[EAS] Fire in Santa Rosa

Tue Oct 10 14:27:50 CDT 2017

Bill -

Glad your friends are OK.

We don't have a map of EAS activity... wish we did... but the PBS map of WEA activity (http://warn.pbs.org) showed just one NorCal alert... a long-expiration alert from yesterday in Marin County reporting an available shelter location.  There was also one for Orange County in the south.

(Good use of a long-expiration WEA in my view... where things operate to design that should come up on folks phones as they drive into county.)

I was hoping that was because local authorities were using commercial telephone notification products rather than WEA... if a lot of people didn't get alerts I expect there'll be an outcry.  Which doesn't do a lot of good after the fact, but unfortunately that's historically when improvements get made.

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

A couple of real world comments:

San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, October 10:

"Tim Ros got a call from a friend saying there was a fire.  He
decided to shower and shave and then head out.  When he saw burning
embers floating past the bathroom window, he decided to skip the
shave.  "Why was there no alert?" he asked.  He's gotten emergency
weather and Amber Alerts in the past, he said, but this time
nothing.  He was angry."

First hand observations from Steve Pazar, a friend and member of MRHS:

This is as serious as it gets. At 2 AM a friend called to tell me
about the fires.
We had no clue as they sprang up overnight. By 4 AM our neighborhood was
completely surrounded by burning forest and houses. Everything 3 blocks south,
1 block east and on the N-W side of SR is gone. There were constant explosions
all around us. Car tires, gas tanks and several big ones which may have been
propane tanks. At its height, maybe 1 every 2-5 seconds. And they were CLOSE.

We were EXTREMELY lucky!

But the danger is not over yet as there is still a lot of open forest land to
our east. The WX report is good....a sea breeze coming from the west
laden with fog.

There has been ZERO air support even though the air tankers are
stationed 3 miles
away. Everyone is overwhelmed. Caught looters at the end of the block
and looting
all over the place. Sooooo glad I'm armed.

So for now things are looking fairly good. We have been ready to
evacuate since
3 AM. Will update when I have a chance. I have not heard from many H-set folks
yet and two may have been in the path of the fire.

Later:

This fire was so hot and moved so fast there is absolutely nothing to be done.
I was up early sweeping redwood and cedar tree needles off the roof. This
is an old area with lots of trees and vegetation.

There will be many deaths. People had no warning and it happened early
in the AM. You folks know more about the details that I do. Cable TV
was the first thing to go, then cells, then commercial water (but we're
on a well and power stayed on). No good source of info. None.
BC radio had snippets but out of date by hours. The ham EOC net, worthless.
The loss of OTA TV is criminal IMHO. Its still out here.

No sleep, running on fumes but things are looking much better. Some
explosions overnight but few and far away.

SP

I'm not pointing fingers at anyone but this was clearly a learning experience.

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco

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