Board of Supervisors — 2019-11-26

Hi. Good morning, everybody. I'd like to welcome you to this. First we'll start with an emergency meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. We'll start with a roll call please.

Mr. Hart? Here. Ms. Hartman? Here. Mr Adam?

Here

Mr. Williams? Here. Chair Lavinino?

We've had a Very interesting couple of days and I know a lot of our staff is working on basically no sleep. One of those individuals is CEO Miyasato, so I will kick it to you and hopefully we'll have a coherent CEO's report

Thank you, Chair Lavinino and board members. As part of our emergency meeting we're here to actually ratify a proclamation of emergency that I issued last night so that is your first action for the emergency meeting but also before that today we've asked Fire Chief Mark Hartwig and Sheriff Bill Brown to say a few words about the cave fire which as you know is burning. Also Kelly Hubbard our Director of the Office of Emergency Management is here as well for any questions. So Chief Hartwig?

Thank you, Ms.

Miyasato. Hold on I'm sorry we have to read it into the record first Chief.

Yes thank you Chair Lavinino and members of the board as CEO Miyasato mentioned we are convening today for a emergency meeting on departmental item number one comes from the county executive office It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding cave fire ratification of proclamation of local emergency. And this information is available online as well as in the back of the room of both of our hearing rooms here in South County, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria.

And then we'll also hear from Mr. Gazzani.

Chair and Supervisors, and probably for the public's benefit there are two meetings today. The first is an emergency meeting. The second is the special meeting that was already agendized in an arcane part of the Brown Act says that one cannot add something to a special meeting after the notice goes out. And that's why we have also about midnight last night noticed this emergency meeting for the purpose of ratifying the Emergency Proclamation.

Okay.

Okay Chief. Good morning, members of the board. Ms. Miyasato. Thank you first of all for declaring the emergency. We filed for an FMAG which is an assistance grant as we start trying to deal with in the aftermath of this who's going to pay for what? And we don't even know what that's going to be yet but we have a lot of resources still coming into the show grounds at Earl Warren.

We give a lot throughout the year through mutual aid, and you hope that you do that in hopes that when you need it, it comes. And it came in droves last evening. We were mostly in the Painted Cave community overnight. I was able to spend some time with the crews that really, probably no better way to say it than they just dug in. Put themselves between the fire and the homes that they were protecting. And unfortunately, even some of the people that hadn't left that were supposed to leave under mandatory evacuation. It's 4100 acres at this point and we haven't lost a single home.

We're doing a lot of reconnaissance right now, and we've lost some outbuildings but no homes. And I think that's due in large part not just due to the courage of the men and women of not just our department but other departments that have helped. But the preparation that they take so very seriously in the Painted Cave community. We, a lot of people left. There are a lot of other people that are still there and of course I think that just raised the stakes as we look at what's at stake when we protect these communities and these homes, its people as well.

Just wanted to talk about our cooperators just a little bit. As you know it's burning in the forest within the forests, the people on property within the forests are fire district responsibilities. On top of that, we have a fire that's extended into the state responsibility area which is just below the forest and above the city boundaries. And under contract with the state, we are assigned to protect that as well. Now as soon as it is established CDF or Cal Fire spends and sends many resources in there right now.

And so then of course we started using the mutual aid system and that's where we have so much help. We have it everywhere from LA City, I saw the Skid Row engine out there and Skid Row is known for being one of the busiest engines in the country. Running their own calls and yet they're up here standing between the fire and the community in Painted Cave in San Marcos Pass. So thank you to the cooperators, thank you board for the support that you give not just our own men and women and not just the Fire Department but our OEM. They stood up and really supported the incident to an extent that we couldn't have asked for anything more.

And so thank you for that Ms. Miyasato, I know you were there as well, Kelly and her staff. And then maybe as I kick it over to the sheriff we are public safety partners and we can't do it alone either one of us. It's not long into any incident that we aren't on the phone with each other asking exactly what we need and how we can help each other. And so I want to thank Sheriff Brown, I think he's going to talk specifically about some of the numbers that have been evacuated. Thank you and your deputies for the support and assistance and I'm available for any questions.

Okay, Supervisor Hartman?

Chief Hartwig, I was just curious about the error support. I was driving up the 101 last night and it was gustier than I ever remember and I can't imagine how that works so I was just curious if you could elaborate?

Yes, so we ordered five night dropping helicopters last night. We ended up getting four two of them were ours It's it's tough conditions and it's really up to the people that we asked we did have an LA County Helicopter that came in yesterday And we had a Kern County helicopter that came in and they use night vision they drop at night and they communicate with Ground resources and they literally pinpoint these drops based on where it's burning hottest and where the biggest risk is. And really to this point, even until this morning as I speak to you, it's really been life safety. We haven't spent a lot of time working on perimeter control. It's basically keeping the fire away from people in homes at this point.

Supervisor Hart. Chief, thank you again for all your work and all the first responders that are out there looking out for us. You mentioned that a lot of the preparations that the mountain communities had done in advance of this event were really helpful in your first response. Can you talk some more about How effective that was and how important

that is. Yeah, somehow the streets even got more narrow between the first time I drove through them a few months ago and last evening at night. It's really, really tight. And in most cases you can't even pass as you know two cars on Painted Cave Road. You have to find a turnout and so if you don't have clearance, you don't have a defensible space. And when we assign resources into an area, you leave it up to that assigned resource to accept the mission or not. And the only thing that they use, primarily the thing that they use I should say on whether or not it's a defensible area is whether or engaged in defensible space.

And the Painted Cave community, again as much as any community that I've seen in my career takes that seriously. Still a lot of very, very dry and receptive fuels for this fire and we saw that last night and we're seeing it even this morning. But with that said, the fuels will burn but they're trimmed up nicely and people resources that are assigned there even outside the area find An area that they can defend structures in which I think is really a tribute to the community. Yes,

thank you All right supervisor Williams

chief could you touch on two things one is just the Weather people who should have evacuated and didn't can still evacuate and the importance how that could interplay with their own safety and I also want to you know touch on how that can interact with the safety of Firefighters and deputy sheriffs out there. And then maybe just because reporting sometimes gets focused on percent containment, and that might not really reveal the state of the fire and what you have out there. How is your strategy affected by the change in weather that we're experiencing?

That's probably not the best report to give you. The experiences that I have, and I was talking to the Santa Barbara City Chief this morning, both sharing experiences about when wind shifted in a well-established fire. So right now as you know it's burning down slope. It's fighting downslope because it's working with the slope and it's working with a very receptive dry fuel bed.

Once that changes and you get an onshore flow or more of an onshore flow, it pushes that fire that's well established up into those homes. And my experience in the old fire we lost almost 100 homes in the Hook Creek community just on the wind shift. I know there was a firefighter in Marin County that was lost. His life was lost in the same way so we gave that briefing this morning and If you think you've got it figured out, you probably have it figured out for five minutes. And the wind will change especially in the canyons that we have here on the front country and you need to be ready for it so I think that's important. The other thing was, what was the first thing?

Evacuation

and

I

think that's a good lead into evacuation. We can't, it's a mandatory evacuation. I was talking with the Forest Service Chief this morning who was up driving last evening and he was looking and preparing himself for really the onslaught that was coming. And he looked over and there was a couple that were standing right next to him and he didn't see them. He said, what are you doing here?

The fire's there and it's there and it's below us. You can't be here. And they said okay well then we'll leave. So we talk about ready set go which is get ready and then just wait around until somebody tells you to go and then go. I like to minimize the effort on the set part because somebody might not come and tell you to go but if you see fire or you smell smoke and you think you ought to go You just thought to go, it's really more of a ready go at that point. So Mike, it's tough right? And access and egress and all those things that make it more difficult as well.

Okay, thank you very much Chief. Thank you sir. Make sure you pass along all of our well wishes to all of our firefighters out there. Yes sir. Thank you. Sheriff Brown

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chief. To give you a little bit of an update and try to not be too repetitive here. This fire began early Monday evening started by unknown causes at East Camino Cielo east of Painted Cave. We received the first 911 calls in the dispatch center at 1614 for 14 PM. We received a total of 268 911 calls, 21 of those were within the first minute.

And so once again the dispatchers did a tremendous job in dealing with a difficult situation. Our first sheriff's deputy arrived at 1623. Nine minutes after the call was called in. So far, the fires burned about 4100 acres as the chief indicated. We've had no reported injuries or deaths and as of the time I got the information we had one single outbuilding that had been lost described as a pump house.

As of this morning, air support is still dropping water on the fire. Fixed wing aircraft have arrived and we're still at 0% containment on the fire. So there's still the potential for wind event today and a lot of concern so we're keeping the evacuation area evacuated. And we'll have around-the-clock saturation patrols that are guarding that area for the people that are evacuated.

The evacuations began shortly after fire and sheriff units arrived on the scene last night. There were several expansions of the initial evacuation area to the point where we now have a current evacuation order zone that exists Camino Cielo to the north, Ontario to the east, Cathedral Oaks to the south and Fairview to the west. That's the box essentially that has been drawn and evacuated We contacted sheriff's deputies and search-and-rescue personnel last night, contacted about 2,284 residences. Significant number of those 1,357 were not at home or there was no answer at the house.

517 were contacted who evacuated, 324 did not evacuate and stayed. We're unable to reach 37 and there were 49 vacant homes. The estimated population that was evacuated last night was 5481 people total. Mutual aid from the law enforcement side was requested when we realized this was going to be a large and extended event We requested through the Governor's Office of Emergency Services mutual aid. We received in-county mutual aid from Santa Barbara PD, from Santa Maria PD, from Guadalupe PD, from the University Police Department and from outside the county we've received assistance from the Ventura Sheriff's Office, the Ventura Police Department and the Oxnard Police Department and have our on scene governor's OES coordinator with us as well As far as the air support, we had as indicated two of our helicopters 308 and copter three supported by a firehawk helicopter from Los Angeles County Fire Department.

And a Kern County helicopter and a Forest Service Air Attack aircraft all those aircraft were flying last night And we had, I don't have the total number but multiple drops. They did a rotation so they could get some rest while others were flying and they literally have been flying all night. Fixed wing aircraft for today that will be here include four S2 and one what they call the VLAT, the very large air tanker that's the DC-10.

I just want to indicate that if anybody needs to access a shelter location, the Goleta Valley Community Center at 5679 Hollister Road has been established. As a shelter and there is also availability for animal sheltering equine and livestock as well as small animals. There's a hotline 805-681-4332 that can be called to get Sheltering coordinated, but the shelters for small animals are at the Goleta animal shelter 5473 overpass Road and the equine and large animals are being accommodated at the Earl Warren showgrounds at 3400 Kyrie L in Santa Barbara so Supervisor Hartman

Thank you. For evacuation it's often difficult for people who are older, either their health issues or reluctant to leave and people who have disabilities. Do they call 9-1-1 and then get help? Or how do we identify those people?

Yeah at this point that would be the way to do it to just call the dispatch center and indicate if there was assistance that was needed with evacuation. We would coordinate that as this event progresses there may be a Call-in line established at the EOC that Kelly can probably talk to you about as well. And then also if anyone has, we still have an evacuated area but there are emergencies that come up where people need to access and obtain medication or something of value that they need to get immediately for a work related project or something. If they call us on our business line, we can certainly try to accommodate that and get an escort to get them in.

Very good. Oh, Supervisor Adam. I am here. I'm just wondering Sheriff what the plan is for the rain event that's going to follow. Are you familiar with what we're looking at?

Yes, Supervisor Adams. The indications are that we're supposed to start a rain event this evening about midnight. The expectation is we could have as much as one inch of rain through the evening. Obviously there will be some areas that will have been impacted by the fire. There could be some potential for flooding. It's not As much of a concern as we've had in the past, in Montecito because of the topography and what have you. But there is a lot of concern about the difficulties that it will provide to firefighters especially that are out there trying to address this fire.

Okay. All right, well I'm just thinking if you've got it evacuated already it might be prudent to just leave that evacuation on because what I'm seeing on one of my favorite weather sites is a weather underground is 136 before Thursday at 5 and another 266 between Friday and Tuesday for a total of just over 4. So that's going to be a pretty major amount of rain on that instantly burned surface and could cause some problems.

And Supervisor Adam, I think our Director of Emergency, what is it? Okay, OEM, Office of Emergency Management, Kelly Hubbard will address that as well. So Kelly.

Just quickly for the board's knowledge, we do have a team at the Emergency Operations Center with public works from city and county. And our flood control all starting to look at assessments and such for what are those waterways in those areas? So in addition to what they're doing in the field for responder safety, they're starting to look at and do assessments. It's early for something like a burn report or bear report. But they're starting to do assessments just for you their knowledge and then back to the previous question on vulnerable populations Public Health Department has been in the Emergency Operations Center And they have been identifying any critical care facilities and working with them to ensure evacuation of critical care type facilities

Supervisor Hart Kelly with all the work toward evaluating the burn scar area when the rain event will that ultimately culminate in some sort of maps.

That will be a formal bear report would be something that would occur later and that would be coordinated with Fire and the Forest Service, but this is just our public works and flood control checking out and looking at what are the channels in the area. And what are natural river ways or waterways? Just to see what they can see and what might be of concern in terms of just waterways.

Well, there's a certain amount of mapping of just potential flood from the creeks that people should be aware of generally. But maybe it's a good idea to think about

refreshing that. So in general as we have the rainstorms come in the general public messaging and public safety is your standard flood messaging so you know be aware turn around don't drown. So if you see standing water don't assume that you can get through that water Just monitor and stay aware, register at ReadySBC if you haven't so that you can receive alerts or notifications. Watch the news and those types of things. So if National Weather Service does issue anything which is not expected this time but if they issue any type of flash flood warning or something of that nature then you can keep that awareness.

Thank you. Supervisor Williams? Are we planning any sandbag distribution or other measures?

I don't think that we're aware of but we can follow up on that.

Great, thank you. That'd be great.

Chair Levine, can I just add one thing as a follow-up to Supervisor Adams comment? Today will obviously be in close coordination with The fire authorities to determine when, but I think it's likely that anybody that's been affected by the evacuation area can anticipate that we're not going to be repopulating that area today just as a result of the weather situation which will obviously be monitoring and if that changes will change as well. But I think it's a good bet for people to figure that they're going to need to be evacuated through tomorrow at least.

Real quick update on sandbags. Station 11 on Stork and then we have the pumps, the county yard there as well available for public sandbagging. Okay very good

Just very quickly from the Emergency Operations Center component, I wanted to provide a couple quick updates. City of Goleta EOC and the City of Santa Barbara Emergency Operations Centers were both activated yesterday. The city of Goleta being within our own EOC integrated with us and they will continue to monitor and determine whether they need to stay activated moving into this evening And so we have the shelter population last night was around 26 individuals.

The last I checked unfortunately our briefing is this morning, so I'm not getting that update or call center for residents who may have questions I want to provide that that's 833 688-5551. And then I just wanted to lastly give an update as well on ReadySBC, I mentioned earlier dot org to register for notifications. We also have our maps up so there's an interactive evacuation map that includes mandatory evacuation orders and warnings as well as the fire perimeter And then PSPS, we were at and just remember where we were at the start of this week which was only yesterday. But we were in a PSPS potential event and Edison has notified us that those PSPS concepts were being canceled and so we are no longer under PSPS consideration. We do have power outages.

Those are related to the fire. And we encourage residents to go to the SCE website for any updates on those.

Okay, very good. CEO Miyasato?

And just for the public's knowledge and your board there is a press conference at 11 o'clock that Unified Command is hosting at Earl Warren Showgrounds.

Okay, very good. I guess I need to ask if there's any public comment on this issue?

Chair Lavinino and members of the board we have received no request to speak on this item.

Okay, very good. Okay at this point I will take a motion to whether or not to adopt the resolution proclaiming the emergency.

So moved. Second.

And this is staff recommendations A, B and C? Yes okay we'll do a roll call vote.

Mr. Hart.

Aye.

Ms. Hartman. Aye. Mr Adam.

Aye

Mr Williams.

Aye

Chair Lavanino.

Aye

Motion passes unanimous.

Okay with that I will adjourn this the emergency meeting of November 26 and now we will begin the special meeting of November 26. Do I need to do another roll call on everything or are we all good? I didn't think we would do the pledge again, but we're good okay alright so special meeting back in the old

days that might get you

recalled but yeah They got better reasons now. Admin agenda. I don't have an agenda in front of me, so... Okay. Okay, so is there a motion to move the two admin agenda items? So moved.

Second.

Roll call please.

Mr. Hart? Aye. Ms. Hartman? Aye.

Tonight,

Mr. Williams,

I

chair 11, you know,

I

and chair 11, you know, members of the board just for the record we had no request to speak on our administrative agenda today.

Okay?

Chair and supervisors, today the board is agendized to consider three items in closed session. The first is existing litigation, the Southern California fire cases. The second is one matter of significant exposure to civil litigation. And the third is conference with real property negotiators concerning properties at 303 South C Street in Lompoc. And given this scheduled emergency press conference we'll try to get you out of here in about an hour. Okay?

Very good. We will move to closed session.

You're cool. You. you

Okay, no reportable actions. So that closes out our, can we adjourn this special meeting? And we'll be adjourning until I think now we have another special meeting scheduled. So so we can schedule it, we can adjourn until December the 10th okay 2019 in Santa Barbara.