Lessons Learned from the San Diego, California Wildfire...
In making the decisions to protect people s lives from hazards and disasters, evacuations
sometimes become necessary. Of course early in the reaction to the incident, or the response
phase, this may become a decision for local and state emergency managers. The San Diego,
California wildfire which occurred in October 2007 caused a large scale evacuation. This essay is
an analysis, and identification of lessons learned from the evacuation incident. As well a plan of
personal recommendations and improvements will be made based on information covered in the
National Housing strategy, and Robert Stafford Act. Wildfires started as an annual and seasonal
occurrence in the south western region of California since the early 1930 s in part... Show more
content on Helpwriting.net ...
The tactical firefighting operation, mass notification process, evacuation plans and emergency
operations command and control were readied by noon of 21 October, after timing estimates of
the rapidly growing fires showed them fast approaching city limits. Starting on October 21st at
1030 hours, the Sheriff s Department Operations Center (DOC) was activated, and reverse 911
calls were started to begin evacuations. On the 21st, eight reverse 911 calls were made,
notifying 20,992 residences to evacuate. On the 22nd, 23 reverse 911 calls were made,
notifying 210,156 residences to evacuate. On the 23rd, 14 reverse 911 calls were made,
notifying 47,992 residences to evacuate. Finally on the 24th, one reverse 911 call was activated,
notifying 900 residences to evacuate (SD County, 2008).Due to the speed of the fires, the
evacuation declarations required the activation of numerous shelters; the shelters numbered 45,
and were located in schools, community centers, civic centers. Two of them were considered
mega shelters located at Qualcomm Stadium and the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which was also one of
the five animal shelters, which itself sheltered, and cared for 2,000 horses for five days. The
United States Ship, (USS Mercy) was requested and stationed off the coast so that two local
hospitals in the area could evacuate patients. The manpower, and resource response for this incident
was one that was not
... Get more on HelpWriting.net ...