Edhat Staff
Source: Santa Barbara County
Lessons learned from recent storms are helping Santa Barbara County prepare for upcoming rain events, including refining evacuation plans for the Extreme and High Risk areas. In addition, the online interactive Debris Flow Risk Map now shows changes to the risk areas from Extreme Risk to High Risk in the city of Carpinteria based on that city’s staff analysis.
For future storms, including those expected to arrive later this week, the County will now take into account several factors to determine if only the Extreme Risk area, noted as red in the Debris Flow Risk Map, should be evacuated, or if both the red Extreme and yellow High risk areas should be evacuated.
The decision whether to issue evacuation warnings and orders for both risk areas will be based on a number of factors: projected amount and intensity of rainfall; capacity of debris basins and creek channels at the time of a predicted storm; status of potential obstructions that can change the direction of water flow; the level of ground saturation; and, the risk of damage to basic utilities.
“Each storm since the 1/9 Debris Flow adds to our understanding and ability to make decisions to keep residents safe, evacuate residents only when necessary, and return residents home as soon as possible,” said Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown.
Prior to each storm, emergency and public safety officials meet to determine potential impact and evacuation-related factors. “As we know, meterological forecasts have a lot of uncertainty. Storms can easily exceed forecasts, and we constantly balance this possibility with actions need to keep the public safe,” concluded Rob Lewin, director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management.
Lesson #1- Don’t buy in Montecito.
I just saw a photo of the 1964 flood and a home in Glen Oaks in Montecito was destroyed to the point it looked like a picture from this recent debris flow. In 64 the creek just west of Toro Canyon (crosses E. Valley) had more boulders come down than in this recent event.
I meant to say the 1969 flood, hadn’t been a fire since the Coyote Fire in 1964.
Sorry, but professional emergency managers, elected sheriffs, and high paid government officials should not be learning lessons after 23 people die. They should’ve known that a significant storm following the largest fire in the history of the state would’ve created historical debris flows. The real lesson learned is that we had inexperienced and ill-prepared people at the helm on 1/9/18.
Armed with hindsight, and armchair expert has arrived to shoot the survivors.
Alternatively, there’s always an apologist who will blindly come to the defense of incompetence
Does that mean someone will come to the defense of your posts?