Friday, June 29, 2018

[Sonoma County] Grand Jury jury report dwells on last year’s firestorms

Cites 2005 warning of ‘disaster waiting to happen’


When the firestorms engulfed large swaths of Sonoma County last October, it was said the size and ferocity of the natural disaster was beyond prediction or a perfect emergency response plan.
Maybe so, maybe not.
In 2005, the Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury issued a report titled, “A Disaster Waiting to Happen.” The report warned that the county and other local governments’ Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS) was “seriously out of date,” lacking multi-agency coordination, adequate training and a sincere commitment by top-level managers. The jury said the SEMS was based only on past experiences with “street disturbances and Russian River floods.”
Now comes the newest annual Grand Jury Report, released last week, which is primarily focused on the 2017 wildfires. The 2017-2018 Final Report “sees many parallels between the analyses and predictions of 2005 and the current issues in Sonoma County.”
At the same time, the civil jury panel applauded local first responders for their “finest hour,” where early, decisive decisions were made that “saved thousands of lives” and performed “a miracle where no emergency personnel were lost.”
A Firestorm Postmortem
The multi-part report provides a postmortem on the communication systems, command center structures and levels of emergency preparedness. It also provides a detailed examination of evacuation and sheltering efforts of companion animals and horses. A third section looks at the internal reforms made before and after the wildfires at the county’s Permit and Resource Management Department (PRMD), also called Permit Sonoma.
The annual report is dedicated to “all who suffered loss during the firestorm and to all who worked so hard to bring them to safety.”
“This has been an unusual and daunting year,” said jury foreperson Regina Nellor. “Faced with the October firestorm, we opted to look at what worked and what didn’t work during this overwhelming emergency.”
Past year’s Grand Jury reports focused on school truancy rates, library governance, local government pension debts, county road conditions and smaller reports incited by individual citizen complaints. This year’s report, like so much of the past eight months of public life was fixated on the October 2017 wildfires.
Official recommendations
The 2017-2018 jury made seven specific findings and four written recommendations that require by law an official response later by the county board of supervisors and county administrator.
The recommendations include realigning the county’s Emergency Operations Center with a 24/7 entity such as the Sheriff’s Office and not the county administrator’s office. The jury also calls for updating all county and local city emergency response plans to incorporate “lessons learned from this emergency.”
Much of this work is already under way, following a series of internal reports and investigations commissioned by the county administrator’s office and others. The current grand jury found in hindsight that official responses by emergency officials to the 2005 report were lacking. The jurists warn current officials to do better.
The 2005 report referenced the recent “9/11” terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, noting local emergency response officials had not taken the warning to review and update their SEMS at the time.
In the section about animal evacuations and sheltering, the jury found “lacking” a comprehensive animal emergency response plan that identified a lead agency. It found a lack of an alternative power source or adequate communications systems at the county’s main Animal Services facility and it cautioned the county that a lack of formal agreements with various non-governmental organizations involved in animal recovery might limit or negate future FEMA reimbursements.
Among another seven recommendations to the board of supervisors, the jury urged the supervisors to reconsider or reassign Animal Services to another department and not the Department of Health Services where it currently is placed.
Jails inspection also reported
California state law requires local civil grand juries to issue a public report each year. Required components include a physical survey of local jail and criminal detention facilities and the physical condition of other government facilities. Also, the grand jury reviews any law officer involved fatal incident. This year’s jury reviewed a single fatal incident with no comments and found the detention facilities “in good condition and well managed.”
The “clean bill” for the county jail conflicts with a recent civil court settlement for $1.7 million by former inmates against the county for “jail yard counseling” where jail personnel were found to practice unacceptable discipline measures, as admitted by current Sheriff Rob Giordano. However, that case refers back to a 2015 incident and Giordano said staffing changes and training corrections have been made since then.
Last Wednesday, presiding judge Gary Naylor accepted the 2017-2018 annual report and released the 15 citizen jurors of their annual duty. The judge then led a swearing in ceremony for 19 members of the 2018-2019 Civil Grand Jury.
Grand Jury membership is open to any county resident and registered voter.
June 26, 2018
The Windsor Times
By Rollie Atkinson


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