Lafayette Officials Encourage Residents To Prepare For Catastrophic Wildfire
LAFAYETTE (KPIX 5) -- With northern California suffering through major wildfires in the past two years, police and fire officials in the Contra Costa County area around Lafayette are stepping up efforts to prepare residents in case of a disaster.
Get off the main drag in the city of Lafayette and many of the neighborhoods look a lot like the areas hardest hit by the wildfires. The streets are narrow and trees tower over homes.
When asked if -- when he saw what happened to Paradise -- he thought it could happen here, Lafayette Police Chief Ben Alldritt replied, "Myself and everybody else in Lafayette. When you have a community of similar population and similar geography that is impacted as much as Paradise was…absolutely, it's going to raise the stakes for us to say, 'Hey, are we as prepared as we can be today?'"
To address that question, first responders have created a booklet that will be mailed to all residents in the Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda communities to better prepare them in case they have to evacuate a fire zone.
The booklet gives tips on getting out quickly, creating an emergency evacuation kit as well as a how-to record important documents that could be lost in a fire.
"How to save your life by getting out, but also how to get everything…not back, but get back to a normal lifestyle after a disaster like a wildfire," said Duncan Seibert, Program Manager for Lamorinda Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).
One of the areas of concern is Springhill Road where homes sit along a street that narrows to one lane. In March, first responders staged a live evacuation drill to show residents how crowded things could get during a fire.
Now at the Girl Scout camp at the end of Springhill there is a gravel, fire-safe area and -- even on a rainy day -- cars are backed in to parking spaces for a quick getaway.
"If you don't practice, then you're not going to follow through in the right way," said program director Meryn Gruhn di Tullio.
But perhaps most important is communication. Contra Costa County has a community warning system that sends alerts to all AT&T hard-wired phones. But officials say people with cell phones or internet-based phone service must register their numbers with the county to receive an emergency alert.
"If they're not registered, we have no idea that they exist," said Seibert.
First responders say early warning can be the difference between life and death in a wildfire. That's why preparing for one begins with registering all phones to get emergency alerts.
An online version of the booklet is available at the Lamorinda CERT website. Residents can register their phone number with the Contra Costa Community Warning Service website in order to receive alerts.
