[EAS] Sonoma County to overhaul emergency management program following wildfires

[Sean Donelan]

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8634656-181/sonoma-county-to-overhaul-emergency

After months of harsh criticism for Sonoma County's response to October's 
firestorm, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a slate of changes 
designed to improve the county's ability to handle future disasters.

The emergency services division -- broadly denounced for its failure to 
issue widespread alerts as the Tubbs fire raced toward Santa Rosa -- will 
be reorganized into an independent department with its own leader. The 
change will boost training, communication with elected officials and 
response before and during disasters, said Interim Emergency Manager Chris 
Godley, who described it as "one of the most ambitious reorganizations" of 
such a department in the state in at least two decades.

[...]

In total, supervisors have allocated about $2 million in funding for the 
new Department of Emergency Management, which will have nine employees 
when it's formally established later this year, Godley said. The county 
currently houses most of its emergency management functions in the 
soon-to-be-dissolved Fire and Emergency Services Department.