Many of us saw the movie “Dunkirk” and, as I recollect the situation was:
1. Hundreds of thousands of troops on a beach in need of urgent removal from now-enemy territory
2. Thousands of civilian boats 20 miles away came to the rescue
Bear in mind this evacuation was accomplished under fire.
The shelter-in-place situation at Malibu Pepperdine only involved 2,500 students, and nobody was shooting, but it is easy to predict that when this happens again, Pacific Coast Highway will again become a standstill heading south, taking as long as five hours just to get to Santa Monica and many students don’t have cars. I would suggest a evacuation a la Dunkirk, with shuttles to the Malibu or Paradise Cove piers.
Then, volunteer boat owners from Marina Del Rey, in a convoy activated with the first alarm of fire in Malibu, could pick them up. Each floor of the dorm would be assigned to a different boat group, so the evacuation could be orderly. A complete practice could be done in non-fire season, whenever that is. Fundraisers could be held throughout the year for the Malibu Evac Group to afford the fuel it takes to go from Marina Del Rey to Malibu.
I don’t know how vulnerable sailboats are to catching fire from flying embers, so I would confine the volunteer boats to motor boats.
Certainly, there would have to be a place for the students to decamp too in the Marina Del Rey area, perhaps a school in that area (Loyola Marymount?), which could be reimbursed for costs.
But the important thing is to get the students out of harm’s way.
I can’t see the vast Pacific Ocean not being used as an evacuation highway. There are, as far as I know, no major obstacles along the coast, and at least two docks—though perhaps wooden ladders will have to be pre-positioned in place throughout the year to facilitate loading into the boats.
Wallace Wyss