One of the strongest memories I have of the 1991 Firestorm is evacuating my home—with my 9-year-old daughter and me in one car and my husband and the dog in another. I tried to leave my driveway but traffic coming down Hiller Drive was backed up to the top of the hill. If it hadn’t been for a friend letting me in, I may well have been stuck there in my driveway as the fire rolled over the hill.
Heading down Tunnel Road in a long line of cars, I recall making a split-second decision to veer onto Roble Road, only to realize that I was facing a second wall of flames. I couldn’t turn around on such a narrow street with cars stacked behind me. It wasn’t until I passed Chabot Elementary School and away from the flames that I began to feel safe.
Now, 30 years after the 1991 Firestorm and three years after the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people on the one road out of Paradise, evacuation is on many people’s minds. The problem, as I learned in 1991, is that in a crisis, you think with your gut. Oh, if we only had opportunities to practice evacuation many times over so that when the real threat appears, our minds know exactly what to do.
This spring, the Oakland Firesafe Council and its Oakland Community Preparedness & Response program (OCP&R) will be offering evacuation practice to neighborhood groups in the form of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” scenario developed in collaboration with researchers from UC Berkeley and UC Davis. Our team will focus on a number of evacuation scenarios hand-tailored to Oakland.
Concurrently, the City of Oakland and Alameda County are detailing evacuation plans as well. All of Alameda County is now organized into evacuation zones using a cloud-based Evacuation Management Platform (EMP) under a program called Zonehaven. Oakland will introduce residents soon to the system with a “know your zone” campaign. Instructions on warnings, mandatory evacuation orders, and where to go will be available for cell phones and tablets and on radio and television.
Our team is currently applying for part 2 of a National Science Foundation grant to create a video game version of an evacuation using feedback from the community and input from the Oakland Fire Department. We will incorporate real data about potential traffic flow, fire behavior on individual streets, and individual neighborhood situations (elderly neighbors with mobility issues, children home alone, pets running loose, etc.). This will give participating groups a realistic opportunity to practice evacuation—so that when faced with the real thing, residents will leave more readily with greater knowledge and confidence.
Is your Go-Bag ready?
Here is how to . . .
Organize your own neighborhood session with the new evacuation simulation by contacting Doug@oaklandcpandr.org.
Find easy-to-read 2-page guides on what to do before, during and after an evacuation on the OCP&R website (www.oaklandcpandr.org)
Find Oakland Firesafe Council programs, including videos of previous Savvy Homeowner sessions, go to www.oaklandfiresafecouncil.org.
