Residents without power struggle to flee in the dark

Missed evacuation alerts due to the outage made the situation even more fraught

LOS ANGELES — Mary and Charles Lindsey went to sleep to the glow of the Tick Fire, but they had seen wildfires before and their two-story home in the Santa Clarita foothills seemed safe enough. All Thursday, they hadn’t gotten a reverse-911 alert, an emergency email or a phone call. All had seemed quiet since 11 a.m., when Southern California Edison shut off their power.

It wasn’t until 2:30 a.m. Friday that something — maybe the whir of helicopters — woke Mary up. She saw the unusual light creeping through the bedroom curtains. “That’s not right,” she thought, grabbing a flashlight.

Outside, a sheriff’s deputy noticed the flashlight in the window and shouted into the home: “It’s a mandatory evacuation!” The deputy wondered why the occupants hadn’t gotten an alert. She told him that entire section of the Stonecrest community didn’t have a clue and were all still in their homes. “Oh, my God!” the deputy replied.

What followed was a pitch-black rush to safety for the Lindseys and dozens of their neighbors — just a microcosm of the new abnormal confronting residents in California’s sprawling wildfire country: managing emergency evacuations without lights, electrical garage doors, internet-enabled phone lines or air-conditioning.

When they finally evacuated during the dark morning hours Friday, Mary Lindsey had to reach under the bed for a flashlight she’d stashed there. She also put one in her purse. “It was pitch black,” she said.

Communication issues

As fires still raged in Northern California’s wine country and close to suburbs above the 14 Freeway in Southern California, evacuees described how getting out felt more frightening because the state’s biggest utilities had cut power as part of “public safety power shut-offs.” There was no small irony in the fact that the power outages had been ordered to prevent the fires in the first place.

California has built much of its emergency response system around the premise that alerts and evacuation orders will be received via cellphone or landline. But telecommunications companies are increasingly relying on internet technology, which is subject to power outages.

Utilities say they are working to address such challenges. A spokesman for Southern California Edison said a “criticalcare customer” program offers advance warning to people who need further assistance ahead of an outage. But it’s unclear whether most customers in need of such a service are aware the program is available, or whether the warning time is enough.

Phil Herrington, Edison’s senior vice president of transmission and distribution, said the utility tries to give customers 24-48 hours’ advance notice of outages. “That gives customers time to make preparations … ,” he said. “We’re doing this for public safety, keeping in mind the trade-off.”

Asked about the evacuation challenges, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department issued a general statement: “There were several evacuation areas just south of the fire’s flash point,” the statement said. “In instances where there is a fast-moving fire, no one method of emergent notifications can cover the need for public safety.”

‘Very scary’

Even before this week’s fires, Californians have learned the difficulties of getting out without electricity.

Janice Bell, a Chatsworth resident with multiple sclerosis, had to get out of her Porter Ranch home in a hurry in the predawn darkness Oct. 14 because of the Saddleridge Fire. But Bell’s car was inside her garage, behind an electric door, and she could not open it.

After two hours, she flagged down a neighbor who helped her open the garage door and she drove to her office in Woodland Hills.

Bell said she received no advance notice of the outage, adding there would have been no way of learning from Edison’s website, which had been down for two days.

“It was just crazy to me that that can be allowed to happen … ,” she said.

Evacuations were particularly complicated at Isis Oasis, an animal sanctuary in the Sonoma County wine country town of Geyserville, where operators had to exit with an array of exotic creatures. Stumbling through a dark pen, deTraci Regula tried to secure two emus, aggressive 5-foot-tall birds.

“Just as we began to evacuate, all the power went out,” Regula said, adding that a warning from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. about a shut-off had been canceled earlier. “We didn’t know that we were going to have one. We literally could not see what we were doing and there was heavy ash,” she said”

In Southern California, an evacuee at the College of the Canyons, Judy Intenso, had faced an Edison power outage at her apartment a week ago. Though there was no emergency then, she recalled the difficulty feeling her way to the door, where she stores a batteryoperated flashlight.

“To try to gather your things and your dog, and do all that in the dark without hurting yourself,” she said, trailing off. “Very scary.”

So, knowing she might lose power Thursday, Intenso prepared for the worst. When she got home, Intenso parked outside her garage. She also filled up her gas tank, knowing she’d want to leave her car running so she could charge her cellphone.

The fear of lost homes and possessions loomed large for many at evacuation centers. It came with an abiding anxiety for many — fear of running out of power for their mobile phones.

Outside the College of the Canyons on Friday, one evacuee sat under a blazing sun. The man pointed to an electrical outlet and said, “I need juice.”