Publication Date: Friday, January 20, 2006
City questioned by residents over flood response
City questioned by residents over flood response
(January 20, 2006) Town hall meeting reveals many concerns over city's ability to handle a disaster
By Lauren McSherry
Concerned residents aired grievances Wednesday night concerning the city's response to San Francisquito Creek's near-flooding Dec. 31, despite Mayor Judy Kleinberg's attempt to set a constructive tone during her first town-hall meeting.
"There were failures," resident Mary Carey Schaefer said. "The phone service, as we know, did not reach everyone. The creek monitor went down. The phone hotline was not renewed.
"Please, next time let's be a little sharper."
The meeting was initially billed as a forum to discuss emergency preparedness, one of Kleinberg's top goals as mayor. Toward that end, the city manager, fire chief and seven of the City Council's nine members attended the meeting. Kleinberg also asked residents to withhold comments about the flood-prone creek until the council's Jan. 30 meeting.
However, concerns about the city's treatment of the Dec. 31 near-miss overshadowed the discussion.
During the peak of the Dec. 31 storm, the creek came within 4.6 inches of running over its 20-foot-deep channel at Chaucer Street Bridge. The rise in water ranked fourth highest in 75 years of monitoring, Public Works Director Glenn Roberts said.
Communication breakdowns between the city and the public and between the city and local agencies topped the list of concerns.
Residents faulted the city for using an automated call system that could not handle the volume needed to notify thousands living in possible flood zones. Fire Chief Nick Marinaro said funds will be available July 1 for a new system that can handle four times the number of calls.
Others chided the city for not broadcasting warnings on local radio stations an not notifying residents when the alert had ended.
"Small radio stations are around and can address local concerns when Internet is out, landlines are out and cell phones are out," said Norman Carroll.
Others were concerned about the communication glitch between the city and the Santa Clara Valley Water District that delayed the delivery of thousands of sandbags to Palo Alto Airport until late afternoon on Dec. 31.
"People were coming to (the) Baylands to get sandbags and they simply were not there," said one resident. Marinaro acknowledged that "one of the snafus" was that the call for more sandbags had been misdirected.
Midtown Residents Association member Sheri Furman called Wednesday night's meeting "a start," but added, "If they want the neighborhoods to do something, they should give us money."
The association does not have enough money to survey its 4,000 members to determine which residents would need special assistance during an emergency, she said.
For some, the narrow escape Dec. 31 resurrected memories of the 1998 flood when the creek spilled over its banks and hundreds of residents in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto were evacuated from their homes. The flood caused an estimated $28 million in damages.
"But we need to recognize that we did do better than what was done in the 1998 flood," Councilman John Barton said.
Marinaro suggested several changes to the city's emergency response, including activating the emergency operations center sooner and having more uniformed officers on-site to provide information and assurance.
"My strongest recommendation is to notify earlier to give people adequate time to prepare," he said.
Top city officials also were not in town as creek waters rose Dec. 31.
"We need to continue the practice of conducting a meeting in preparation for the holiday closure to identify staff coverage," City Manager Frank Benest recommended in a draft report on the city's flood response.
Since department heads were not in the immediate area Dec. 31, deputy department officials were notified at 3:30 a.m. that the creek was at 50 percent capacity. By 8:30 a.m. the creek had reached 80 percent capacity, at which point the city called emergency personnel and activated the emergency operations center, Roberts said.
The city also readied Cubberley Community Center for residents displaced by flooding.
Roberts said officials made the decision to stand down the emergency response when they learned rainfall had dropped substantially and the creek's flow rate had slowed. Had there been an increase in either of those factors, "we would have made a very different decision," he said.
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