Lessons Learned From Recent Disasters Increase Agency Preparedness
By Jacob Herson
Managing Editor
Transit California
Over the past five years, California transit agencies have been forced to cope with worsening wildfires and other disasters, overlaid with the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020. In the immediate aftermath of disasters, agencies have responded heroically to serve their communities, demonstrating again that transit is essential. In the ensuing months and years, they have turned to long-range planning and preparedness so that lessons learned can increase future resilience. Now, as we approach another potentially devastating fire season, these lessons carry increased relevance for transit agencies statewide.
“In December 2017 and January 2018, our region was hit by back-to-back disasters with the Thomas Fire and the Montecito Debris Flow,” said Hillary Blackerby, Planning and Marketing Manager for the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District (MTD). “These devastating incidents impacted our entire community, first with fire evacuations, property damage, and poor air quality, followed by an unprecedented debris flow that claimed 23 lives and cut off Highway 101 access for 12 days.
“MTD responded the morning of the debris flow to help transport mud-caked residents and their animals that had been rescued from their homes to local shelters. After immediate response, it became clear that a great percentage of the community’s essential workforce was stuck south of the flooded and closed freeway. MTD worked together with the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management, Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, and Ventura County Transportation Commission to make a plan to create a caravan of buses, with police escort that could bring teachers, hospital personnel, bus drivers, and other essential workers around the closure. This plan was executed in a successful fashion and got the people where they needed to be.”
Blackerby says, “We were reminded that our people are calm under pressure and will do anything needed to help our community in a time of crisis.” Once the immediate crisis had passed, it was time to take stock of what had been learned for the future. “Having agreements in place in advance of any disaster is vital, so that you don’t have to come up with it on the fly,” says Blackerby. A regional plan encompassing both Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties has been developed after the latest set of disasters to collaborate and communicate more effectively.
“We work closely with our Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management (OEM); additionally, our public information staff has been trained in emergency communications by the California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES),” said Blackerby. “The challenge at the onset of a disaster is guaranteeing clear and direct communication between our Operations team and our local OEM contacts.
“Our response comes down to both how the disaster impacts our normal transit operations, and how we can assist — such as helping transport evacuees. Further into the incident, additional challenges can arise, such as availability of workforce, due to any direct impact from the emergency or as a result of disrupted traffic patterns. When your workforce might live in an adjacent county, they might not be able to get to work if their commute path is impacted.
“Another future challenge as we move towards an all battery-electric fleet is that of resiliency in a disaster. If the electricity grid is impacted and there are outages, we need to have a stable way to power our fleet, such as a microgrid.”
In 2020, Napa Valley Transportation Authority (NVTA) was forced to respond to devastating fires during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. These exceptionally challenging circumstances were further complicated by the fact that most of the agency’s operators live outside of Napa County. “Still, we managed to deliver food and other goods to those sheltering away from homes during the fires for an extended period,” says NVTA Executive Director Kate Miller. “We housed drivers at hotels and paid out bonuses in order to accomplish what ended up being months of extra duties.” 
During disasters, NVTA meets daily with the County Emergency Operations Center (EOC), and a member of NVTA staff is posted at the EOC. “After each disaster we work with the County EOC and other partnering agencies to understand what went right and what we could do better,” says Miller. “These are documented and revisited regularly.” The recent experience emphasized that “coordination and communication are critical — also thinking outside the box on how we can better mobilize our work force.”
Wildfires impacted Santa Rosa in 2017, 2019, and 2020. The 2017 Tubbs Fire destroyed 3,000 homes in several neighborhoods. The 2019 Kincade Fire prompted the largest evacuation in Sonoma County history, affecting 190,000 residents. The 2020 Glass Fire impacted neighborhoods in eastern Santa Rosa, leading to evacuations, including the Oakmont older adult community.
“In each of these disasters, Santa Rosa CityBus and Santa Rosa Paratransit played a role in evacuating residents along with our partner transit operators in Sonoma and Marin counties,” said Rachel Ede, Deputy Director of the Transit Division, City of Santa Rosa Transportation and Public Works. “During and following the Tubbs Fire, CityBus also assisted with transportation between shelter sites, operated a shuttle for displaced individuals to the Local Assistance Center, and helped deploy National Guard troops in burn areas.
“Between the emergencies we’ve experienced, it’s been time well spent to build and maintain relationships and communication channels between our agency and other responding agencies and organizations. It’s critical to ensure that the emergency response entities in an area understand how transit resources will be activated and how to request assistance — i.e., where the transit agency fits into the emergency response command structure. It’s been helpful to understand which agencies may provide mutual aid, and which agencies may request it, and get into a shared understanding of how mutual aid will be activated."
CityBus has learned to reach out to nearby transit/paratransit operators during an emergency “to put a potential mutual aid request on their radars so we can understand in advance whether they may have the capacity to assist while the request makes its way through the EOC structure. Having a seat in the relevant Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for transit is invaluable in understanding how an event is unfolding and what needs for transit assistance may arise.”
Preparing in advance to maintain communications with transit and paratransit riders about emergency transportation options as well as impacts to regular service is one lesson CityBus has learned. The agency proactively reaches out to paratransit registrants living in areas under evacuation warnings or orders to ascertain whether they need assistance evacuating before it becomes a potentially life-threatening situation.
Another key lesson is to make sure that both direct and contractor employees understand what may be expected of them in a disaster, and to ensure that contract language supports emergency operations and reimbursements. Logging and tracking all aspects of emergency response during the event, down to the specific vehicles and personnel, origins and destinations of trips, time involved and vehicle mileage, makes it much easier to fill out Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) or CalOES paperwork after the fact.
“Public safety pathfinders can be invaluable if evacuations are occurring in areas with significant challenges to navigation (e.g., thick smoke) or if traffic snarls due to evacuations are bogging down transit vehicles en route to shelter sites,” says Ede.
CityBus participates in quarterly meetings hosted by the Sonoma County Department of Emergency Management to update information and coordinate among public and private-sector transportation providers that can be activated during emergencies to support emergency response activities. The agency also participates in regular Emergency Operations Center exercises and trainings and Continuity of Operations Plan reviews and updates within the City of Santa Rosa organization.
“Coming into this fire season, my main concern relates to our current staffing shortage,” says Ede. “During past emergency events, we had enough staff to respond to emergency needs and keep regular service running (though sometimes in a curtailed fashion due to routes in evacuation areas being suspended). Currently, any request for emergency assistance would likely have an immediate impact on our ability to deliver our schedule service, meaning we are much more likely to have to reduce regular service levels in order to assist with emergency response.
“As we electrify our fleet, we also have our eye on continuity of operations, given that we operate in an area that has experienced many PG&E Public Safety Power Shut-offs. Now that we have funded replacement of over half our fleet with electric buses, we are also turning our attention to the infrastructure needed to ensure we can keep responding effectively in an emergency that includes a disruption to the electric grid.”
This consideration is one that agencies across the state will face as the push to meet zero-emissions goals intersects with the increasing frequency and severity of climate-driven disasters. In addition to prioritizing charging infrastructure, the state will have to address the disaster resilience of that infrastructure.