Emergencies in LA: Most Vulnerable Angelenos at Risk

CityWatch, Jan 13, 2012
Vol 10 Issue 4

RETHINKING LA - The fastest growing demographic group in America is senior citizens, a simple fact that should be guiding the City of LA as it goes through the charade of emergency preparedness planning, but one that isn’t even part of the dialogue.

The essence of emergency preparedness is based on the notion that in a true emergency, the people of Los Angeles must be self-sufficient, prepared to survive for days without public safety support, health services, water & power, sanitation, access to fresh food, or streets that work.

LA’s Fire Department conducts Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training that prepares community members for emergencies in a series of classes that progress from the basics of self-sufficiency to managing an evacuation shelter to advanced emergency medical skills.

The CERT training instills in individuals a hierarchy of emergency responses that is counterintuitive but essential, starting with protecting yourself, then protecting your loved ones, then protecting your neighbors. It may seem selfish to start with yourself but the message the instructors drill into the student’s heads is “You can’t help your loved ones and neighbors  if you allow yourself to become an immobilized or dead victim.”

The CERT training in self-sufficiency is an extremely powerful experience with applications on preparedness that resonate through other non-emergency scenarios, demonstrating at every turn that the most powerful tool we possess is the one between your ears.

It also serves to dramatize a painful oversight that has the potential to leave our largest demographic group vulnerable and on their own in the next major earthquake or fire or catastrophe that requires neighborhoods to evacuate in large numbers.

Quite simply, LA’s current emergency preparedness instructions for the seniors in our community, many of whom are already experiencing a lack of self-sufficiency, is “In the event of a serious disaster, everyone should be self-sufficient for at least three days without help or emergency services.”

It doesn’t take an expert in Gerontology to see the problem in this paradigm of emergency preparedness. Expecting a demographic group that is growing in numbers while experiencing a decrease in mobility and self-sufficiency in the best of times to suddenly become self-sufficient is simply civic malpractice.

Senior citizens currently represent 37% of our adult population and are projected to make up 45% by the year 2015. It’s estimated that men will outlive their ability to drive by 7 years, women by 10 years.

How then does the City of Los Angeles intend to guide this significantly sized and extremely vulnerable demographic group through the next emergency? By admonishing them to buy a “Go” bag and be prepared to evacuate on foot? By advising those who require assistance in the activities of daily living (ADL’s) such as grooming, dressing, going to the bathroom, and eating that they should be prepared to go several days on their own?

When Griffith Park was engulfed in fire and the adjacent Los Feliz neighborhood was evacuated, the surrounding streets and even the freeway was completely jammed with gridlock traffic. Residents walked out of the hillside community, some carrying a well fed lapcat or lapdog under one arm and a bag of prescription drugs under the other.

This is LA’s plan? Walk if you can, condolences if you can’t.

It was the CERT volunteers who set up the evacuation center at Marshall High School and provided services to those who were able to navigate the dark streets and find the solitary unlocked gate on a huge High School Campus. Other residents who were lucky enough to have friends and family near by, simply walked out of the neighborhood to prearranged pickup points and were whisked away to other neighborhoods.

But this scenario required the residents to self-mobilize and included no checks and balances to ensure that nobody was forgotten.

One would think that the City of LA would be better connected, that there would be some mechanism for identifying those who need assistance in an emergency and that there would be a plan in place for connecting with them.

In the summer of 1995, Chicago experienced a record heat wave that saw the city’s hard infrastructure buckle while the administration of city services simply collapsed, resulting in 739 excess deaths in one week.

At first glance, the explanation is simple, it was too hot and the most vulnerable died. But it wasn’t so simple.

In what was termed a “social autopsy,” researchers examined the factors that contributed to disproportionate numbers of casualties in some neighborhoods while equally physically vulnerable seniors in other neighborhoods survived the heat.

They discovered that it wasn’t the heat the killed 739 Chicago residents, it was isolation in the midst of a natural disaster.

Residents of communities with a strong social network were more likely to reach out to others when in crisis. Neighbors checked on each other and encouraged each other to move to cooling stations before it was too late.

Residents of communities with high mortality rates were made up of seniors who withdrew into their homes, who were less likely to answer a knock on the door, and who had no one to turn to when they were in crisis.

In other words, residents of neighborhoods with a strong “social ecology” survived while residents of neighborhoods that weren’t connected saw disproportionate casualties.

The City of LA has had over a decade to look at the Chicago experience and to evaluate LA’s emergency preparedness plan in the context of “connected communities” and the needs of our largest and most vulnerable constituent group and yet, where’s LA’s plan?

Well connected healthy communities are not only more likely to survive natural disasters but they also experience a reduction in crime and gang activity.

This was recently demonstrated when Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief Beck released the most recent crime data, touting the fact that crime rate was at the lowest that it's been since the 50's. The Mayor simply said it was "mind-boggling" but the Chief explained that it was due to good police work and the ever increasing role of the community in public safety.

One would think that these results would prompt the City of LA to double down on its social services commitment but the Mayor and the LAPD seem committed to the continual militarization of the police force rather than to an increasing commitment to engaging the community in the process.

This systemic dismissal of the importance of strong connected communities is evident as the LAPD moves forward with a plan to turn the old Rampart station into a SWAT station rather than fulfilling the wishes of the neighbors who envision a community center.

As for the seniors, they vote in greater numbers than any other age group yet they are forgotten during LA’s annual budget melee, victims of a Mayor and City Council that lacks the political will to commit basic resources to the city’s most vulnerable residents.

“Soft” health and social support services are delegated and redelegated, often falling on the shoulders of those who are ill-equipped or unwilling to accept responsibility. Through it all, it is the work of non-profit groups such as the Assistance League that creates the safety net and holds it together.

In times of calm, on any given day, LA’s police and fire departments respond to multiple calls from seniors who then receive transportation, emergency primary medical care, connection to social services, and safety support.

But...in times of disaster, the LAPD and the LAFD will be completely focused on the larger crisis and unable to respond to individual calls from residents who are limited in capabilities and mobility.

Watching Mayor Villaraigosa at the podium again, extolling the benefits of emergency preparedness, is to watch a demonstration in complete disconnect from reality.

Villaraigosa’s plan is to talk about preparedness while completely abdicating on his responsibility to implement a plan for connectivity, one that will take root now, not when it’s too late to do anything.

Dying young is a tragedy, but it pales in comparison to the real tragedy which is growing old in a city that takes you for granted and doesn’t have a plan for you in case of an emergency.

Seniors tend to live in one of five different housing arrangements, independently at their own home, in a retirement community with some support, at home but with some support, in an assisted living facility, and in a nursing home where physical and mental needs can be met.

If Villaraigosa is serious about emergency preparedness, he will produce five plans for LA’s senior community, demonstrating a commitment to connectivity that will ensure the survival of our most vulnerable yet significant age group.

If he can’t handle the task, it’s up to those of us who are willing and able. After all, we’ll all be there soon.

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net.)

CityWatchLA - It's Not the Heat, It's the Disconnect!

CityWatch, Oct 1, 2010
Vol 8 Issue 78

CONSIDER THIS

This past Monday, the temperature in Los Angeles hit a record 113 degrees, prompting a press release from the City of LA's Emergency Management Department (EMD) directing the public to cooling stations set up in locations such as LA's Libraries. The next day, the EMD issued another press release, this time acknowledging their recent discovery that LA's libraries are now closed on Mondays.

There are a few elements of this scenario that demonstrate LA's lack of emergency preparedness and emergency responsiveness.

1) Emergencies don't work 9-5, Monday through Friday. The heat wave didn't sneak up on LA, in fact at 8 am on Saturday morning the participants at the LAPD's Community Policing Advisory Board (C-PAB) Summit were sweltering. Unable to find relief in the beautiful but unshaded open space of LAPD headquarters they found refuge in the new Deaton Hall where the limitations of the AC system were discovered.

The theme of the C-PAB Summit was emergency preparedness and featured Caltech's Dr. Lucy Jones and EMD's James Featherstone. In a wicked display of irony, the top brass of the EMD and the LAPD discussed emergency preparedness on Saturday and then went home, waiting until Monday to let the public know "It's hot, head for the libraries!" If only we were better connected and had the right information at the right time.

2) Emergencies involve everybody. Utilities collapse, streets buckle, the LAPD gets stretched thin, the Fire Department must contend with medical emergencies and heightened fire risks, priorities shift and the last people to know are the ones who need help the most.

This simple heat wave illustrates that the importance of our libraries, our parks, our schools, our open space, our neighborhood councils, our senior centers, and our public space.

Regardless of the emergency, all of the assets of LA are part of the emergency response system, from open space for staging areas to protected space for animals, to libraries and community centers for cooling stations or evacuation shelters, nothing is to be taken for granted. If only we were better connected and had a plan for the right facilities at the right time.

3) Emergencies are local, very local. In a real emergency people won't be downloading PDF's from EMD, they won't be shopping for supplies or rethinking the recent interdepartmental competition over emergency preparedness funding. They'll be yelling, using a whistle, listening to a radio and taking care of themselves, their families and their neighbors.

A real emergency doesn't respect bureaucracy and it hasn't been trained by the personnel department in time management, loss-prevention, or the hierarchy of municipal decision-making. To wait for City Hall to recognize an emergency is to court disaster. If only we were better connected and were prepared to take responsibility for our own lives.

Last year's Station Fire demonstrated the deficiencies in our current emergency preparedness system when it was unclear which department or authority was in charge. Inter-agency squabbling over responsibility left locals navigating the back roads in order to do what needed to be done, save lives and save property.

Two years ago, a series of bushfires in Victoria, Australia took the lives of 173 people. "Black Saturday" resulted in an inquiry that called into question the simple nature of authority and the process for communicating an evacuation alert. It got hot, it got windy, the fires started, people trusted a hesitant fire authority and lives were lost.

Fifteen years ago, a heat wave struck Chicago and 739 Chicagoans lost their live due to the heat. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) sent an investigator to Chicago to study the incident and the researcher reported "It's the heat!" He was wrong. It was hot all over but the deaths came in clusters, demonstrating the impact of social structure, access and mobility, isolation and connectivity.

Quite simply, it's not the nature of the emergency that puts Angelenos at risk, it's our ability to prevent or minimize the impact and it's our ability to respond and survive that makes all the difference.

1) The City of LA needs to integrate its emergency preparedness and emergency response strategies and accept that they must be in the DNA of every department. Chicago demonstrated that simple land use decisions had an impact on the survival rates in a heat wave, demonstrating that even the CRA is having an impact on LA's inability to weather the storm.

From the DWP to the Street Services to the Libraries to Rec & Parks to the LAPD to the LAFD, every department in Los Angeles plays a role but the fact that they are disconnected means that we'll be playing "Who's on first?" in the next emergency.

2) The City of LA needs to connect with the public now and there is no better mechanism for that outreach than the neighborhood councils. It was locals that went over the fences in the aftermath of the Chatsworth Train crash to take food to emergency service providers who worked around the clock to save lives. It was locals who used the back routes to evacuate the animals in the Station Fire while the "authorities" set up roadblocks that hindered an emergency response.

From Community Policing to CERT to Communications, the network must be in place now, not after an emergency has arrived, and the strategy for success must start with supporting the public, not interfering.

3) The City of LA needs to clearly communicate now the chain of command so that the people of LA never, ever again stand in the middle of an emergency and watch the Red Cross argue with CERT over funding or watch the LAPD argue with the County over jurisdiction. Those moments might be dramatic and entertaining on the big screen but they are the seeds of disaster when they take place on the streets of LA.

The record-setting heat of last week may have passed but in its wake is a reminder that we must be prepared, we must take responsibility, and we must get connected. As always, it's up to us.

(Stephen Box is a grassroots advocate and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at: Stephen@thirdeyecreative.net. Disclosure: Box is also a candidate for 4th District Councilman.)

CityWatchLA - Hollywood & Western - "No-Man's Land"

CityWatch, Sept 15, 2009
Vol 7 Issue 74

The Metro’s Red Line stations are all unique, each one decorated with public art that reflects the character and personality of the surrounding community. At Hollywood & Western, the Metro selected overflowing trashcans, human waste and a homeless encampment, all in tribute to the “No-Man’s Land” status of the area that finds the LAPD and the LASD treating the Metro station like a jurisdictional hot potato.

This past Saturday evening, arriving at the Metro Station a little after midnight, we discovered five of the six escalators inoperative. Proponents of the "Broken Windows" theory would suggest that this "indicator" communicates a complete lack of oversight.

Walking to the third staircase, we came across a little old lady, halfway up, standing still, unable finish the journey to street level. As my wife assisted the reluctant pedestrian, I went to notify the authorities only to find that the emergency intercom was out of order.

At street level, the LAPD was out in force, driving up and down the Boulevard in vehicular insulation, never slowing down or so much as glancing at the Metro Station or the homeless encampment that sits below City Council President Eric Garcetti's 4th floor office in the Mayer Building. Of course, this is not their beat.

Years ago the Metro awarded the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department a lucrative contract to provide law enforcement services for all Metro property. A subsequent Memorandum Of Understanding between the LAPD and the LASD clarified the jurisdictional details and the lines were drawn. All Metro property is the responsibility of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

None of this really matters to the person on the street who wants help, only to find themselves lost in the "No-Man's Land" of the Metro Red Line Station.

I called the LASD Watch Commander at Metro Rail HQ to let him know of the five inoperative escalators, the broken emergency intercom, the stench of urine and feces, the overflowing trash cans, and the homeless encampment, pointing out that they all indicate a significant failure on the part of the LASD.

Sgt. Bedogne explained that staffing was thin on Saturday nights and that their focus was fare evasion. I pointed out this seems to be in sharp contrast with the Metro’s position as articulated by CEO Art Leahy who has indicated that public safety and customer service are his priorities for the Metro.

Crickets chirped.

It took 28 minutes for the LASD to arrive at Hollywood & Western, four cars with five Deputies. They descended into the station, returned to street level, chatted with the two armed Metro Officers who joined them, hung out some more, and then they all left. Net result of the visit, 22 minutes of scratching, spitting and huddling together on the mean streets of Hollywood and Western.

At no time did any of them simply walk the perimeter of the street level property. Sgt. Bedogne explained "The LASD only handles the Metro Station itself, not the surrounding property." In fact, we discovered that night, the Sheriff's surveillance cameras don't even cover the third level of stairs.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Lawrence, the LAPD's Watch Commander informed me that the Metro Station including the homeless encampment is the responsibility of the Sheriff's Department. Neither Watch Commander seemed alarmed in the disconnect between the two departments and both referred me to supervisors who were not available.

This neighborhood has been in the news quite a bit lately. The LA Weekly has run a couple of great articles on the issues of homelessness and emancipated youth in Hollywood and in both articles the Hollywood & Western Metro Station is featured as the de facto drop in center for the under challenged and homeless youth of the area.

Most recently, the CIM Group was taken to task for their blighted properties located to the north, trashed, abandoned and filled with squatters. Garcetti deferred to Councilman LaBonge (they split the intersection, Garcetti to the south, LaBonge to the north)

As Garcetti and LaBonge engaged in the jurisdictional hot potato dance, the City Attorney and Building & Safety got involved and at the prodding of local activists, the properties were razed and the area was cleared of blight.

LaBonge, who has never passed on the opportunity to engage in an end-zone victory dance, gathered community leaders in the parking lot of the Rite-Aid to claim credit for cleaning up the neighborhood, missing the fact that destroying a squat doesn’t provide housing for the squatters, it merely drives them across the street into Garcetti’s district. Perhaps that was his strategy. It would be consistent with the behavior of others.

The LAPD purportedly has professionals that handle homeless issues but according to Sgt. Lawrence, the Watch Commander on duty Saturday night, they are available during traditional office hours.

The LASD also has professionals to handle homeless issues but according to Sgt. Bedogne, the Watch Commander on duty Saturday night, they are also available during traditional office hours.

Somehow the collective oversight of City Council President Garcetti, Councilmember LaBonge, the CRA, the Metro, the LAPD, the LASD, Building & Safety, the City Attorney’s office and anyone else charged with addressing the homeless issue in Hollywood completely missed the fact that when you destroy homeless camps, you don’t reduce homelessness.

The Sheriff’s Department is not without a plan for addressing homelessness. Ride the Metro Rail to either end of the line and you'll see Sheriff's Deputies whose only job is to make the homeless exit the rail cars, stand sleepily on the station for a few minutes with their abundant possessions, teeter and totter and then reenter to resume sleeping on the journey to the other end of the line.

The LAPD has a similar strategy for the vehicles and motorhomes parked on residential streets, occupied by folks who simply move their vehicular campsite from one side of the street to the other to accommodate street cleaning, necessary to address the trail of trash and human waste left behind. The Senior Lead Officers typically use the 72 hour chalk to keep them moving in circles, ignoring LA Muni Code 85.02 which prohibits people from inhabiting parked vehicles on public streets.

In either case, the strategy seems to be based on the belief that if the homeless are annoyed enough, they will simple grow weary of the inconvenience of homelessness, snap out of their stupor, resolve to prosper, buy a home in the Valley, and leave Hollywood behind.

I’ve lived in Hollywood for a dozen years. I believe in Hollywood and I proudly refer to it as “the center of the universe,” a claim I make with utmost sincerity based on its history, its industry significance, its creative community, and its potential.

For three years my wife and I have hosted “Bike to Work” events at the Hollywood & Western Metro Station. We have organized rides that use the Metro Station as the meeting place. Hollywood & Western is where we meet friends, where we shop, it’s often the beginning and end of our journeys and it is, in many ways, the center of the universe. It’s the heart of our neighborhood.

The Hollywood and Western Red Line station is the tip of an iceberg that can’t be neglected or ignored any longer.

It is imperative that the many departments that have responsibility for some aspect of development, public safety, homeless services, law enforcement and simple quality of life issues in Hollywood to come together, put down the jurisdictional drama and to simply work together to make Los Angeles a Great City.

(Stephen Box stands vigil on the City of Angels and writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at Stephen@ThirdEyeCreative.net) ◘

CityWatchLA - Brisbane has one, LA needs one. What’s the story?

CityWatch, Sept 8, 2009
Vol 7 Issue 72

At its heart, my Down Under Walkabout was simply a quest to connect with the people and the places that make up my past, my history, and my own personal story.

Having started in Melbourne, the Capital of Victoria, then moving through Sydney, the Capital of New South Wales, I finally arrived in Brisbane, the Capital of Queensland, the State where I was born.

My visit to Brisbane was a serendipitous journey, as I discovered the “City Machine” exhibit at the Museum of Brisbane (MoB), conveniently located on the first floor of Town Hall. Guests are invited to discover the city by examining the building blocks that make up the complex wholeness and the connectivity that keeps Brisbane humming. In short, Brisbane sets a new standard for Walkabout storytelling.

I initially visited Brisbane’s Town Hall aiming low, merely intent on visiting the Council Chambers for a moment or two of reflective contemplation on the inner workings of the city of 2 million and to catch the Lord Mayor and the City Council in action.

I was pleased enough to witness a motion to “Adjourn for afternoon tea!” The vote was unanimous and I appreciated the precision with which they concluded a lengthy debate over some monstrous funding issue exactly at 4 pm.

But as impressive as that moment in municipal synchronicity and bipartisan politics was for me, the MoB exhibit was what resonated. Overwhelmingly powerful in its effective presentation, it tells Brisbane’s story from the birth of the city, to the organizational growing pains that took it through its childhood, to its maturity as a world-class city, to its future.

Archival documents, photos, video, artifacts and relics tell the story of a community that grew in response to both crisis and opportunity, with the first demand being Public Health.

The parallels between the origins of Brisbane and Los Angeles are uncanny, with both communities organizing around the Public Works challenge of providing clean water to the residents.

In Brisbane, this resulted in the formation of the Public Works Department and in LA, it resulted in the hiring of the first municipal employee, an Indian woman who dipped water from the Zanja Madre and delivered to the local households. Thus was born the DWP.

Brisbane’s “City Machine” exhibit takes on the challenging task of turning the dry fodder of archival materials into a fast paced journey from the past to the present and into the future. Starting with simple public health challenges that motivated community organization and then moving to transportation needs, into public safety needs, and then into communications, the MoB puts a spin on the journey that brings it to life and engages the audience.

Through it all, it is rapidly apparent that as fast as the tools change, the challenges of a city remain the same. The rapid growth and maturation of the community is constantly presenting infrastructural and organizational challenges that require a highly sophisticated “City Machine” that connects, that communicates, that responds, and that has a clear mandate on purpose and on function and on process.

While both Brisbane and LA began with similar challenges and similar responses, it’s painfully apparent that the same “City Machine” metaphor has failed miserably for Los Angeles.

This past weekend, LA’s Birthday Party, typically celebrated with a 9-mile walk from San Gabriel to El Pueblo to honor the original Pobladores, was compromised by the poor air quality resulting from the Station Fire. The walk was cancelled and festivities were reduced to the minimum, proverbial icing on the municipal cake, and ironic in timing.

As Brisbane celebrates its 150th Birthday with an exhibit that honors the “City Machine,” Los Angeles cancels its Birthday celebration as it grapples with its failure to respond as a "Machine" to the Station Fire.

The Station Fire, now in its 13th day, started in Altadena and spread rapidly, throwing communities into evacuation mode and challenging the LA “City Machine.”

This time of crisis should have been the moment at which Los Angeles came together, functioning as “the Machine,” a complex assembly of many parts working in sync, communicating, connecting and concentrating energy, creating a “wholeness” and providing the leadership of LA with the mechanism to weather the storm.

Instead, the local community played a game of “Where’s Tony?” while the many departments of the City of LA followed disconnected mandates that left the locals self-evacuating under the direction and control of multiple agencies, all the while wondering “Who do you call?” as they faced life-and-death challenges.

In a situation such as the Station Fire, one would hope that the City of LA would provide proactive and effective communication to the community, instructing them on the roles the many City Departments would play in the management of the emergency, and delivered in a variety of mediums to ensure connection with the community.

One would also hope that the Department of Transportation would be on the scene, maintaining a large perimeter to keep the spectators from interfering with the evacuation and with the helicopters collecting water from the reservoir. In addition, it seems reasonable to expect that the LADOT would maintain a tight perimeter in order to keep open evacuation routes and direct local traffic.

It would also seem reasonable to have General Services and Rec & Parks on the scene, coordinating the opening of evacuation centers and communicating with the LAUSD so that people, animals and vehicles could be accommodated quickly and efficiently and safely.

A City the size of Los Angeles surely has an emergency communication network more sophisticated than a Sheriff’s car with a loud speaker rolling down residential streets, leaving a wake of “What did he just say?” as residents spent more time chasing rumors than in simply coordinating emergency response efforts.

With Community Emergency Response Teams, the Red Cross, LA’s Emergency Management Department, Neighborhood Councils, and Neighborhood Watches all standing by and ready to act, it seems that all that is missing is the mechanism for deploying the full force of “the Machine” and, of course, a leader who is available and empowered to direct “the Machine.”

Most of all, it seems fair to expect that when the largest City in the most populated State in the most powerful Country in the world is threatened with an emergency the size of the Station Fire, that it would be clear who was in charge, what the emergency plan was and how it was to be implemented.

Instead, community members from the neighborhoods most affected by the Station Fire charge that the Mayor was nowhere to be found, that communications were reactive and insignificant, that the many departments of the city who had a piece of the emergency plan were disconnected and ineffective and that there was a huge hole in the “wholeness” of LA’s “City Machine.”

All of which is in dramatic contrast to my experience in the Museum of Brisbane where the City went on record as positioning their ability to mobilize the full force of the city as the culmination of their journey and as the foundation of their vision for themselves as a world class city.

So far, my Down Under Walkabout has taken me to Melbourne, which has presented itself as the City on the Move, to Sydney which has presented itself as the City with a Vision, and to Brisbane which has presented itself as the City Machine.

As I return to my home in Los Angeles, I find myself asking “What’s LA’s story?” What is the narrative that defines us, that allows us to identify ourselves in the context of our relationship with each other, that connects us with our collective past, with our shared present and with our unified vision for the future.

These are challenging times for Los Angeles for many reasons, but most of all because we are in dire need of a leader who can deliver and direct a “City Machine” that functions effectively, with the many complex parts humming in sync, connecting us, and taking us into the future.

(Stephen Box is a transportation advocate and an observer of Los Angeles’ political and government system. And, he writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at Stephen@ThirdEyeCreative.net) ◘