[EAS] Disputed alert system gets upgrade after Wine Country fires

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

One of the home truths of the fire service is that occasionally you get your butt kicked by a fire.  Everybody's been there, and everyone just hopes they can pick up and carry on when it happens to them.  Another is that "the only thing you do alone at a fire is die."  That shared understanding can come off as tribal and defensive and even a bit maudlin, but it's also where the heroism comes from.  Nobody wants to undermine that.

Having a situation scale up faster than your management systems can is pretty much the definition of a disaster.  Nobody has enough resources to deal with every possibility, which is why we have civilization... and insurance... and emergency management.  We could theoretically do without all three... but this way is cheaper.

I've already argued that the SOPs and training for public alerting can be improved.  Hopefully once everyone gets past the feeling of having been well and truly whupped by this thing we'll see action on that front.

Pass the wine!

Art

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From: EAS <eas-bounces at radiolists.net> on behalf of Bill Ruck <ruck at lns.com>

Adrienne,

This is a subject that will be the basis for many table top exercises
in the future.

Right now NOBODY wants to talk about the details.

Usually reliable sources tell me that initially they (city, county,
and CalFire) went through usual SOP but quickly realized that they
could not control the fire any more.  It takes hours for Mutual Aid
to assemble and drive.

One friend describes his trip in a mutual aid strike team as "Like
driving through heavy snow except that it was red hot embers".

I will defend them somewhat because nobody has the resources to
handle a 100 year event.  And by the time that they ramp up it is
really too late for a fire.  A flood, maybe, but not a fire.  A
hurricane gives plenty of warning to mobilize resources.

What saved the rest of Santa Rosa was mostly the wind died
down.  That gave the mutual aid strike teams that started to arrive
around 2-3 AM a chance to halt the fire's progress.

This is the same exact scenario as the Oakland Fire.  What saved most
of Oakland was the wind died down.

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco