PD Editorial: No warning, Part II: The changes that need to be made

Hindsight is always 20-20, and Sonoma County lacks none if it when it comes to the fires of October.

What the county lacked was foresight - enough foresight to heed the warnings laid out in its own Hazard Mitigation Plan, which warned that a repeat of the 1964 Hanly fire was not just possible but likely. If it had, it might have been better prepared to warn residents in those terrifying first moments as wind-fanned flames swept through the county on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9.

As Supervisor James Gore put it last week in a meeting with The Press Democrat Editorial Board, the county, “should have woken up the world.” Unfortunately, as noted in Friday’s editorial (“No warning: The failure to sound the fire alarm”) the only tool that those in the county’s Emergency Operations Center had to awaken and alert residents had already been rejected as an option a year earlier - a decision that was made by the emergency management manager without consultation with higher-ups.

According to the preliminary findings of a state analysis released last week, the decision not to use wireless alert technology was based on a lack of training and a lack of understanding about advancements of the system that could have given emergency officials what they desired - an ability to send a targeted Amber Alert-style message capable of setting off an alarm on cellphones and shaking people from their slumber. Instead, the Emergency Operations Center sent alerts on opt-in services such as SoCo Alert that reached relatively few residents.

The decision not to active the wireless alert system, which was rooted in concern for creating widespread panic, had another negative impact. It left 911 dispatchers as the primary source of information to residents on a call-by-call basis. And as Julie Johnson reported last week (“No 911 protocol for firestorm,” Feb. 17), dispatchers were understaffed and underprepared for this particular type of emergency. No scripts existed at the time for how dispatchers should counsel those in the path such a rapidly moving firestorm.

All of this underscores the need for a number of actions going forward, actions that should be part of the supervisors’ discussion on Tuesday when they will delve into issues such as emergency alerts.

First, the county needs to clean house at the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The decision not to take advantage of the wireless alert system was flawed, but the decision not to include the county administrator and supervisors in that decision was inexcusable. These errors in judgment were further compounded by the failure of county emergency officials to learn from Lake County’s experience in dealing with the Valley fire in 2015. If ever there was a red flag that Sonoma County could experience a similar disaster, this was it. In the end, Lake County issued mass cellphone alerts to alert residents in October. Sonoma County didn’t, a costly decision.

The reassignment of Christopher Helgren, the emergency services manager, is a start. But it’s not enough. The county needs to bring in new leadership, re-evaluate staffing levels and revamp department policies to assure greater transparency and accountability. More than four months have passed since the fire, and the public is only beginning to know what decisions were made and what happened inside the Emergency Operations Center in those critical early hours. This is unacceptable.

Second, the county needs to consider moving responsibility for alerts out of the Emergency Operations Center, possibly to the Sheriff’s Office. Warning residents of an approaching catastrophe is better handled by first-responders on the front lines of the crisis.

This would also help address the criticism raised by state officials that alerts lacked coordination by all the agencies involving in responding to the fires.

Finally, the county needs to assure residents that the wireless alert system, despite its limitations, is and will remain the county’s primary tool of communication for warnings of this kind. SoCo Alerts, Nixle and similar systems can never be more than a backup form of communication as long as these remain opt-in services.

Emergencies such as this may come again in the dark of night. But they need not come without warning - not again.