Santa Barbara County emergency officials will start using a new mapping software to aid the public and emergency responders during wildfire evacuations and other emergencies.
On Tuesday the Goleta City Council approved an agreement with the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to use Genasys EVAC, a map-based mobile app that will allow residents to see if their area has evacuation warnings or orders, nearby shelters for people and animals, and road closures.
It’s been challenging to get maps out to the public during emergencies in the past, said OEM Associate Director Stacy Silva, but this software will allow them to send out emergency information within minutes.
“We need it for that enhanced communication and coordination,” said Silva. “With rapid-onset events, sometimes the map getting published can be an hour or two behind our initial notification to the community.”
Yaneris Muñiz, emergency manager with OEM, said one of the biggest things they learned from the Los Angeles County fires in January is that many people will wait to evacuate an area until they receive an official order to do so.
“That’s what, to me, is the greatest power of this tool, is being able to do that rapidly and being able to do that without technical assistance,” Muñiz said.
Genasys designates hazard zones throughout the county and will allow law enforcement and emergency responders to see how many people are in a hazard zone, and where they need to direct people to go.
The software is not an emergency alert system, and residents should still sign up for ReadySBC emergency alerts, Silva said. However, the Genasys map will allow residents to receive notifications for up to five zones if a protection order is put in place, Silva said.
The software will not designate evacuation routes and Silva said it’s better for residents to plan ahead and know the best ways in and out of their neighborhood.
The software does use the navigation software Waze and traffic patterns, which Silva said will allow emergency workers to decide if they need to open or close certain roads while people are evacuating.
Lt. Frank Vasquez, Goleta’s chief of police services, said it’s very dangerous to designate one specific evacuation route before an emergency.
“We don’t create preplanned routes because things change, people get confused, and in panic they go with something that they’ve planned or that we said was their best route and then they forget it or they get confused because it’s closed or everybody uses it all at once,” Vasquez said.
Goleta Councilmember Luz Reyes-Martin noted that many residents have expressed interest in having pre-planned routes in case of an emergency and that during the Los Angeles County fires there was a lot of confusion about where people should go.
“I hope that a tool like this can give residents more information or more agency to think through what to do in a situation like that,” Reyes-Martin said.
All cities and jurisdictions in the county will be using the Genasys software including all eight cities, UC Santa Barbara, Vandenberg Space Force Space, and the Lompoc prison.
“We got everybody to be on the same page because they recognize what’s at stake when we’re not working together on one platform,” Muñiz said.
The program is set to launch later this month and will be available to the public 24/7.
On Tuesday, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors authorized OEM to pursue official agreement with all agencies and county departments using the software.
