Emergency alerts under scrutiny
SANTA ROSA (California): Communities in wildfire-prone Northern California have an array of emergency systems designed to alert residents of danger: text messages, phone calls, e-mails and tweets. But after days of raging blazes left at least 23 dead, authorities said those methods will be assessed.
The fast-moving fires began to burn through the state’s wine country on Sunday night. Counties used a variety of ways to send out warnings, but the alert systems rely on mobile phones, landlines or the Internet to rouse residents.
State fire officials on Wednesday said that while the current priority is getting people out of active fires, they would be following up on the methods used and whether it was even possible to reach everyone with so little time to react.
“People were in bed, asleep at midnight, and these fires came down on these communities with no warning within minutes,” said state fire agency Chief Ken Pimlott.
“There was little time to notify anybody by any means.”
In emergencies where a few minutes or even seconds can save lives, the notification systems have inherent blind spots. Not everyone will get the message. Sonoma County uses a service that sends out text messages or e-mails when an evacuation is ordered, but residents have to sign up to receive them.
The county can also trigger automated emergency calls to landlines in an area threatened by fire, but that would only reach homes with those phones.
The Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Department said the county’s emergency alert service texted thousands of warnings to residents to flee on Sunday night. However, nearly 80 cellphone towers were knocked out or badly damaged, officials said.
Sonoma County Sheriff Robert Giordano said his office did the best it could to notify people of evacuations after the blaze broke out on Sunday, but he acknowledged the limitations in the systems.
“The world has changed. People don’t have landlines anymore,” Giordano said. “The other thing to keep in mind, the fire was unbelievably fast.” — AP