Two months after multiple emergency evacuation messages were erroneously sent to millions of Los Angeles County residents during the January wildfires – leading to confusion and, in some cases, “information fatigue” and skepticism about such notices – lawmakers in Sacramento convened a hearing to discuss how to improve communications moving forward.
During a Tuesday, March 11, joint committee hearing on emergency management, legislators expressed concern over the faulty alert system that impacted L.A. County residents, asked whether it would be better to have the state oversee a statewide alert system rather than leave it to individual jurisdictions to handle, and what should be done to build public confidence in the messages that get sent out.
State Sen. Henry Stern, who represents parts of L.A. and Ventura counties, kicked off the hearing noting how he made the decision to evacuate his family based on information from Watch Duty, an app operated by active and retired firefighters, dispatchers and first responders, which he found to be more reliable than the notices he got through a wireless emergency alert system.
“If anything, we’ve learned that we can embrace technology in smarter ways and build trust through citizen-driven networks and bottom-up, data-driven solutions,” said Stern, D-Calabasas, who chairs the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management.
Several of the legislators raised concerns that evacuation orders were unintentionally sent to many L.A. County residents during the January fires though they did not live close to where the blazes were. In other cases, the opposite occurred: Seventeen people who died in the Eaton fire were in western Altadena, where residents said alerts came late or not at all.
“When wildfires and other emergencies strike, timely and effective communications are definitely the difference between life and death. … Failures and delays can definitely create risk and undermine the trust,” said Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, D-Stockton.
