On Oct. 11, the hills along the Gaviota Coast were engulfed in dense, grayish orange smoke as the wind-driven Alisal Fire tore through the hillside, prompting evacuation orders and warnings for about 200 residents.
As the incident rapidly evolved, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department and the Office of Emergency Management were tasked with sending out prompt, accurate emergency alerts and evacuation orders and warnings to keep residents safe.
The job was done successfully as there were no reported deaths that resulted from the blaze.
Santa Barbara County is no stranger to disasters, and a group of researchers from UC Santa Barbara recently published a study that speaks to the importance of public awareness programs in keeping residents informed and safe during natural disasters, using the 2018 Montecito debris flow as a case study.
The catastrophic debris flows crashed through the hills of Montecito in the early hours of Jan. 9, 2018, claiming the lives of 23 residents and affecting more than 400 structures as water, mud and debris rushed down the mountains that were recently torched by the roughly 281,900-acre Thomas Fire.
“By understanding the factors that contribute (to) evacuation decisions, emergency management agencies in these communities can develop more effective plans and communication for evacuation orders,” according to the study, authored by Erica Goto, Summer Gray, Edward Keller and Keith Clarke. “Thus, increasing evacuation participation and, consequently, reducing injuries and human losses, and avoid putting the rescue teams at risk when trying to save people who did not evacuate.”
The study used a mixed-method approach to understand the evacuation behavior of residents before and after the deadly debris flow, and researchers received more than 500 responses to the surveys they sent out to Montecito residents, Keller told Noozhawk.
The responses revealed that most of the residents who were killed in the disaster lived in evacuation warning areas, below State Route 192, not the mandatory evacuation order areas.
The mandatory and voluntary evacuation zones during the debris flows were the same ones that were used for the Thomas Fire, which was the largest wildfire in modern California history at the time, but the fire evacuation zones did not account for the estimated movement of water, silt and boulders that could storm through the hillside, the study found.
The line between the two zones was east to west at Highway 192, but debris flows in Montecito were north to south events along the corridors of the major creeks, so “many residents were told to evacuate who lived outside of the debris flow hazard area, and many residents in the voluntary evacuation zone were in areas subject to debris flow,” the study stated.
Using the same evacuation zones suggested that the fire and debris flow had similar characteristics, and the study found that respondents lost trust in public authorities, “which is not a good outcome as the public authorities are still the ones responsible for communicating about future evacuation orders,” according to the study.
Evacuation orders were issued by the county more than 24 hours before the debris flow, but the study found that lack of knowledge of debris flows and “evacuation fatigue” were factors in residents’ decisions to not evacuate, despite the orders and warnings.
The Montecito debris flow was a rare event — the study stated that debris flows of the magnitude that occurred in Montecito have an average recurrence interval of about 1,700 years — so respondents had low-risk perception when the warnings went out because they did not know that the debris flow could cause a disaster, the study found.
Unsure about debris flow risk, the people interviewed for the study said they looked to their social networks to make evacuation decisions.
Most respondents believed that it was possible for debris flows to occur in the next year or 100 years, suggesting that their recent experience with the 2018 debris flow increased their perception that the event could occur again.
However, the factors were not statistically significant to predict future evacuation decisions. Those who did indicate that they were concerned about the debris flow in January were more likely to evacuate when surveyed in March than those who were not worried, the study found.
In an interview with Noozhawk, Keller said that the most surprising conclusion that came from the study was that most of the residents did not know about previous debris flows in Montecito or Santa Barbara County.
“It shows how disaster memories are forgotten over time, and the importance of ongoing and long-term communication and educational programs,” he said. “One thing that was somewhat expected was that after the debris flow, residents who were more concerned about debris flows were more likely to evacuate.”
Residents had already evacuated because of the Thomas Fire, and the study found that many were tired of being out of their homes by the time the debris flow warnings and evacuation orders were issued.
“If you’ve been evacuated two or three times, you might not pay attention to the evacuations as much, so it’s really just about getting the message out to the people who are in the most danger,” Keller said.
The study claims that the county chose to be “reactive rather than proactive” as it did not “inform and warn the community of the real risk,” but had equipment ready to be used to rescue in case a disaster did happen.
There were multiple reports following the debris flow that looked at the county’s response and what could have been done better.
An after-action report on the Thomas Fire and Montecito debris flow compiled by a consultant firm outlined the county’s perceived strengths — information sharing through the Joint Information Center, using volunteers for response operations, and the robust public health response.
It also outlined an improvement plan, including formalizing and socializing evacuation planning, reigning and enhancing emergency public information and warnings, and increasing the capability to recover from a major disaster, among other things.
The National Weather Service’s Los Angelos/Oxnard office and the University of Alabama partnered for the study “California Mudslide, 2018 Weather Warning Assessment,” which focused on the debris flow and included a survey of Montecito-area residents.
The study came to similar conclusions as the recent UCSB study, boiling down to low-risk perception, evacuation fatigue and a lack of knowledge about debris flows.
One of the conclusions that Keller came to was that there has been a lot of improvement in the county’s emergency response since the debris flow, and that he’s “very proud of the county for doing the best job they can do.”
“It wasn’t like they weren’t trying to get the message out; it was just that it was difficult,” Keller said. “It may happen next year, it may happen in a couple hundred years. The point is that we want to be prepared whenever it may be.”
As the October Alisal Fire burned through the hills of mid-Santa Barbara County and warnings of flash flooding came a week later, county officials appeared to be better prepared for the disaster, implementing a set of emergency alert best practices.
One of the emergency alert concepts that has changed is the terminology used when issuing evacuation orders and warnings, according to county Office of Emergency Management Director Kelly Hubbard.
Distinguishing between evacuation orders and warnings is one of the best practices that has been implemented statewide, she explained.
“It’s still a learning curve for some agencies, but having that consistent language really helps people understand what we’re saying when we use those terms,” Hubbard told Noozhawk. “I think that’s one of the best things that helps us moving forward.”
Hubbard said that emergency alerts have five elements to them: the source, or who is sending the message, the hazard or threat, the location, the protective action, and the expected timeline or duration of the threat.
“The focus of emergency alerts is that we’re asking the community to take a protective action, an evacuation warning/order, shelter in place, it could even be to boil your water if we have a massive power outage and people don’t have access to clean water,” she said. “The reason those five elements are really important is that research has found that people believe the message and what actions they need to take.”
When sending out an emergency alert via text message, the county draws a box around the surrounding area and the message goes out to all of the cell phone towers that are in that box, then the cell tower sends the message to anyone in its radius, Hubbard explained.
Consequently, that leads to some people receiving the alerts even though they might not be in an affected area.
“I’d rather over notify than under notify. We do get people who get confused about why they are getting the message for something that’s not close to them; it can create some confusion,” Hubbard said. “But that goes back to why those five elements are so important, so they know who it’s coming from and what area is impacted.”
Another component of emergency messaging is getting out the information on as many platforms as possible. Hubbard said research shows that people will look for confirmation from two to three sources, and that could be a text message, the radio, the television, websites or just asking a friend.
“To provide those confirmations, we put that information out as quickly as possible, we put it up on the ReadySBC website, our social media, we get all of our partners to share it on their social media, we send out releases to the media,” she said. “We know people are going to look for verification, so we try to push that information out as fast as possible.”
The county did all of those things when responding to the Alisal Fire, as well as partnered with law enforcement for door-to-door knocking at houses in the affected evacuation zones. The Sheriff’s Department determines the protective action, and the Office of Emergency Management has pre-developed language that is ready to use for most types of incidents.
“Rather than try to figure out how to tell someone how to shelter in place, and the area, and in English and Spanish, we’ve pre-developed all of that so we know that the character counts fit and we don’t have issues with the different methods of communication,” she said.
The county wants to evacuate as few people as possible in times of disaster while still protecting the community, so it focuses on the situation at hand and makes sure the event meets a threshold of potential concern when sending out alerts, Hubbard said.
Residents can sign up for emergency alerts at ReadySBC.org, where the county updates disaster information regularly.
“For the Alisal Fire, staff and the Office of Emergency Management are working really hard with other departments to update the information so residents can stay informed and stay safe,” Hubbard said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be reached at jmartinez-pogue@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
