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.
Davisite 
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