The city has updated its disaster notification system, and local residents have galvanized grassroots efforts to prepare for the next calamity.
By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times
State and local officials at a town hall meeting last week warned the Malibu community about the encroaching fire season, and gave information on the necessary, individual steps that need to be taken to prevent the disastrous ramifications of last year’s fires. The two fires in October and November of last year burned more than 9,000 acres and destroyed 59 homes.
State representative Lisa Kalustian, chief deputy director of the Los Angeles office of the governor, said that under an executive order signed in May, the governor has localized military resources to boost state preparedness for what is predicted to be a rough fire season.
“We are coordinating state agencies with federal and local agencies to make sure we can maximize fire prevention and our fire fighting capabilities,” Kalustian said.
Kalustian said at least 800 fires were burning in Northern California at the time of last week’s meeting.
After speeches from state and local officials, audience members asked questions and later separated into breakout groups to discuss topics such as insurance questions and how to develop a family emergency plan.
“While the natural beauty … can distract us, history and our recent events can tell us that fire, landslides and earthquakes do happen here,” Susan Nissman, assistant to Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, said. “They happen to each of us, but each of us holds the key in addressing our role in preparing for the inevitable.”
L.A. County Fire Chief Michael P. Freeman emphasized the need for mass evacuation routes, brush clearance, protection of property and utilities, and family emergency planning.
Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Captain Tom Martin discussed the need for a nearby Sheriff’s substation, the lack of which not only has officials spending 8 percent of their day in a commuting to Malibu, but can also be a major setback in the case of a disaster.
“We believe that the facility would serve as a coordination center for emergency preparedness, as well as a Sheriff’s station,” said Martin, who wants to use the site to train officials in disaster prevention tactics.
In addition to proximity of aid, a lack of efficient communication between residents and fire and law enforcement on closures and evacuations was one of the problems in previous fires, said Brad Davis, city emergency services coordinator. Davis wrote the Malibu Survival Guide, a pamphlet about disaster preparation written post-fires 2007 and distributed through mail to residents this year.
Davis said the city has upgraded its telephone notifications system and now residents can subscribe to a service that will notify them of disaster updates through landline, cell phone, Blackberry Wireless, text message and TTY. The service is also offered in languages other than English.
The Red Cross and other support agencies provided aid that made many of these changes possible, Davis said.
“We are working daily to find solutions and to come up with solutions,” he said.
The audience also heard from two local residents, Cindy Vandor and Judi Devin, who took planning for the next fires in Malibu into their own hands.
Vandor, a resident of West Malibu, said she organized a 501(c) (3) nonprofit Fire Safe Sustainable Council to mobilize her neighbors to take fire precautions. Vandor said more than 10 percent of her neighbors have ordered fire blocking gel and organized community sheds to store additional fire fighting supplies for firefighters, but are still worried about evacuation routes, water and above-ground utilities.
“[Future fires] are not a question of ‘if,’ but a question of ‘when’,” Vandor said. “We need to factor the water supply into every decision we make.”
Judi Devin of Latigo Cove Beach, a community of about 350 residents, also worked to mobilize her neighbors in the Corral Canyon fire aftermath, after realizing the community was “woefully unprepared,” she said. They lacked communication with neighbors, supply centers and evacuation routes.
Devin and some of the other homeowners hosted a half-day workshop for neighbors in which they distributed booklets on how to prepare for the next fires and vendors distributed fire safe gear. Devin said a third of Latigo Cove residents attended.
“We realized we don’t have to do this alone,” Devin said.
Several residents asked what could be done about neighbors who refused to trim decorative bushes and trees that pose a serious fire risk and who seemed to be in denial about the likelihood of future fires.
“You have to have self reliance,” Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich answered. “You can’t always depend on the government, the Internet… You have to depend on yourself, your family and your neighbors to survive.”