Los Angeles – When a disaster occurs, government emergency alert systems offer a simple promise: residents will obtain information about close hazards and instructions to help them keep safe.
Like him Mortal forest fires of Los Angeles And other important emergencies have shown that alerts are based on a complicated communication chain among lifeguards, government administrators, demanding companies and the public.
Sometimes the chain breaks.
After the forest fires driven by the wind exploded in southern California on January 7, the evacuation orders for some neighborhoods, including the Altadena part, where most of the deaths occurred, arrived Long after the houses were reported on fire. On Tuesday, Los Angeles County officials approved an external review of how the alerts worked in the Eaton Fire and Palisades fire in response to the demands of the residents. City officials refused to answer AP questions about A delay in some Palisades fire alertsAlthough Firefighters captain Branden Silverman said that responding to a fire and determining evacuation needs can take some time.
It is an increasingly common problem: reports and research after action revealed problems with alert systems in other California fires: in THE FIRE TUBBS 2017who killed 22 people in Santa Rosa; he 2018 Camp Fire, who killed 85 people in Paradise; he Woolsey firethat began the same day and killed three in Malibu; as well as in Colorado’s 2021 Marshall Firethat destroyed more than 1,000 houses out of Denver; And in Hawaii 2023 Lahaina Fuegothat decimated that historical city and killed 102.
It could take months to know why some evacuation orders were delayed in Los Angeles fires.
Several residents who lost homes in the Eaton fire told Associated Press that they did not receive notifications about their neighborhoods. For others, the first warning was an urgent text message in the middle of the night.
Susan Lee, who registered in the Nixle alert application, did not receive specific alerts from his neighborhood of West Altadena before she and her family were on their own around 10 pm after losing energy and cell reception.
“If we had been informed that the houses and other structures were burning, we would have better known what was happening,” he said. “We almost went to sleep that night with two children and a dog and two cats in the house.”
Only after 3 in the morning, an alert hit his phone. Unleashed together with the house are the Christmas ornaments he kept for his children, and innumerable family memories.
“We lost everything, everything,” Lee said, crying.
Tricia Wachtendorf, director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, said alerts should be specific and clear. The research has shown that to make them effective, people must listen, understand, believe, customize and confirm them before reacting.
“The fact that sending the message to the 3 am does not mean that someone is listening to it,” Wachtendorf said.
The hours between midnight and 3:30 AM seem to have been particularly challenging for the first to respond in Los Angeles County, based on an AP review of the scanner traffic recordings and Calfire’s data, the agency of main firefighters of the State; the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA; and the Watch Duty application.
The resources stretched thin, and the hurricane force winds had fundamental air support, which limited the ability of the authorities to obtain a perspective from top to bottom over the flames.
The calls that reported burns were flooded when the coals blow on ceilings and courtyards. During the half -hour of the period, 17 new directions were transmitted to firefighters, even when some crews were low.
At 12:07 AM, as shown in Calfire’s records, dozens of neighborhoods had been ordered to evacuate due to Eaton’s fire, all east of North Lake Avenue of Altadena. None of the neighborhoods to the west, where the 17 confirmed deaths occurred, as the Los Angeles Times reported for the first time, had received warnings or evacuation orders, despite the fact that the fires of the house were reported there more than an hour before .
During the next three hours, the fire teams would start resources on the eastern flank of the fire to radiograph the command center to make sure that the fire was extended west along the foothills near Sunset Ridge.
Just before 3:30 am, evacuation orders expanded significantly, with residents in 12 Altadena areas and in other places they were told to “leave now.”
Jodi and Jeff Moreno learned for the first time the fire from a neighborhood application. But the first official warning only arrived around 2:30 am, when the authorities shouted through an ox to evacuate. The couple grabbed their three daughters, their dog and some important papers, and fled.
There were no text alerts until after they left.
“In neighborhood applications, some people went, some people stayed. It was a wide variety of answers. We were sailing on our own, ”said Jodi Moreno. “It is difficult for us to measure where exactly that fire is, where the coals are blowing. … Those are things that would trust people who are monitoring it “to obtain information.
Desperate for more information, both brunettes and read the Watch Duty application, which maps the evacuation and consolidated information of multiple sources in a single sequence. Released in 2021 and today covering 22 states, it became a lifeguard for them.
“The ideal system to warn people is to inform them, right?” Nick Russell, Vice President of Operations at Watch Duty said.
“Certainly diligence is needed in the execution of official evacuation warnings and orders or refuge in place, whatever the condition,” he said. “But telling people why this discussion is taking place between the application of the law and fire is important. And that is what we are doing.”
The process of issuing evacuation notices begins with firefighters or other personnel in the field recommended by the action, Russell said. Then the chain of control rises to the sheriffs, who finally put any order.
During the main emergencies that communication can be hindered by problems such as limited radio connectivity, wind noise or other technical problems. Incident command stations can have problems synthesizing the large amounts of information they receive from different agencies, something that is critical to understand the scope of an emergency such as a fire.
In Los Angeles County, residents who register for emergency notifications through the alertlacounty website are directed to a list of 57 links to other specific records of the city alert or alert system, as well as a general that It covers another 19 cities. The city of Los Angeles and the department of the Sheriff also have alert systems.
It is not clear how overlapping systems, which use different software programs, work together or if officials coordinate.
A Risk Mitigation Plan of 2024 ordered the city’s emergency management department to evaluate the gaps in the alert and warning systems in areas with poor cell phone connectivity and then implement a solution to ensure that alerts reach the people. But that goal received a “medium” priority level and a long -term schedule, and is expected to be completed at some time for the next 10 years.
Meanwhile, the County Risk Mitigation Plan, lastly updated in 2020, did not include an approach to emergency alerts or public notifications. On the other hand, their high priority objectives had to educate people on the impact of the wind on the risk of forest fires and with the protection of the community fires of the community.
The officials of the Coordinated Coordinated Information Center declined to make comments that are not saying that an independent review of evacuations and emergency notifications and the Emergency Management Office, the Department of Firefighters of the County and the department of the Sheriff are planned to be involved completely with her.
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