Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrator’s Blog
Walter Denton
October 29, 2007
Similar to most people, I have been following the recent forest fires in Southern California with alarm and curiosity. It is incredible that so many people are affected in what was essentially a slow-motion disaster. Some disasters, like earthquakes, flash floods, and tornadoes, strike with such force and speed you do not have time to prepare or react. Other disasters move more slowly, or at least with some advance warning – forest fires, hurricanes, and the 1993 Mississippi River flood fall in this category.
This distinction is important from a public safety standpoint because local governments must prepare for them in different ways. Prevention and mitigation are important in both types of disasters, but incident response is different. The 1993 Mississippi River flood was a disaster that extended over weeks and months: response was coordinated over a long period of time, including staffing, supplies, evacuations, and planning.
The forest fires in California are similar. They have struggled with fighting the fires as the disaster drags on. They do not have enough firefighters to attack all fronts. They were staging new evacuations almost daily and had to find places to relocate the displaced residents. It is astounding to me to try to evacuate 500,000 people. How do you coordinate that? Where do they go?
Contrary to a hurricane or flood, you cannot really “ride out” a forest fire. Fire is a strong motivator to evacuate. Many people in San Diego found shelter to the football stadium. The emergency planners must have been well prepared, because I did not hear of any problems with sheltering such a large number of people in one place (and certainly nothing on the scale of the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina).
In O’Fallon, we are not in danger of a hurricane or forest fire. However, our disaster planners think a lot about evacuations. We are in an earthquake zone and a major railroad runs through the middle of town. A derailed rail car carrying hazardous chemicals could quickly require the evacuation of a large portion of O’Fallon. During last year’s ice storm, the City set up an emergency shelter in Central School so it is not inconceivable.
The City has mutual-aid agreements with other cities and agencies to provide help if needed, and public safety groups plan regularly. It is impossible to completely prevent all disasters, but we can mitigate against them and develop response plans to reduce the scale of the disaster.
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