Publication Date: Friday, January 06, 2006
Incoming mayor criticizes city response to storm
Incoming mayor criticizes city response to storm
(January 06, 2006) Vice Mayor Judy Kleinberg says residents, volunteers and council members should be notified earlier and more often during emergencies
by Bill D'Agostino
When Vice Mayor Judy Kleinberg becomes Palo Alto's mayor on Monday -- a near certainty at this point -- she will announce that emergency preparedness will be one of her top priorities for the year.
"I'm going to hit the ground running," Kleinberg said. "There's no time to be wasted."
Although Kleinberg praised firefighters who helped residents during last weekend's recent winter storms, she submitted a three-page report to the city manager this week seeking improvements for future crises.
Among the two-term councilwoman's suggestions: Communicate better, utilize more volunteers and do more pre-crisis preparation.
"You should always be working from your worst-case scenario," said Kleinberg, an attorney who works as the vice president of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, which analyzes issues regarding the regions economy and quality of life.
The weekend storms blanketed the area with 2.52 inches of rain and felled numerous trees. The San Francisquito Creek came very close to flooding.
Across California, 23 counties were named disaster areas due to the storms, but not Santa Clara County.
City of Palo Alto officials, Kleinberg said, were too slow in calling residents to alert them to the possible emergency.
"People need time to prepare," she said.
On Saturday, during the height of the first storm, the city called 1,630 telephone numbers alerting residents about the risk of flooding and initiated a voluntary evacuation. But some residents who feared they were at risk of flooding -- and the one homeowner whose basement actually did flood -- said the city did not contact them, while others said they did not receive a call until the San Francisquito Creek nearly topped its banks.
"I don't think anybody would blame the city for notifying them for an emergency that doesn't happen," Kleinberg said.
Councilwoman Dena Mossar disagreed. If the city calls residents alerting them to a crisis that doesn't occur, "they might not believe you" next time during an actual emergency, she said.
Plus, Mossar added, "People can and do overreact."
City officials acknowledge the telephone-alert system they currently use takes too long to set up and has too many other limitations. For instance, it can only make about 1,500 calls an hour. The police department will seek an upgrade this summer.
Volunteers should also have been contacted before the storm, Kleinberg said. Around 11 a.m., as the creek reached its top, the city asked neighborhood leaders to request volunteers to help residents fill and set-up sandbags.
"That should have all been in place 48 hours -- at the very minimum 24 hours -- in advance," Kleinberg said.
The members of the city's Palo Alto Neighborhood Disaster Activity group were not notified during the storm, Kleinberg said, a trained member of the group. She was also critical of city officials for failing to brief her about the storm.
"They can get the janitor (to call), I don't care," Kleinberg said. "The public wants the City Council to be in the loop."
All City Council members received a phone call from the city manager about the storm, according to Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison, who said city officials will now brief council members during a crisis and give them a phone number to reach the Emergency Operations Center.
During and after the storm, some residents complained they went to the city's golf course where the Santa Clara Valley Water District provides sand bags but found none. Kleinberg said the city needed to communicate better with the district beforehand.
"We need to know how they make their decisions so we can advocate for our residents," she said.
City staff had already done an official debriefing after the storm, prior to receiving Kleinberg's memo, Harrison said. The Fire Department will recommend opening the city's Emergency Operations Center earlier during a storm, among other possible improvements, Harrison said. Currently, the center opens when the creek reaches 80 percent capacity. This weekend, the center was opened at 8:35 a.m. on Saturday.
Although Mossar acknowledged that the city can always improve, she said the city and other agencies performed admirably during the storm.
"I think we as a community -- it's possible we have expectations that are unrealistically high about what the city can actually provide in a natural disaster," she said. "I think we did an incredible job."
Compared to February 1998, when the San Francisquito Creek jumped its banks and caused an estimated $28 million in damage, city officials were "out and about" this time, Mossar said. Firefighters went door to door alerting residents about the storm and the water district used a crane to get debris out of the creek, Mossar said.
Plus, when a video camera that displays images of the creek on a Web site went down, due to a PG&E power outage, Public Works Supervisor John Ballard set up a generator to get it back online, she said.
"In '98, we sort of responded after the fact," Mossar said. "We didn't do that this time."
That year, the city was indeed caught off guard and gave few alerts to residents. Since that flood, there have been numerous improvements made: The city launched the Web site where creek levels are displayed and purchased the telephone alert system.
Most importantly, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority was formed. The multi-jurisdictional agency recently signed an agreement with the United States Army Corps of Engineers to work together on a flood control project for the volatile creek. Such a project will take years to construct, assuming it gets the federal OK and local matching funds totaling many millions of dollars can be found.
On Thursday afternoon, after the Weekly went to press, the agency held a rare joint public meeting in Menlo Park's City Hall to discuss the various agencies' reactions to the weekend storm.
Despite much community discussion about the possibility of flooding, most of the actual damage came from high winds. About 30 trees fell at the Golf Course, and others were toppled at Foothills Park, the duck pond at the Baylands and near El Palo Alto, the famed tree that gave the city its name.
City crews have been working to clear away the debris and are still collecting reports of storm damage, said Michael Jackson, deputy director of Public Works operations.
Foothills Park and Pearson-Arastradero Preserve were battered by the storms, said Greg Betts, the city's open space division manager.
The main parking lot near the picnic area of Foothills Park was closed this week due to downed trees, and the road into the park is passable only up to the interpretative center, Betts said.
In addition, several Foothills Park hiking trails are partially washed out or impassable because of fallen trees and mudslides. All the trails in the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve are currently closed because of winter conditions.
Emergency preparedness is the most important issue before the city, Kleinberg said.
"It's not sexy; it's not a legacy issue," she said. "It's nothing I'm going to get remembered for, probably."
Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak contributed to this report.
Staff Writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.
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