Montecito Residents Participate in Local Evacuation Drill

Posted by Geri Ventura - Photo by Ben Ryan/MERRAG -

MONTECITO, CA – 4/28/2008 The Montecito Community participated in their first ever Evacuation Drill on Saturday, April 26, 2008. Fire District Officials and Sheriff Department Representatives feel that the drill was a success on many levels.

One of the original objectives of the drill included testing emergency alerting systems and evaluating the effectiveness of notification methods.

Early reports indicate that some residents did not receive the Reverse 9-1-1 message on Saturday, however, we are working with the Sheriff’s Department and Verizon to determine what caused this and how we can improve the delivery of emergency messages in the future.

This points out a very important lesson, which is: residents cannot rely on just ONE method of notification. Nothing is fail proof, which is why we also utilize the media, our website, our new informational radio station 1680 AM, public safety vehicles driving up and down the streets of the affected areas with PA announcements, helicopters when available, and door to door if time allows.

Another one of our drill objectives was to train and educate the public with the ability to safely evacuate in an emergency. While not every resident in the designated evacuation zone actually evacuated, we distributed preparedness information to over 1100 residents by going door to door with packets that included brochures on what to do with your pets, things to consider if you have seniors or people with disabilities in your household, and information on how to make your home more fire safe.

A third objective was to establish agency coordination. This particular objective was extremely successful. We worked closely to establish positive working relationships with all agencies that would be involved in a real evacuation or other similar emergency in our community. By developing these contacts and relationships in a drill scenario, it will help to make the operations of a real emergency go smoother because we have developed and networked with all the players.

A question that came up many times from the participants in the drill is: WHERE DO WE GO? The fact is, you just need to leave the area. Utilize your family emergency/disaster plan and go to your designated meeting place if you and your family are not all together when you evacuate.

Go to friend or family member's house far from your own neighborhood. An evacuation center may not be established right away, but once one has been set up, we will provide that information to the media, to 2-1-1, on our website and on our own informational radio station, 1680 AM. However, until an evacuation center is established you, should get far as far away from the fire as quickly as possible.

Additionally, we have been asked: Why did you not open the gates at Sycamore Canyon for the drill? The 1600 block of Sycamore Canyon is located beneath an unstable hillside. Until that situation can be certified safe and stable – we could not jeopardize the safety of our community members for the purpose of a drill. However, if there is a real fire moving toward that area, and the road has not been further impeded by the slide making it impassible, the gates WILL be opened for evacuation purposes. Once again, this points out a valuable lesson – make it your responsibility to aware of EVERY possible exit out of your neighborhood and be informed about their conditions. (i.e. Stanwood Drive being closed for construction.)

During fire season – particularly on hot dry days – check the Cal Trans website and the Santa Barbara County Public Works website for local road conditions. Additionally listen to our AM radio station for updates. (Road conditions are not being broadcast on the station yet, but Cal Trans is scheduled to begin utilizing our radio station to broadcast local road conditions soon!)

If you live in the designated evacuation zone, a survey post card was mailed to you prior to the drill. If you did not receive the post card, please complete a survey by clicking here, and return it to Montecito Fire District, Attn: Evacuation Survey, 595 San Ysidro Road, Santa Barbara, CA, 93108. Your comments are very important to us, and will be included in our analysis of how the drill was planned and executed.

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