California audit faults Sonoma, Butte and Ventura counties on disaster planning

Sonoma County lacks adequate plans for sheltering elderly people and other vulnerable populations during an emergency and doesn’t know enough about community demographics to provide services for people with special needs during an emergency, the state auditor said in a report released this week.

While the county has made significant strides since the disastrous 2017 wildfires to improve its emergency planning, California State Auditor Elaine Howle criticized the county’s written protocols for helping people with critical disadvantages in a disaster, such as those who are elderly, infirm, have limited English proficiency or who lack transportation.

Pushing for greater state involvement in local emergency planning, Howle pointed out that vulnerable populations are hardest hit by disasters. Auditors reviewed how local emergency plans played out during three major wildfires: the 2017 wildfires in Sonoma County, the 2017 Thomas fire in Ventura County and the 2018 Camp fire in Butte County. Howle recommended the state oversee local emergency plans to ensure they have sufficient protocols in place to help the neediest.

“Before the wildfires the three counties had not adequately tailored their existing plans to the needs of their communities, nor have they done so in the draft plans that they have developed since the fires,” according to the report.

The report comes nearly two years after the state criticized Sonoma County for its failure to warn people in October 2017 when multiple wildfires broke out in the middle of the night and burned into neighborhoods in Santa Rosa and the Sonoma Valley, a shortcoming widely lambasted by local fire survivors.

Since then, Sonoma County has begun revamping its emergency services division, increasing its budget and staffing and building better plans to alert the public to dangers.

The county has taken a leading role in the state for testing warning systems, particularly the federal cellphone alerting program called Wireless Emergency Alerts that it had opted against using to warn people during the 2017 fires.

Board of Supervisors Chairman David Rabbitt called the recent state audit “out of date” because reviewers were too focused on written policies and didn’t take into account all the improvements the county has made to its emergency plans over the last two years. The Kincade fire that broke out in October and forced the largest evacuation in local history - nearly 200,000 people - showcased the strides the county has made to improve its response to a major disaster, Rabbitt said.

“How helpful is it to reiterate the things that could have gone better in 2017 and bash us for it, versus looking at the plan we have today to be better in 2020?” Rabbitt said.

Rabbitt said he hoped the report would boost support in Sacramento for additional funding to help local jurisdictions plan for emergencies and get resources in place before a disaster strikes.

The audit was prompted by a February request from Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, who in a letter to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee described some of the factors that contributed to the 85 deaths in the Camp fire, such as a 93-year-old woman who had dementia and her husband, 86, who could no longer drive. He pointed out that state law requires each county to integrate how it will help vulnerable populations into its emergency plans.

“It is critical that the elderly and disabled are cared for and feel safe in the event of a natural disaster,” he wrote.

The audit found deficiencies within all three county plans, such as a failure to evaluate unique needs within their communities if a disaster strikes.

None of the counties adequately involved representatives of vulnerable communities in developing emergency plans. That includes people with disabilities and people for whom English is a second language.

Two counties, Sonoma and Ventura, had no plans for large-scale evacuations.

The audit noted that of the 24 people who died in Sonoma County during the 2017 fires, 18 individuals were 65 or older and seven people had an access or functional need, such as a developmental or physical disability. Those numbers were even more stark in Butte County, where 67 of the 85 individuals who died were 65 or older. Thirteen had some form of functional or access need, according to the report.

None of the counties had sufficiently assessed what resources it might need during a disaster to meet the needs of vulnerable residents and hadn’t adopted evacuation plans applicable to a variety of potential disasters, according to the report. The auditor criticized the counties’ plans to make certain arrangements, such as buses for evacuees, at the time of a disaster rather than in advance.

“Waiting until a disaster occurs to arrange for that assistance means local jurisdictions risk having difficulty locating and coordinating sufficient evacuation resources, such as local transit operators and accessible vehicles,” the report states.

In its official response included in the report, Sonoma County agreed with many of the recommendations and asserted the county had already made begun making those changes before the auditor began the review.

Sonoma County has a population of about a half-million people, and about 10% have limited English language proficiency, 17% are at least 65 years old and another 12% have a disability, according to U.S. Census data included in the report.

Sonoma County Emergency Management Director Chris Godley said he agrees with the auditor’s conclusions that the county must take a lead role in sheltering and rely less on the Red Cross, a global nonprofit that has traditionally managed evacuation shelters.

But Godley said the county already had taken steps to train staff and line up resources for sheltering before the Kincade fire broke out, and that those efforts paid off.

“The American Red Cross is not the gigantic organization that it once was,” Godley said.

“That was a significant component of our pre-Kincade efforts was to really ramp up and ensure the county government had identified and trained staff for shelters.”

Godley criticized the audit for offering vague suggestions, such as the recommendation that local agencies follow FEMA best practices, rather than identifying specific takeaways that might help them measure the success of their plans.

The auditors also disregarded work the county has done to meet with community members, including those with specific needs such as language access, because reviewers wanted extensive documentation such as agendas and attendee lists, Godley said.

“Our goal is not to be a bureaucracy, to create a paper trail for some future hypothetical audit team,” Godley said. “Our goal is to meet with people.”

State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said legislators have “not been waiting for this audit to be published to make improvements we know have to be made.”

McGuire helped author the state’s first guidelines for emergency alerts after the 2017 fires in Sonoma County laid bare the lack of planning to warn the public locally and across the state and pushed for the $25 million state funding to put additional firefighters on the ground during dangerous fire weather.

He said more work should be done to standardize emergency planning across the state.

“I welcome the auditor’s results, but I assure you the state of California has been actively engaged in strengthening our emergency response especially for vulnerable communities,” McGuire said.