Ready for What?
Staff editorial

With wildfires nearing Mission Viejo’s city limits and fire evacuees coming through town from all directions, there was never a better time for the city to implement its emergency plan. Beyond the opportunity to help residents of other areas who had no place to go, Mission Viejo also has a 6,500 sq. ft. Emergency Operations Center at the north end of city hall. It’s ready and waiting for multiple agencies – or even one agency – to set up a command post in an emergency situation. The much-heralded EOC was deemed essential by a former council majority as a communications center in the event of a disaster. About 10 days ago, its moment came – and went. Did anyone even turn on the lights in the EOC?

A writer on a county political blog asked why Mission Viejo didn’t open its EOC to fire evacuees from other cities. A quick anonymous reply – likely from someone in city hall – explained that the EOC is for the use of agencies, not ordinary citizens in need of shelter.

The truth came out before the smoke cleared. The EOC is an unused, empty box, and the need for it was probably exaggerated if not misrepresented. At the time city hall was built, in 2001, majority council members Sherri Butterfield, Susan Withrow and Bill Craycraft seemed to envision a monstrous building, even if it was mostly empty. Hallways throughout the building are extraordinarily wide, and the building has at least 12 conference rooms, just in case there’s an epidemic need for conferences. The true purpose of the EOC room was probably to enlarge the city hall building so that the mostly empty first floor could hold up the second floor.

An Oct. 26 Saddleback Valley News article quoted Paul Catsimanas, a Mission Viejo assistant manager at city hall who is in charge of the city’s disaster preparedness. From Catsimanas’ remarks, it’s unclear what he or the city staff did, or if anyone asked the city to do anything as winds fanned the flames toward Mission Viejo. He said, “We continue to monitor the situation and the city is ready to step up. Our city employees who are trained for disasters are on standby.”

In a contract city with the OCFA fighting the fires, the Sheriff’s Dept. handling traffic and medical professionals answering medical calls, what exactly are city hall employees trained to do? By the way, when the real emergency teams were working 24 hours a day, did any city hall employee monitor and stand by after 5 p.m.?

As reported last week in The Buzz column, Orange County Register columnist Frank Mickadeit said he was stopped in Mission Viejo traffic on Crown Valley, which had all but one lane closed, on the day 250,000 people were evacuated from San Diego County. Apparently, the city is so concerned about keeping its promise of finishing the road only one or two years behind schedule it couldn’t stop the roadwork for a few hours to let traffic through. The one thing the city might have done to ease the situation was overlooked.

The Oct. 26 SVN article also mentioned the possibility of Mission Viejo High School being available as a shelter. The Red Cross may have considered it. However, with school in session and no place to park, all those fleeing the fires would have been wise to keep going.

On the Nov. 5 council meeting agenda under Staff Comments, the city manager is scheduled to provide an “Update of City Activities Related to the Santiago Fire Incident.”

The Santiago fire wasn’t an incident. If the city staff didn’t know it was an emergency, they weren’t involved enough to comment. As for the update, Catsimanas already told SVN about the city’s role of monitoring and standing by.

This blog has repeatedly asked that the city release an outline of its readiness plan – print it in the City Outlook newsletter. The county and emergency agencies have likely come to the same conclusion as the blog about the city’s emergency preparedness.