Six months later, emergency upgrades after Northern California fires slow to take effect
Six months after Linda Tunis died in her home at Journey's End mobile home park in northern Santa Rosa during the Tubbs fire, her daughter still questions whether she could have saved her.
Jessica Tunis didn't know the fire she could see from her Rincon Valley home was destroying Fountaingrove and heading toward her mother's house off Mendocino Avenue. She was focused on the elderly residents in an apartment building she manages, making sure they were awake and prepared to evacuate. The 2:08 a.m. warning message she received from the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office troubles her still. It indicated the fire had already leapt Highway 101 to the west of Journey's End.
“I keep going through it a million times in my mind,” Jessica Tunis, 49, said. “What could I have done to save her? My brain won't stop six months later. I still have nightmares.”
The October fires in Sonoma County killed 24 people and burned nearly 5,300 homes. It exposed clear failings in the county's preparations for a large-scale emergency, most significantly its ineffective public warnings, which drew widespread criticism and spurred lawmakers and others to consider quicker and more effective ways of warning people in catastrophic natural disasters.
The Northern California firestorm was the most deadly and destructive wildfire disaster in California history, killing 44 people across four counties - Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Yuba. More than 100,000 residents were forced to flee and about 6,200 homes were destroyed in the North Bay.
The crisis illuminated several failures and missteps by emergency authorities, including:
The slow and uneven mobilization of California's nationally renowned firefighting force;
The inability of local 911 dispatch centers to effectively handle a massive volume of calls in a widespread disaster, and their lack of preplanned instructions to help people trapped by wildfire;
The need for earlier and more informative warnings sent through multiple platforms; and
The importance of faster evacuations.
Veteran local fire official Jack Piccinini was chief of the Rincon Valley and Windsor fire districts during the October firestorm. He learned during the first hours that help from out-of-the-area agencies would not come soon enough.
“Where in the heck are they?” he said that night.
He said California firefighters are still going to be outgunned by wildfires, which have been increasing in scale and ferocity each year, fueled by drought-stricken woodlands with blighted trees and dense, dry underbrush.
“When Mother Nature wants to show us who is boss, she will, and there will be nothing we can do to stop it,” Piccinini said. “That may be a hard pill for people to swallow.”
Changes ahead
The October firestorm could eventually spur widespread changes, from the way national cellphone companies send official government alerts down to local programs thinning overgrown forests. But few changes are in place should disaster strike tomorrow.
The Federal Communications Commission is taking steps to upgrade the Wireless Emergency Alert system for pushing notifications onto cellphones, allowing messages to be longer and requiring cellphone companies to improve the ability to geographically target messages. The Amber Alert-type messages were not sent by Sonoma, Mendocino and Napa counties during the disaster, much to the distress of fire victims and evacuees. Lake County did employ the warning technology to send out alerts.
By May 2019, wireless companies must increase the length of messages from 90 to 360 characters. By November 2019, messages must be sent with greater precision, within one-tenth of a mile of the target location.
California lawmakers are considering a slate of proposed post-fire legislation that would address some of the problems exposed during the crisis. These include establishing a statewide protocol for emergency warnings, requiring garage door manufacturers to have backup batteries and forcing utility companies such as PG&E to establish protocols for de-energizing the power grid during times of high fire risk.
Gov. Jerry Brown is considering a push from lawmakers and fire officials to revise the budget and bolster the state's mutual-aid firefighting system with an infusion of $184 million. The money would go toward new engines, more firefighters and staff at the state's major fire air operations center at McClellan Airfield near Sacramento, and a new system for dispatching requests for assistance by areas under siege.
State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, whose district includes southeastern Sonoma County, co-authored legislation to create a statewide warning protocol. The Atlas Peak fire burned within a half-block of Dodd's home in the Silverado area of Napa County. Two of his neighbors were killed, and 151 houses burned in his community alone. Dodd said he received no notification, and only discovered the hillside was on fire after the power went out and he stepped outside.
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