout SoCal. First, I think that comparisons between this year’s response at the local, state and federal levels and the 2003 Cedar/Crest fire are warranted, and will show *vast* improvements across the board in areas such as coordination, (rapid) response, frontline and risk communications, and evacuation and sheltering. Underlying this, pretty clearly, is what is turning out to be the very effective employment of the Incident Command System, California’s SEMS, and very tight coordination with/by San Diego’s OES.
Under the radar, but part of the narrative are: *massive* civic and community involvement in helping evacuees and victims — I hadn’t quite heard the extent of problems at the Del Mar Fairgrounds that Andy noted, but what has made Qualcomm “the Ritz” of disaster shelters, according to an LA Times article today, has as much to do with the massive influx of individual and community-initiated donations to the tens of thousands of people there as to armed national guardsmen.
Although there may be some criticism of insufficient resources in the SD city fire department as Andy has noted, I suspect equal attention will be paid — and scorn aimed — at the hundreds if not thousands of residents who refused to leave their homes throughout the county at various times, thereby forcing firefighters to engage in search and rescue of individual properties as much as if not more than aggressive firefighting in open spaces. This will place front and center (again) the issue of mandatory vs. voluntary evacuation — and therefore issues around compliance with lawful authorities in times of disaster.
Getting back to the resources issue in San Diego: Many may not remember or be aware that San Diego is reeling, still, from a financial crisis of truly harmful proportions and of the City’s own doing — a crisis based in the vagaries of ugly local politics, institutionalized unaccountability of public officials, and, frankly, the unethical and illegal activity of several (if not many more) senior officials in government. What does this have to do with anything? The resources issue in the city is based in part the fact that it (the city) cannot borrow funds — consequently, the recommendations of the esteemed commission put together to examine the failings of the city, etc., in the LAST massive fire (of 2003), which included the establishment of 22 new fire stations to boost San Diego’s station/firefighter per capita average into an acceptable range, has been met by the establishment of exactly 1 new fire station in four years. If it is well-known in the California law enforcement community (which it is) that the city of Oakland is massively understaffed on a daily basis, it is equally well-known in the fire-rescue community that San Diego Fire-Rescue is extremely spread out, with nowhere near the per capita staffing rates of a city such as, e.g., San Francisco. With all that said, it is therefore remarkable but not surprising to me that the Fire Department performed as well as it did.
This is very helpful, Dale, thanks, especially the points about the impressive functioning of the emergency response system and the massive volunteer efforts. A note on the Incident Command System (ICS), which is widely used to structure command-and-control when crisis events require inter-agency coordination: it actually developed in the context of southern CA wildfires in the early 1970s, in reaction to chaotic responses by multiple fire departments.
I agree that the comparison to the massive 2003 SD wildfire is the one worth making (more than, say, to Hurricane Katrina). One question that follows: what mitigation efforts were put in place since that fire to ensure that there would not be another huge one? Presumably there are zoning ordinances, controlled burning measures, insurance restrictions, etc., that would take into account the almost inevitable fire ecology of the region?
Interesting comments Dale. An article in today’s NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/us/25cnd-fire.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) raises some of the criticisms you anticipate and more. Beyond the financial crisis in San Diego, there is apparently a widespread problem with local government funding of emergency response capacity. The “needs” have grown faster than local tax revenue. In some cases, special appropriations have been required to get more money for basic emergency response capacity. In any case, this is clearly a classic problem of emergency federalism — namely, how do you get autonomous local governments to fund emergency response capacity to a level that will be adequate for coordinated response to events that exceed the ability of localities to respond?
By the way, the comments I have seen on insurance suggest that this is not, for them, a very big event. Industry liability is expected to be around $1 billion — this kind of loss is priced in to premiums. By comparison Katrina related losses were around $41 billion. So from their perspective this is not a major event (so far, anyway — if the weather holds).
Here is RMS’ fire hazard model – I imagine they will soon come out with loss estimates on the recent events:
http://www.rms.com/NewsPress/PR_2006_0828_Wildfire.asp
The problem of funding emergency needs in San Diego county also has to do with its distinctive “political culture” – the region is traditionally heavily anti-tax, and not interested in public upkeep of critical infrastructures. This is from a piece by Steve Lopez in the LA Times:
Although the city of San Diego has a fire department, the county doesn’t, leaving many suburban and rural areas to rely on volunteer departments. The city has but one firefighting helicopter and just 975 firefighters for 330 square miles and 1.3 million residents.
Compare that, he says, with San Francisco, which has 1,600 firefighters for 60 square miles and 850,000 people.
“San Diego practices the biggest don’t-tax-me campaign I’ve seen,” says Bowman, a proud, lifelong Republican. Fine, he says, don’t raise taxes. But reevaluate how money is spent and redistribute it to public safety.
A number of San Diego suburbs have the same resource problems, he says, and are more inclined to invest in evacuation technology than fire prevention and suppression.
“It’s a lot cheaper,” he says. “I’ve had the hardest time with the culture of ‘We can do more with less.’ ”
While we’re on the way to get his mother, Denise calls to say the evacuation technology has just kicked in at their house. She got an automated call telling her to evacuate.
The sky is the color of charcoal, the air thick, and a long line of evacuees is stuck in traffic coming down the road from where his mother is. Bowman tells his wife he thinks she’s safe for a while, but says she should leave immediately if she thinks it’s necessary.
As we approach his mother’s nursing home, I can’t help but notice the number of houses foolishly built on the edge of dense vegetation.
As UC San Diego professor Steve Erie puts it:
“It’s paradise plundered,” which happens to be the title of a book he’s finishing “about how developers run this town.”
Erie says that “developers own most of the city councils. In Poway, in Escondido, what they do is put homeowners in harm’s way. They’re able to control zoning processes, and they’re frequently behind initiatives that say no new taxes, no new fire services. It’s insanity.”
Thanks guys for these very interesting comments!