Laguna Beach Community,
I’ve been in law enforcement for over 30 years, and the wildfire devastation occurring in Los Angeles is unparalleled and heartbreaking. I started with the Laguna Beach Police Department in 1996. At the time, the emotional and financial impacts of the 1993 Laguna Beach fire were still very real and evident in our community. The anxiety of that catastrophe is still felt today. LA has a long road to recovery, and it makes me proud to see our town come together to offer financial and material aid.
During a wildfire, the Police Department’s primary mission is to protect life by facilitating the mass evacuation of people within the impacted areas. In 2019, I had the opportunity, with then-Mayor Bob Whalen, to visit the City of Paradise following the destruction caused by the Camp Fire.
This was an opportunity for us to evaluate the management of the Paradise Camp Fire evacuation. The challenges they faced were not only eye-opening but chilling. They had a robust evacuation plan in place. Still, they could not execute it because of the speed of the fire, limited personnel, utility poles falling across roadways, power loss, and evacuation of their dispatch center. Public works had to utilize heavy equipment to move hundreds of live power lines and vehicles from their evacuation routes so people could escape and allow emergency responders to enter the City. Large holes were left in the asphalt where vehicles burned to the ground.
The Laguna Beach City Council created the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Fire Safety Subcommittee, led by Councilmembers Bob Whalen and Sue Kempf. To date, the City has invested more than $25 million to improve our wildfire mitigation efforts.
One of the recommendations from the subcommittee was to contract with KLD Engineering to conduct an evacuation modeling study for our community. The study helped us to understand how long it will take to evacuate our City accounting for variables like time of day, road closures, access impaired neighborhoods, and contraflow. The study revealed that under normal roadway conditions with no roadway hazards (like stalled vehicles, trees, or power lines blocking the road), it will take 4 hours and 20 minutes to evacuate our community. If Laguna Canyon Road and North Coast Highway are rendered unavailable, you can add four additional hours to that calculation. Just to put it into perspective, the devastation that occurred in Lahaina Maui, the City of Paradise, and the Pacific Palisades took place within four hours because of the high winds. Like Laguna, each of these communities has limited evacuation routes.
Our current City evacuation plan divides the City into 22 evacuation management zones. The map of these zones, along with evacuation routes, is located on the city website. Know the name of your Zone and have a go bag so that when you receive an evacuation order through our alert and warning systems like Nixle, Wireless Emergency Alert, or AlertOC, you will be prepared to leave.
Evacuation Warning means that there is a potential threat to life and property, and preparations should be made if an Evacuation Order is issued. An Evacuation Order means there is an imminent threat to life and property. People in the Evacuation Order area should evacuate immediately, without delay. An evacuation order is mandatory.
We utilized our evacuation plan during the 2018 Aliso Fire and successfully evacuated and re-populated two of the zones, which had approximately 1500 residents. One of the lessons learned during this evacuation, as we witnessed in LA, is that several residents did not take essential needs like medication, medical devices, and pets with them. We had to redirect essential personnel to drive them back to their homes. In LA, they were quickly overwhelmed by these requests and stopped assisting. We also used this plan in the 2021 Emerald Fire and the 2022 Coastal Fire.
During the 2021 Emerald Fire, we issued an order to evacuate Emerald Bay, North Laguna, and Irvine Cove. Following the announcements, I did a “windshield survey” with Councilmember Sue Kempf and the City Manager. To our surprise, the roadways were eerily empty, and residents were not leaving. If you are ordered to leave, please be a good community partner and be the first one out - not the last. Time and time again, we see people wait until the last minute, thinking they are going to save their home with a garden hose, and they become trapped. We understand the importance of your home, but it’s not more valuable than your life, your family, or the life of the emergency responder who may have to save you.
During an evacuation, we will be relying heavily on assistance from outside agencies. We have outstanding relationships with our mutual aid police partners, who will be assisting us with evacuations and traffic control. We have also created mutual aid agreements with Newport Beach and Irvine to utilize their Emergency Operations Center if we have to evacuate City Hall, and we are currently developing an alternate EOC location at the Laguna Beach Community and Recreation Center.
I have said it publicly: one of the greatest threats facing our community is our above-ground utility poles. This is evidenced by the fire in Lahaina Maui, the City of Paradise Campfire, and the Laguna Beach Emerald and Coastal Fires. In each of these Cities, the fires were started by the above-ground power poles, and in some cases, it limited their ability to push out mass notifications, crippled escape routes, and hindered ingress for emergency responders. Almost 200 people perished in the Maui and Paradise fires combined, causing more than 20 billion dollars in property damage and economic loss. Sadly, 24 people and counting have died in the LA fires, and the cost to restore those communities may break new historical records.
I appreciate Councilmember Bob Whalen’s leadership in 2018 in placing Measure P on the ballot. This would have increased our sales tax by 1% to fund utility undergrounding. Based on the projections, the City would now have $36 million to underground our utilities, but the measure did not receive two-thirds of the votes needed for a special tax.
It’s not if but when a fire will happen again, and preparation is critical to mitigating property loss and preventing deaths. We have been proactive as a City in investing in Wildland fire mitigation measures, but the question we should be asking ourselves is how we can afford not to address the threat of our overhead power lines. Unfortunately, it often takes a catastrophe to make disaster preparedness a priority. Let’s not be that community.
In closing, I want to thank the men and women of our Police Department who have taken time away from their families to upstaff during the Red Flag days and during high winds, and the fire watch team and CERT who have helped patrol our wilderness areas.
Sincerely,
Jeff Calvert, Police Chief
