Dear members of the Malibu City Council,
It has been 17 days since the fiery inferno blasted through the canyons and ripped into our neighborhoods. Like many Malibu residents, I attempted to return home the next day to deliver gasoline, generators, respirators and other supplies to my partner and his friends, who stayed behind to fight the fires. After driving around for hours, I ultimately ended up at Topanga and PCH later in the afternoon. When I arrived, I was informed a hard stop had been implemented and no one would be allowed through. At the deputy’s suggestion, I called the watch commander at the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station and dutifully explained my situation. Naively, I thought that once he understood I was trying to deliver gasoline and other life-saving supplies to those who were protecting our neighborhood, I would be let through. No such luck.
While I was still on the watch commander’s line, a man entered the Lost Hills Station. I overheard him identifying himself as a member of the Malibu CERT. He very politely explained that he had a truck full of generators, gasoline and other supplies he wanted to deliver to those who had stayed behind to protect our community. The watch commander indicated he knew nothing about the CERT and his orders were to prohibit anyone from entering Malibu. I was horrified. How was it possible provisions had not been made to allow members of the Malibu CERT to come to our aid in a time of crisis?
Over the next days, members of our community came together to respond to the disaster in ways that have become legendary—citizens fighting back the fires, delivering critical supplies, taking care of those who needed assistance and developing a homegrown emergency communication system. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of people like Cece Woods, Tricia Small, Hans Laetz of KBUU, Nextdoor messaging, the Malibu Fire 2018 network and many others through Facebook, Instagram and other social media, the community developed an instant communication system to meet the immediate, critical needs of those who stayed behind to protect our neighborhoods and care for those who could and/or would not evacuate.
As I witnessed this homegrown, community-based response emerge, it left me wondering, where was the city? Why didn’t the city immediately activate and coordinate with the first responders and law enforcement so that CERT could assist with the response right away? Isn’t that exactly what CERT is for? In search for an answer, I went to the City of Malibu’s website. It provides the following description for CERT:
“Following a major disaster, professional first responders who provide fire and medical services may not be able to fully meet the demand for services. Factors such as communication failures, road blockages, and the number of victims, may prevent people from accessing emergency services … People will need to rely on each other to meet the immediate lifesaving and life-sustaining needs, particularly in isolated areas that may be cut off from main roads for a period of time …The purpose of Malibu CERT is to assist the city by providing assistance, as needed for emergency disaster response in Malibu and surrounding communities.”
Members of our community invested their time and effort, taking as many as eight different training classes to be certified as a member of the Malibu CERT. I don’t know exactly how many CERT Malibu members there are, but I am sure that when the fiery inferno from hell blasted down the canyons into Malibu, every one of them stood ready, willing and able to answer the call for which they were trained to respond.
The fires highlighted many shortcomings in the city’s emergency response preparedness. But, most troubling, is what appears to have been the city’s complete neglect and, possibly interference, with the ability of members of our own community to help one another when the government was so clearly unable to. Even worse, it left those who answered the call to fend for themselves and care for those who needed help.
My partner, Barry Wirt, who stayed on Point Dume to fight the fire with his old school friends, has been a Malibu resident since 1963 and is no stranger to fires. He knew to get out the goggles, the masks, the hoses, fill every container we had with water, load the roof with buckets of water and have a last ditch evacuation plan, if necessary. He carries the guilt of not being able to save more homes. I am a newcomer, having only lived in this great community since 1992. We, along with every resident of Malibu, are entitled to have the following questions answered by the city:
(1) Why did city fail to immediately activate the CERT on Nov. 9, 2018, so the delivery of essential supplies could have occurred immediately, safely and in an orderly fashion? Instead, citizens were forced to undertake extraordinary and more risky measures of bringing in supplies by boat, backroads, cart and foot. When will the city develop a protocol to allow for the immediate activation of CERT in an emergency?
(2) Why did the city fail to make available emergency supplies to those who remained to protect and secure our neighborhoods and care for those who could not evacuate? Citizens have reported that city officials refused to allow CERT members to access emergency supply containers. Other residents have reported that the city manager advised that CERT emergency supplies are for earthquakes. Once again, it fell to good neighbors to provision those who needed supplies.
(3) Why were the healthcare needs of our neighbors left in the hands of the guardian angels in our community? What would we have done without those volunteer angels, who sent out messages letting people know how to communicate emergency medical needs, performing wellness checks and getting care to those in need? It was shocking to read of the lengths good citizens had to go to get prescriptions filled and delivered.
(4) Does the city have an evacuation plan that has been vetted by emergency preparedness experts? If so, why wasn’t it enacted on Nov. 9? If not, we demand the city develop and publish one immediately. Attempting to evacuate the entire city down the same two lanes at the same time, apparently without any traffic control, suggests that the city did not have a vetted plan. But for the grace of god, the fire did not reach PCH while the city evacuated everyone at the same time without any apparent consideration for the impact of immediate mass evacuation would have. From the top of Big Dume, I watched, in horror, as the fire swept down the canyon while traffic on PCH was at a standstill for hours. Somebody finally decided to open all four lanes sometime in the afternoon—by that time, most residents had completed the hellish five-hour drive out of Malibu. Mud will most certainly flow faster than fire—there will be no room for the errors of Nov. 9, 2018.
(5) What is the city now doing to protect us from the mud slides that are sure to follow the rain? WE NEED THE CREEKS, DRAINS, UNDERPASSES AND CULVERTS CLEARED IMMEDIATELY. What is the plan to assess the drains, bridges and culverts at the foot of Trancas, Bonsall/Zuma, Ramirez, Latigo, Sycamore, Puerco and all the little canyons in between? Who is in charge of making sure that debris catches like the ones that were immediately built behind Trancas after the Trancas fire are under construction now? What is the city doing to get the Army Corps of Engineers/LA County Department of Public Works, etc., here and working on protecting us from the next disaster?What can we learn from Santa Barbara in the aftermath of the Thomas Fire? Clearly, sandbags won’t cut it.
(6) When will the city take steps to make sure we have an emergency communications system that works in an emergency? We are all so grateful to the homegrown emergency communication system that emerged. What would we have done without it? When the power goes down and regular communication lines are not functioning, why not consider properly funding our local radio station, KBUU, so we can have regular, reliable communications. I don’t know Hans Laetz managed to get the KBUU station up and running as fast as he did, god bless him. Why not provide KBUU with an upgraded transmitter and emergency backup, so that we can be assured that there will be someone on the ground pushing out real-time communications during the next disaster.
(7) Why did the city fight, instead of embrace, those who tried to help? Why did the city fail to embrace and help amplify the efforts of those who made heroic efforts to assist? What sense did it make to chase off the beach citizens who boated in supplies? It has been reported that one community member, who lost his home, boated in over 50 gallons of gasoline and 10 cases of water, along with masses of bread, cheese, meat, etc. Many others did as well. It was embarrassing to see government resources devoted to chasing down people on the beach—a new low.
(8) What happened to the water? Many citizens were shocked to learn that there was no water available to fight the fire when it swarmed their home—their hoses ran dry. What happened to the water? Why was water not able to flow? Were the efforts of the firefighters undermined because they had no water to fight the fire with? Is there no emergency backup power source to pump water into our town in times of crisis? Is it really true that there is no emergency generator in place to ensure the water flows when the power stops? What steps is the city taking with the Water District to determine how entire neighborhoods were left defenseless so that this never happens again. The stories of neighbors, desperately trying to save their homes, with no water or assistance are devastating and heartbreaking.
(9) When we will get a local central command? When will the city develop a command center that is capable of managing a crisis from within the city borders so we are not left feeling forgotten and abandoned by our government? When will city staff return to Malibu?
(10) When will local, county, state and federal government work together to make sure we can adequately respond to fires, “the new normal?” We watched the fire envelope the canyons and coast over a period of six hours. Where were the super scooper water planes that could have doused the fires long before they mounted over our canyons to the sea? Maybe once an hour, we saw retardant drops along Latigo and Malibu Canyon. I don’t recall seeing any significant resources deployed at Encinal or Trancas. The resources simply were not there in the air or on the ground. Clearly our elected officials have NOT prioritized public safety. We must demand more.
We are no strangers to natural disasters. Fires, floods, earthquakes—these are to be expected. As the city’s CERT mission recognizes, in times of disaster, citizens need to be able to help one another, and the city should embrace and support such efforts. To make sure that we are better prepared to respond to the next disaster, we need answers to these basic questions. As citizens who want to make sure our family and friends are protected in the next disaster, we have the right to have these questions answered.
With deep gratitude to all of the first responders, firefighters, CERT members, neighbors who stayed behind to fight for and protect our community, citizens who were able to get through the barricades to help, coordinate, inform and serve as a lifeline to those who were behind the line and who were a key source of information for those on the other side, community volunteers who have risen to the occasion, and everyone in our amazing community and who make us, MALIBU STRONG.
Daphne Anneet