The fires next time: We can do better, all of us, together

By: BILL HOFFMAN - Commentary | Saturday, October 27, 2007 7:14 PM PDT ∞

For most of us, the huge wave has passed. We survived San Diego's October '07 Firestorm together. Our collective hearts go out to those who are not so fortunate.

We each have stories: what went right and what could have gone better. We are thankful how well our fire and other emergency personnel, the media, disaster relief organizations and individual citizens worked together ---- from neighbor-helping-neighbor to interagency cooperation and support. Some 500,000 San Diego County residents evacuated, and so few lives lost. Three million residents acting with the community spirit of a small town. We were so fortunate in so many ways.

However, there will be more disasters ---- fire, earthquake, flood or terrorism ---- and we need to put our collective heads together so we can do better when the next disaster strikes.

We need to harness the collective spirit, experience and intelligence of our community and emergency personnel so we all do better together. Some finger-pointing is justified. It also lets us vent. But let's use that energy to point not just to problems but also to solutions.

Civilians need training

One problem was that fire, law enforcement and other agencies were stretched thin while many citizens who could have helped in official, coordinated ways were not utilized.

Another is that most citizens are not trained in basic disaster preparedness. Community Emergency Response Teams can resolve this (www.sandiego.gov/fireandems/cert). Every citizen needs to take advantage of CERT's free disaster training for themselves, their families and their community. Opportunities also exist for emergency personnel to more fully integrate CERT members as an official resource. This includes joint disaster exercises, access to evacuated areas, and ham or other radio communications systems.

In some fire districts, CERT teams and hams were told they were not needed or they were not recognized at all by emergency officials, shelters or relief agencies. In other fire districts, they were heavily used and recognized and provided very valuable assistance.

Hold a design contest

Another problem is housing construction. No location is immune from disaster. Homes need to be built so they and their occupants can better survive all types of expected disasters. Perhaps, like post-Katrina, a design contest should be held by county and state officials for location- and disaster-specific designs. Grants, zero-interest government loans and tax breaks could be offered for disaster prevention construction or remodeling.

For the government, this could reduce the huge costs for being ready for and responding to disasters. For homeowners, it could reduce dangers and tragic losses. It would reduce disruption to our economy. It could also minimize the devastating impact of more than one disaster at the same time.

We need better info

Information and communication for citizens was also a problem and an opportunity. People were hungry for the latest news. While TV, radio and newspapers did a terrific job providing broad coverage, it's impossible for those media to provide all the latest information and communications specific to every person's needs or situation.

For this information, some people resorted to cell phones. That clogged the cell networks, exhausted cell phone batteries and exceeded plan minutes. Wi-Fi and other Internet connections at shelters, as well as e-mail capacity, should be more widely available with high volume, multi-user, virus-free capacity. Live video from drones would have also been very helpful for people to see, real-time, what the fire was doing. This could be shown on screens at shelters and the Internet. All this is possible.

Revise evacuation plan

Evacuation and return policies also need to be refined. The reverse 911 system worked very well notifying people and getting them out. However, in many cases it proved to be overly broad. This has some danger of the "cry wolf" syndrome, where people may not be so quick to evacuate next time.

People should also be able to return to their neighborhoods more surgically. As it was, people who needed to get out of designated evacuation areas for a short time were not allowed to return to their residences when it was safe. Given limited resources and erring on the side of caution, this is understandable. However, this can and must be improved to be more realistic and so people will not ignore very real evacuation requirements.

All in all, we did well. But clearly more work needs to be done. These are just some opportunities. There are many more. So let's put our collective heads together so we can do better when the next disaster strikes ---- citizens, elected officials and emergency agencies together.

Escondido resident Bill Hoffman was on the board of directors of the Community Emergency Response Team in Rancho Santa Fe. He evacuated from his Rancho Verde home north of Del Dios and stayed at the temporary shelter at Escondido High School.