The City's Failure to Plan for Emergencies
January 12, 2023
By Roberta Millstein
The recent storms have made it amply clear that the City lacks any sort of coherent plan for dealing with storms (and presumably other sorts of emergencies). Every action taken in response to the recent storm was late, and in some cases, inadequate.
Yet these storms were comparable to other big storms that Davis has experienced in past years. And even if they weren’t, the storm that occurred over New Year’s Eve and into New Year’s Day ought to have been a warm up, with lessons learned for the storms Jan 4-8, all of which were well-predicted by weather forecasters.
The City seemed to make things up as they go. To be clear, I am not faulting rank-and-file staff, who clearly were working hard under difficult circumstances. It has also been reported that the City did a good job finding shelter for people lacking housing. I am grateful for these efforts. I am faulting the City Council and the City Manager for failure to provide leadership. There should have been plans in place for these kind of events long ago.
Here are the areas that need to improve. I have broken them into short-term, medium-term, and long term, in the sense that the things in the short term can and should be fixed right away. The others will take a little longer.
Short term
- Sandbags – Flooding was already well underway when the City posted that Woodland had sandbags available for residents. Shortly after someone complained that Davis had not made any available, they were finally made available, but the worst of the storms were over by that point. There should have been a plan for where the sandbags would be available before the storms started.
- Fallen trees/branches/leaves in the street – The big winds of New Year’s left us with a lot of big branches and piles of cut up trees in the street. The last of the leaves fell off City trees into the street. This would have been a perfect time to run The Claw a week early, but instead the detritus was left to clog storm drains and complicate travel at the very time we needed clean streets the most.
- Notification – Several main arteries (parts of Covell, 2nd Street, and Poleline) were closed due to flooding and/or powerlines down. The news was all over social media via citizens sharing info for about 24 hrs before the City thought to use its emergency notification system. I got a Yolo Alert text and an email on Monday, after the worst of the storms were over! That should have happened sooner – and some friends have said that they didn’t get any notifications at all, even though they are signed up for them. Also, other communication means should be used, e.g., radio, TV. Time to get creative about how to get the word out about road closures and other important announcements.
- Charging/warming locations – Again, this was announced long after many people had already lost power. First it was the Senior Center, then it was the police station. Someone pointed out that police stations are not felt to be safe places for many people. Then it was at the VMC. Almost as bad as the changing locations were the limited hours, closing at 5 PM. People without power could have used a few hours in the evening to stay warm and charge their devices, especially if they had to work during the day. Perhaps volunteers could help out if staff are stretched too thin.
Medium term
- More stable place for charging/warming – At one point it was mentioned that the police station had a more robust system that made it unlikely to lose power. One of Davis’s buildings (the Senior Center? The VMC?) should be retrofitted to be similarly robust, whether through solar panels + large batteries or some other means. This building could also serve as a place where people could go to cool off in the summer.
- Coordinate with UC Davis – The UCD campus loses power much less frequently than Davis proper. Agreements should be worked out so that citizens can use certain buildings for power, warming up, etc. (This could be in addition to, or instead of, my previous suggestion).
Long term
- More resilient power systems – The City needs to work to improve power resiliency. In some cases the power went out when the winds were high, but in other cases it went out when it was hardly blowing. Our home lost power three times and I think other people’s experience was similar. There may be a number of ways to do this, e.g., by investing in local power production together with battery storage. Undergrounding of powerlines, perhaps not everywhere but at least in certain locations (e.g., 2nd street), should be strongly considered.
I call on the City to put better plans (any plans?) in place for dealing with big storms and other emergencies, starting with the above suggestions. I may have overlooked other issues (ways of getting people fed, for example?[1] Could the city distribute ice and dry ice?), so please leave suggestions in the comments.
[1] Just as I set this article to post for the morning, the City of Davis posted to Facebook, “Disaster relief grocery cards will be distributed throughout Yolo County and Davis through Yolo Food Bank’s partner agencies (with financial support from Pacific Gas and Electric Company), for residents impacted by the power outages. Only one disaster relief grocery card per household and while supplies last. You must be a Davis resident and bring valid ID and proof of residency.” This is a good idea, but again, this should have been done earlier.
Individuals requiring oxygen or other mechanical assistance that uses electricity should be advised on how to prepare for loss of electrical power.
Posted by: Nancy Price | January 12, 2023 at 08:10 AM
Roberta, nothing to disagree with here except I think we need to look at things in a broader context: that is the total failure of PG & E to maintain every aspect of its infrastructure for years leading to major fires starting in 2017. Both Jerry Brown and Newsom have appointed their buddies to the CPUC who has a long and well documented history of working hand in glove with PG & E. I have read scattered stories on this over the years, and I just got hold of Katherine Blunt’s, California Burning: The Fall of PG & E And What It Means for America Power Grid (2022). In chapter seven she outlines some of the history of this. But from skimming, she does not really take PG & E to task or the cleaners. After all she is a journal for the Wall Street Journal, even if a good one and a Pulitzer prize nominee.
Remember when PG & E was threatened with bankruptcy a year or so ago and all the court battles over fire damage. At the time Newsom threatened to take them over, but as I and quite a few of my progressive friends have long known, Newson is an empty wet suit. Tim Redmond, formerly editor of the SF Bay Guardian and now of the blog 48 Hills, has done him down to a tee starting with his mayorship of San Francisco. We need genuinely public utilities whose board is publicly elected at least every four years. But despite its supposedly very blue credentials I see no prospect of this happening. CA is not nearly as progressive a state as people think. And, by the way, does anyone remember the Progressive movement of 120 years ago when the Progressive demanded public ownership of most public utilities??? How far we have come!!! Just my quick and rushed say so.
Posted by: Dan Cornford | January 12, 2023 at 08:20 AM
Great article. Thank you. Agree with all your suggestions. Would also add that the city should regularly check trees to make sure they are healthy and not in the way of power lines.
Posted by: Celina | January 12, 2023 at 08:24 AM
Nancy, good one. And perhaps the City can try to ensure (perhaps through a CERT or a volunteer org) that such individuals are doing OK when the power goes out.
Dan, I'm with you. For now I was just taking PG&E as the backdrop, but I would like us to free ourselves from them entirely and have a publicly run utility. A bigger topic for another day.
Thanks, Celina, and that is a good idea. PG&E is supposed to do it, and I know they came by our house a few years ago with a chainsaw and left a mess. But the city could be involved too. I'd like to see them better invest in the tree program more generally.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 12, 2023 at 09:05 AM
I appreciate the insightful commentaries above.
I totally agree. How can we as a city again move forward in establishing a publicly run utility?
It is something short of ridiculous that so many people have lost power for days on end within the last two weeks.
Posted by: Carla Gordon Levin | January 12, 2023 at 09:43 AM
Great constructive criticism. Lots of great ideas Roberta—Thank you so much for taking the time to gather thoughts surrounding this subject. I too felt the public outreach was late. I personally felt for the downtown businesses who lost a lot of patronage since they couldn't operate without electricity, and then still cannot operate to today without internet in some cases.
Posted by: Aaron Wedra | January 12, 2023 at 10:35 AM
An entity associated with PG&E gives out free batteries for people with things like breathing type equipment. But it's only about planned power shut offs. What's curious is that in many cases health insurance pays for this equipment but not battery backups, as they are traditionally considered to only be a convenience like for camping.
About food, EBT (food stamps) cannot generally be used for hot food. It would be great if during outages hot food could also be purchased. Also, many people will purchase perishables with their EBT which would go bad in a prolonged outage. While the local efforts to hand out e.g. gift cards are helpful, this should be a state program that immediately gets put into play, with a single call from someone in the county to the state.
In regards to locally owned utilities and specifically infrastructure clearly the priority should be hyperlocal solar and batteries. And I'm curious which households in Davis that are already equipped this way to cover their own needs and also sell back to the grid have the capability to run a long extension cord to power the refrigerator of a neighbor.
Related, towards the beginning of our recent 23-hour outage, we found that all the local sources were out of dry ice. As I understand it EBT can be used for normal ice but not dry ice. It's curious as dry ice is in this case used to preserve food.... So perhaps it should be treated as hot cold food, so to speak. I'm not sure how much dry ice local markets keep on hand and how expensive it is to store it for long periods when people don't need it.
About leaves, the Claw and water flows in streets, we seem to have a pretty antiquated system, inclusive of drains that can be clogged up by a single garbage bag, never mind leaves. Still, volunteer programs such as the one suggested above - and I lived in Culver City for 10 years - could include service to unclog street drains. Playing in the water is fun, and enabling its flow can make one feel empowered.
Posted by: Todd Edelman | January 12, 2023 at 11:14 AM
All great suggestions, Todd, thank you for adding them. And more generally, thanks to everyone for the constructive comments here so far.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 12, 2023 at 11:37 AM
Aaron, I agree about the concern for Downtown. I saw that the Vault was burglarized during the power outing. One might call that looting. Do you have any suggestions for what the City might do to help?
Posted by: Colin Walsh | January 12, 2023 at 11:53 AM
PG&e is basically required to service areas that will never be profitable, below their costs of delivery, can't spin off unprofitable business segments, they're not allowed to charge more to cover their costs, etc.Meanwhile, state and federal regulations basically conspire against them. Changes in land management dramatically increase the chances of fire in any given area. And they're made liable for any fires in the area of their equipment, whether it was actually their equipment or not...meanwhile industry regulation basically prevents them from charging true cost of the power they deliver and actually making it MORE profitable to sell the power out of state and then re-import it...
Could you imagine what the cost would be if we allowed the state to California to run PG&e The cost would increase exponentially.
Posted by: Chris Griffith | January 12, 2023 at 12:48 PM
#4 Charging/warming locations
First it was the Senior Center, then it was the police station. Someone pointed out that police stations are not felt to be safe places for many people. Then it was at the VMC.Then someone pointed out that the ties of the VMC to veterans may invoke feelings tied to war that could be triggering for many people and that the US military supports colonization which is based on white supremacy. Then someone pointed out that woke persons are a pain in the arse and the warming station was moved to an outdoor location at the County dump.
Almost as bad as the changing locations were the limited hours, closing at 5 PM. People without power could have used a few hours in the evening to stay warm and charge their devices, especially if they had to work during the day.
I knew nothing about these and drove to a coffee-shop in Sacramento in an area where the power was on, (adding these emissions to global warming). All the plugs were taken as a few others had the same idea.
And speaking of global warming, I just saw geese flying south for the winter -- in mid-January!
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | January 13, 2023 at 09:55 AM
I knew nothing about these and drove to a coffee-shop in Sacramento in an area where the power was on, (adding these emissions to global warming). All the plugs were taken as a few others had the same idea.
This depends on Sac having power, on it being safe to drive to Sac (given wet roads, powerlines, etc), on people having the means to get themselves to Sac [insert same thoughts for Woodland or Dixon or...]. We need reliable power available nearby.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 13, 2023 at 10:05 AM
#4 Charging/warming locations
First it was the Senior Center, then it was the police station. Someone pointed out that police stations are not felt to be safe places for many people. Then it was at the VMC.Then someone pointed out that the ties of the VMC to veterans may invoke feelings tied to war that could be triggering for many people and that the US military supports colonization which is based on white supremacy.
I must have missed that when skimming the article the first time.
It's pretty difficult to take these concerns seriously, especially in regard to supposedly-emergency situations.
How about a mobile MRAP? Maybe Woodland can send one down to Davis (the one that Davis declined), as needed. Probably pretty safe inside of it, at least.
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 10:17 AM
The part about people objecting to the VMC was not in the original article -- that was something that Alan added. I am not aware of anyone objecting to the VMC as a location. I don't recall ever hearing anyone object to the VMC as a location for anything. That is where I vote, or rather, used to vote when we voted in person.
I get that you guys might not be sympathetic to the concern about the police station, but frankly I am not sure I would be super comfortable there myself.
Anyway, please try to focus on the issues at hand, which is 1) we need a stable location for warming/power and 2) more generally, what can the City do better to handle these types of emergencies?
This is a personal request.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 13, 2023 at 10:21 AM
Roberta: Thanks for the clarification regarding the VMC.
But if folks aren't "comfortable-enough" at the police station in an emergency situation, I don't think this is a failure on the part of the city.
It's a failure on the part of the populace.
And I suspect that if it was an actual "life-threatening" emergency, most folks would muster-up the "courage" to go there.
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 10:28 AM
Please let's not go down this path. It won't take us any place productive and will just take the focus away from the issue at hand. Can we just take it as a given that it needs to be somewhere that is not the police station?
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 13, 2023 at 10:32 AM
How about on campus, somewhere? Seems to me that UCD could easily accommodate this, in cooperation/coordination with the city.
By the way, Chris put forth some valid points regarding PG&E (and the requirements it operates under), which is likely creating a lot of this problem (not just in Davis). Which seems to be increasing in severity.
And that's more than "just my humble opinion". :-)
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 11:30 AM
Yes, Ron, one of the suggestions in my original post was that we work with UCD specifically to have a place for charging/warming.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 13, 2023 at 12:14 PM
RM: "Anyway, please try to focus on the issues at hand . . . "
RM: You knew I was an arsehole when you married me. But seriously, to let the secret out of the bag, when I make snarky comments and skirt the point, which is my nature, there is no intention to discredit the subject of an article itself, unless I make a contention directly at points in the article. Which I may still do. I mostly agree your points but not all of them.
And as for the part I added about the VMC -- that was on me as the formatting didn't make that as clear as I intended when I changed the part I added to bold. Ruined the snark and was unclear. Fail.
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | January 13, 2023 at 12:47 PM
I'm blaming Alan M. for his hilarious comment - in regard to getting me distracted.
Apparently, I'm similar to those who fall for "War of the Worlds" type of claims. (The original, with Orson Welles.)
Especially when they seem plausible (and not that far off from the actual statements).
But if it's an actual life/death emergency, perhaps folks need to get over their "fear of police", as well.
But sure - the campus is an obvious solution. (I suspect that few would actually use it on an extended basis, since we're not actually talking about life and death for most people.)
But apparently, look for more extended power outages, in the future.
By the way, I'm learning that those with solar systems can sometimes use battery/power supply backups, in these situations. Which could even be regenerated during these outages - depending upon the weather.
(Not gas-powered, but from solar energy or previously-stored energy from the grid.)
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 01:13 PM
OK, so I agree on the simple fails of the City. What I don't agree with is:
• I don't think we can blame the City for the power failures. That is squarely on PG&E. Always has been. Except also on Mother Nature, and Sh*t Happens.
• Suggesting campus as a solution has some problems. Much of campus is not accessible to cars. Also, maps during the outage showed much of campus power was off this time around.
• Under-grounding is extremely expensive. The neighborhood where I grew up is on the border (literally over the fence) from an under-grounding district. There were numerous times this was brought up -- and the neighbors (who had to collectively pay for this) rejected it each time. Based on the 600' of line that had to be under-grounded there -- extrapolating this to the entirety of a City like Davis would be unfathomably expensive.
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | January 13, 2023 at 01:59 PM
Alan,
Agreed that PG&E is at fault for the power outages. We had another multi-hour one today -- for no apparent reason -- yay!! So much fun. But that doesn't mean that the City can't do more to make our power distribution more resilient to storms and hot weather. Sorry, double negative. The City can (and should, IMO) do more to make our power distribution more resilient to storms and hot weather.
I think this was unusual for campus to go out -- I know this because as a faculty member my office was always the place I'd go hide out when I lost power. And they seemed to be back on more quickly. So, it couldn't be the whole solution, but it could be part of the solution. We should work with them during emergencies, not pretend like we don't have a next door neighbor who can help.
Agreed that undergrounding is very expensive, but perhaps for selected locations (like 2nd street) it might make sense. Major artery, not a bunch of homes.
Ron, I mentioned solar + battery in the above article, just like I mentioned UCD. Now don't make me ask if you did the reading before class.... 😉
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 13, 2023 at 03:39 PM
"Now don't make me ask if you did the reading before class."
I must have forgotten that I had the printed and stored the article in the garage when it first came out, next to my "Corvette".
Thought it was a pretty good article, actually. (Even while boycotting the VMC as a solution - just kidding.)
But apparently, those backups work pretty well in these situations. (For those who can afford to get them, of course.)
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 04:12 PM
I must have forgotten that I had the printed and stored the article in the garage when it first came out, next to my "Corvette".
lol
Thought it was a pretty good article, actually. (Even while boycotting the VMC as a solution - just kidding.)
Thanks.
But apparently, those backups work pretty well in these situations. (For those who can afford to get them, of course.)
Yes, I have a friend -- not in Davis, but in rainy Oregon -- who says that if he is careful, he can go completely off grid when necessary with panels + battery. That is sounding really appealing right now. We have some solar panels but they are old.
Posted by: Roberta L. Millstein | January 13, 2023 at 04:21 PM
Roberta, much of UCD was out as well as the City. UCD officials announced several locations where people could go on campus for warmth and charging, including the Memorial Union. There was nothing preventing people from going there. Most people I know have lived through past storms ( remember when all the poles on RD 102 were knocked down and North Davis had no power for 5 days?) with extended electrical outages and have taken steps to prepare - buying generators, rechargeable cell phone battery packs, gas or wood fire places for heat, outdoor propane grills for cooking, etc. In the past, the senior center has been used as a warming center, but that couldn’t be used this time and the outages were so widespread that locations with generators had to be used, such as the police station. This is going to happen again in the future and I suggest you take steps to prepare. It doesn’t have to be fancy - a propane grill for cooking, a cooler to keep food cold, flash lights or electric lanterns and a few rechargeable batteries to charge cell phones. Investing in a generator to run refrigerator and a few lights and technology would be help but maybe a luxury.
Posted by: Sharla Cheney | January 13, 2023 at 04:27 PM
gas or wood fireplaces for heat.
None of that. :-)
buying generators
Or that.
propane grills
Or that.
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 04:47 PM
These are emergency items, Ron. You could always install a Tesla battery connected to solar for your home, but that would be hugely expensive and a luxury most cannot afford.
Posted by: Sharla Cheney | January 13, 2023 at 05:15 PM
No "emergency excuses", either. :-)
But seriously - if one has the items that you listed, they're going to be used outside of "emergencies" (other than perhaps the generator).
But I don't think that "city folk" are going to be purchasing generators in mass, regardless. "What would the neighbors think (and hear)", for one thing.
Posted by: Ron O | January 13, 2023 at 05:33 PM
Not to mention, can't really use generators in the 7-story apartments planned for E Street Plaza downtown.
Or in ANY multiplex housing for the most part.
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | January 13, 2023 at 06:17 PM
What about the bike museum? I haven't actually been inside, but isn't there quite a bit of room downstairs? Plus the city made the investment - now in this way it could actually be beneficial to the people.
Posted by: Rachel | January 14, 2023 at 09:02 AM
The City needs to make it easier to remove dead and dying trees. No City Fees and a simple request that the owner plant one replacement tree on their property.
Posted by: Clay | January 15, 2023 at 09:49 AM