The ironically titled “Downtown Paradise Safety Project” may have created a deadly evacuation bottleneck.
We have all seen videos of the horror of the exodus from the town of Paradise, CA during the November 8th, 218 #CampFire, with many people reporting gridlock like conditions that caused them to abandon vehicles and run on foot from the fire.
When I lived in Paradise between 1989 and 1994, I worried about the potential for a firestorm and evacuation disaster, and when the Oakland Hills Firestorm of 1991 happened, I remember being on my property off Nunneley Road, and hearing the dry north wind howling in the trees. I knew then that it would not take much to create a wildfire disaster there just like in the Oakland Hills. It was then that I decided to move back to Chico.
That was back in the time before the “North escape route” was completed via the old Forest road 171, which was finally straightened and paved in 2013. According to the Chico Enterprise Record:
The Upper Skyway was a twisting gravel road between Inskip and Butte Meadows in 2008, when the Humboldt Fire burned into Paradise. Residents and local officials had been agitating for years to get the road improved to a level that a typical passenger car could navigate it, without success.
But the fire that burned 74 homes in southern Paradise and at one point closed all the roads out of town to the south, emphasized the need for another way off the ridge.
The Humboldt fire closed the escape roads going downhill south from Paradise, and that was the impetus to finish the north “escape route” road, but perhaps in doing so, residents and town officials may have lulled themselves in a false sense of safety, so much so, that they created a deadly bottleneck on the major southbound escape road, the “Skyway”, impeding the evacuation.
From the Sacramento Bee story ‘The whole town’s on fire’: Butte wildfire grows to 20,000 acres as residents flee on foot
“There were flames to the left of me and flames to the right,” said Wendell Whitmore, a 62-year-old resident who tried to drive out of Paradise on Bille Road at around 9 a.m. “The flames were up in the trees, all the houses were on fire. The fire was three feet from my car. The rubber around the windows was melting. That’s when I decided to get out.”
Whitmore said he abandoned his 2005 Subaru Outback just as another motorist backed into him and the fire began burning under the hood of his car. He and others ran toward Skyway looking for safety as police shouted orders to get out.
By then, he said, it had taken him two hours to drive three quarters of a mile on two-lane Bille Road, where he estimated 40 cars were abandoned in front of him and another 150 were behind him.
When he made it to Skyway on foot, he saw thousands of cars trying to drive six across to get out.
Here are some examples from newspaper photographers of vehicles abandoned along the Skyway.
The major evacuation artery, the “Skyway” became un-driveable, and became a death trap for people further up because traffic came to a standstill. From the San Jose Mercury News:
It’s the terror, the sheer terror of being stuck in a vehicle in bumper to bumper traffic with flames closing in and nowhere to go that haunts them most.
On the main road that locals affectionately called “the Skyway to Paradise,” many of those trapped in the nerve-wracking slow-motion evacuation Thursday morning said their goodbyes, whispered their prayers and wondered, is this the end?
You may have heard that some people that could not get to major evacuation arteries, and burned to death in their cars. Over 200 people are still missing as of this writing.
We all ask, why? Why did the evacuation turn into a standstill traffic jam?
The mayor of the town, who has come under fire for the problems with the evacuation, said this after the first town council meeting held after the fire, in the council chambers of Chico, CA: (bold mine)
Paradise residents held a town hall meeting in nearby Chico Tuesday evening, with Paradise City Hall out of commission with no running power or water.
Emotions ran high at the first such meeting since the historic wildfire began.
Paradise resident Michael Orr called for Mayor Jody Jones’ resignation, blaming her for a chaotic evacuation and a death toll in the dozens and still climbing.
“Well people died, yes. It did not go perfectly,” Jones remarked to CBS San Francisco after the meeting. “I don’t know that we could have had a plan that was better, though. The reason we couldn’t get everyone out is because you can’t fit 26,000 people on the roads all at the same time.”
Yes, there’s some truth to that, but what many people don’t know is that when Jones was vice-mayor in 2014, she supported a plan that reduced the major evacuation artery, the Skyway from 4 lanes to 2 lanes in the downtown Paradise business district.
Tragically, that may have led to an evacuation bottleneck during the Camp Fire, which resulted in people fleeing their own cars, because they could run faster than they could drive.
Compare these two Google Earth aerial photos of downtown Paradise from 2014 and 2018 to see what happened in the downtown business district:
Here is a graphic I prepared from a Google Earth Street view (location noted in figure 3) that shows the reduction of 4 lanes to 2 to add parking spaces, and block the outside lanes with corner curb extensions, known as “bulb-outs”. The view is of the same section of downtown:
In an April 2016 story in the Paradise Post, there was this telling description of the changes that occurred in 2015 to reduce Skyway from 4 lanes to 2 lanes in the downtown business district:(bold mine)
A bit of overnight work and, ta-da, downtown Skyway has a second northbound lane. Crews from Chrisp Company got to work Thursday night to change the road for better traffic flow. The change is in answer to complaints of bottleneck traffic and drivers using parking spaces as a travel lane.
The extra lane starts at Wildwood Lane, crosses Elliott Road and connects to the existing two-lane road in front of the Paradise Veterans Hall.
From there, Skyway remains two lanes until northbound Bille Road, and then it is a single lane up through the Upper Ridge.
Historically, Skyway was two lanes in both directions, though traffic flow became such that Paradise officials likened the road to having a freeway running through the middle of town. The town’s solution was to restripe the road to force traffic to slow down.
By the end of 2014, the town completed a project that eliminated the four-lane configuration in favor of a three-lane configuration – one lane in each direction and a turn lane.
According to reports from the Town of Paradise, the project did reduce traffic speed and injury accidents, but also caused congestion.
The biggest problem was near the Skyway and Elliott Road intersection.
Some drivers would simply use the on-street parking spaces as a way to drive past the long line of cars waiting at the traffic light.
After some careful study, the town opted to eliminate those on-street parking spaces and convert them to a legal driving lane.
Unfortunately, elsewhere on the Skyway downtown business district section, and as we see in the Figures 1-4 Google Earth photos, those parking spaces remained.
You’d think the city planners, and council members would have had a clue back then, that the lane reduction that “caused congestion” would be a huge liability in the event of a fire evacuation, something both residents and town officials worried about for decades. Perhaps with the completion of the “north escape road” in 2013 they lulled themselves into a sense of escape route adequacy?
In the 2015 report presented to the Paradise Town Council ironically titled Downtown Paradise Safety Project, nobody was discussing fire evacuation issues. Instead, they were discussing things like pedestrian safety, and additional parking,
They seemed oblivious to the danger they created with this comparison in slide 13 from the report:
Full slide show is available here: https://www.townofparadise.com/index.php/forms-and-documents/public-works/1332-dpsp-annual-report-presentation-slides/file
You can watch the meeting where they presented the report here on YouTube:
You don’t have to be a certified civil engineer to know that if you reduce 4 lanes to 2 lanes, you are going to cause traffic congestion, and in the event of a fire evacuation, that’s going to create an additional dangerous bottleneck that will impede the evacuation.
Further, it seems mind-boggling to me, that they traded some non-injury fender bender accidents during 5pm rush hour, and additional parking spaces for an unimpeded 4 lane evacuation route.
It seems a clear case of failure to remember what the worst case scenario could be, and when it came, people died.
I’m sure the lawyers will sort it out.
Note: While I’m officially “on hiatus” awhile, I wrote this story while suffering from insomnia, due to the stress that the #CampFire has caused me, and my employees that lost their homes. I felt I had to tell this story, because I had remarked to the general manager of KPAY radio (where I do weather reports) on the morning of November 8th, that “if they don’t get the Skyway opened up to 4 lanes, people are going to be burned alive in their cars”. This issue was firmly on my mind then. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. – Anthony
Our previous Urban Planner claimed in an interview that Vancouver’s Fire Department had frustrated his major objective to narrow our streets to create a “European ambience” with their silly time standards for accessing fires…. “I mean, what the hell difference can a few minutes make?”
The many traffic clotting (sorry, “calming”) measure already taken have “forced people out of their cars” have had the consequence of reducing fuel taxes which go to public transport. The plan to go all electric by 2030 will reduce the taxes to zero, so the bright sparks are now studying per/kilometre “road pricing” which should be easy with the brave new web connected vehicles.
Vancouver has a single 1938 bridge from the main area, exiting to the north, with a single lane either inbound or out. The main southward exit goes through a 1964 tunnel with two lanes each way.
Building more access would only have more people using it has been the argument against expansion.
It’s been about 20 years since the street standards changed where I live. Allowing (encouraging) 14 foot wide travel lanes (21′ curb to curb with parking on one side) was one of the changes.
Just before the major code changes, the fire chief was fired. I assumed that it was related.
It took about 15 years before the current crop of fire review lackeys (fire marshals office) began to make noise about the problems. No deaths or property loss yet because of restricted access, but it will inevitably happen. (when it does, the blame will automatically go to toward the greedy developers).
A map of fire stations, fire history, and County supervisor Districts is here:
http://www.buttecounty.net/Portals/14/2018%20updates/Maps/Butte%20County%20Community%20Demographics%20and%20Fire%20History%20map.pdf
The first thing this reveals is that fires swept through the same area prior to 2009. They are outlined and named on the map. History repeats itself again. Although the fires were always stopped short of Paradise. It also reveals that the Sawmill Peak Lookout station should have provided plenty of warning.
Interestingly, it appears to show plenty of firefighting resources in the area, but most of them are volunteer fire stations. They might require time to mobilize depending on whether they are staffed 24/7. It would be interesting to do a GIS study of the density of fire station assets by state political districts and fire frequency. It appears from the map that Paradise relied on two City fire stations while the larger (and Blue) City of Chico relies on County fire stations. CalFire has some major resources in the immediate area, the Chico Air Attack Base and the Butte Fire Center.https://ccc.ca.gov/locations/butte-fire-center/.
Why weren’t more resources committed to defending Paradise this time?
Resources were committed but the fire was moving way to fast. PGE reported a line problem at 6:15. 6:30. shortly after that fire crews arrived and reported the fire could not be controlled. The small city fire departments are not equipped for a fire this big and this fast. Cal fire did have aircraft and crews near Oroville . Under ideal conditions it would take an hour to get crews there. But all lanes of all roads leading out of paradise were full of cars leaving the town. Making access to the town impossible. The high wind and poor visibility due to the smoke made aircraft ineffective. By 8AM the town was on fire.
In most fires residence typically have several hours of warning before the fire reaches them. That wasn’t the case in this fire. Not everyone in town was awake by 8PM. Some people got up only to find there home was already on fire. This fire simply moved faster than anyone expected.
Yes— there was no warning. It all happened so fast! My daughter, who was already at work, only knew because her cousin from Colorado texted about it! She called my son to evacuate. It was a fire storm. No time for anything but running or driving away.
Jim,
Use Google Earth – Street View.
Do 360° views from a dozen spots around Paradise.
Once this fire got going the only thing to do is to get out of the way.
Here is a link to a fire in Washington State (fewer people in the way):
https://wildfiretoday.com/2012/08/15/taylor-bridge-fire-burns-60-homes-in-washington/
OK.
Is this a climate site or not?
What about CO2?
Can anyone calculate how much CO2 was generated by California wildfires last year?
How about the existing Camp fire each day?
Do these fire make more CO2 than …. all the traffic in California in a year? Or something.
CO2 from Nature: good, and harmless. 3.2 trillion tons in the atmosphere according to one source.
CO2 from Man: bad, must have global government control. 6 billion tons to 32 billion tons, depending on source – less than 1% of the total.
As far as forest fires, from:
https://www.livescience.com/1981-wildfires-release-cars.html
“Large wildfires in the western United States can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in just a few weeks as cars do in those areas in an entire year, a new study suggests.”
“I felt I had to tell this story, because I had remarked to the general manager of KPAY radio (where I do weather reports) on the morning of November 8th, that “if they don’t get the Skyway opened up to 4 lanes, people are going to be burned alive in their cars”. This issue was firmly on my mind then. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. – Anthony”
Hi Anthony,
It is truly upsetting when you make a valid warning and that warning is not acted upon in time and a disaster results. Unfortunately, that’s situation is all too common when when deals with a bureaucracy.
In the absence of strong and intelligent leadership, bureaucracies are slow and often truly stupid.
In Canada, the anti-pipeline debate has festered on for a decade or more, when the merits of pipelines versus the alternatives or so obvious that the entire argument could be will summarized on a Post-it note.
In the interim, the derailment of an oil train in the town of Lac Megantic Quebec caused 47 people to be incinerated – burned alive in a light oil conflagration.
For a decade or more, we have been saying the pipelines are cheaper and safer for humanity and the environment than alternatives such as rail – it IS that simple.
We have a problem in Canada with bigger and bigger governments. Delegating responsibilities to larger groups of stupid people does not create a better result.
Best personal regards, Anthony, to you and yours.
Again, apologies for typos in the above post. I am dictating with my phone since I am overseas.
Having lived in SoCal with a National Forest bordering the property my house was on I know of the anxiety during Santa Ana winds. You take chances and accept the consequences. Tree thinning and brush removal are necessary but everyone rarely participates despite the known danger. Planning an adequate evacuation route is the last step in fire safety. Planning the community is the first.
It should be obvious to anyone, especially a city planner, that a 4 lane egress road is at least inversely proportional to a 2 lane road in capacity if not more. And if anything at all, such as an accident or blockage of one lane or both, then it is immediately apparent that there is no movement going to happen. At least with 4 lanes of traffic, there will hopefully be at least one lane open either direction, if not both, travelling at a higher speed, so a 4 lane road is going to get at least 4 times the cars moved as compared to a 2 lane road, all things being equal. If things move along smoothly then the 4 lane is probably able to sustain 8 times the traffic flow as a 2 lane. It is simple mathematics after all, similar to water volume through a pipe twice the diameter. Maybe a poor analogy but it is similar.
Breass’s Paradox folks.
Corollaries:
When the economy grows, the road slows.
When the roads slow, the fires grow.
Debunk all you want, you still know its true.
In Australia, no stranger to bush fires, there is a concerted effort to prepare for these events by encouraging those in fire-prone areas to have a fire plan. Possibly the most important and life-saving element to this is to know to leave early rather than waiting until “the rubber around the windows was melting”.
Condolences to all who are suffering through this catastrophe.
In my travels, I have noticed that the power utility poles in other countries are made of steel reinforced concrete. Concrete poles do not burn and fall across roads.
It resembles the Highway of Death in Kuwait circa 1991. I’m not that familiar with the area but Neal Road and route 191 should have been available as evacuation routes at least early on. As I recall they closed HWY 99 where these roads intersect so perhaps they were closed and not available for evacuation? But then if they just defended along the West Branch of the Feather River rather than HWY 99 they would have saved the town and a lot of lives.
I never hear of fire proof shelters being built in fire zones. Come on guys, bomb shelters were all the rage at one point, but nobody builds fire shelters in a fire zone?
I looked at buying a block on the side of a hill covered with trees. My very first concern was fires sweeping up the hill. I know they move fast, and knowing my family has a safe place to go was my first consideration.
A block building with no windows, a concrete roof and a 4 hour fireproof door, is all you need to know the family will be safe. It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to keep your family safe for 4 hours.
Carbon monoxide is a problem. Unless a filtering system to remove carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide is installed, and oxygen tanks are installed, it could become a mausoleum.
I can’t do the calcs, but I would say that a 4m x 4m fire shelter would have enough air in it for a family of 4 for 4 or more hours. Might get a bit stuffy by the end, but you simply close the door as late as possible and open it periodically to feel the heat outside. I’ve no idea how they deal with the heat at the door handle. But it seems feasible, and it would only be $10 to $15 thousand for the foundation, blockwork and concrete roof. I know if I was in a fire prone area, I would build one. In an act of desperation, it gives you a fighting chance. The real challenge is not to use the space as a storage room.
Remember that convection is a thing, and can cause what firefighters call backdraft. Opening a door standing between a fire and you can cause any nearby flames to wash in as the sudden heat differential in the air equalizes. Being in a relatively sealed space like a windowless shelter would likely magnify the effect. So I wouldn’t re-open the shelter door once closed, until reasonably certain that the area around you has burned out. Keep O2 tanks inside to refresh the air as needed. Debris may also fall in front of the door, blocking you in until rescue services arrive, so I’d prepare for having to wait inside significantly longer than 4 hours, at least 2-4 hours more.
A shelter can work for a fast moving fire, there are even fire tents that can be used by firefighters that get trapped, but in a slow fire as otsar indicated you would need some sort of fresh air system. You can certainly build more fire resistant homes, just like you can build more wind and water resistant homes in coastal areas, but the extra cost is weighed against the risks.
As far as slowing traffic in downtown areas, it can help foot traffic and safety from accidents, but it needs to be offset by building high traffic load bypasses. Not always possible but very desirable.
I grew up across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio.
The 1937 flood was devastating.
In response Covington, Kentucky built a flood wall to handle a flood (I think) 3 ft higher than the crest.
But they didn’t surrender the land on the other side to the river. There are gates in the flood wall to allow traffic and commerce to continue on the river side. They tested the gates to make sure they still closed about 5 or 6 years ago. I don’t think they’ve ever been used for another flood.
Learn from the past. Prepare for the future.
When Paradise is rebuilt, as someone said above, put in easily removable bollards if they want to make one of the evacuation lanes a parking lane. Test the ease of removal periodically.
For other cities in CA (or along hurricane prone evacuation routes in the East), rip out the “bulb outs” and replace them with bollards.
They may never need to pulled for a real emergency till after you die, but that is a real and sensible “Precautionary Principle” in action. Based on lessons learned from history rather than a computer generated DeLorean.
I grew up near Cinci too, Lawrenceburg, IN I’m assuming you were in Covington, KY?
I miss Skyline Chili.
Ft. Mitchell. 4 miles south of downtown Cincy.
Skyline is still around. (Not sure about Gold Star or Dixie or the others.) It’s even in Central Ohio where I live now. And you can get frozen Skyline and frozen White Castles. (Not sure what that compo would produce!8-)
For those scratching their heads right now, Skyline is a brand of “Cincinnati Style” chili. Very unique, very memorable. White Castles is also very unique but it is a hamburger chain that predates McDonald’s by about 40 years.
Depending on you personal taste, both are very good. They are both also memorable because once you’ve had either, they’ll remind you later that you did. 😎
A PS
I’m not sure if it’s still true but a one time there were more chili parlors in the Cincy area than McDonald and Burger Kings and Wendy’s combined.
Good stuff if you forget what you think “chili” should be.
Cinci chili aside, I’m praying for you.
You are providing a needed service for those in real need now.
I hope my “chili” comments provided you a momentary respite from your present pressure.
No need to reply as along as you smiled.
Thanks Antony, we do have the same problem in Australia, what used to be a nice plesant small town becomes just a through road. But cars are a fact of life in today’s world , so despite the traders cry for passing trade, a ring road is the only real option.
True that might involve cutting down a few trees, but thats the way it has to be. It is impossible to please 100 % of the people, but many of todays politicians desperate for every vote try too. The result of course is chaose. .
MJEii
During solar minimum California can not rely on rainfall associated with El Niño.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=namer×pan=24hrs&anim=html5
Anthony, your article was discussed by John & Ken on KFI radio in LA yesterday afternoon just before 5:00pm, they mentioned the term road diets and decried the practice of forcing congestion on roads.
Salute!
FOR ANTHONY AND HIS FRIENDS IN PARADISE!!
Us of the “street view” and satelite map in Google Maps and Earth are big players for insurance claims. So your post of the congestion reminded me how valuable they can be.
1) I used the street view last year for an insurnce claim that showed the undamaged property compared with after the damage. Two insurance companies liked that and I had satisfactin very quickly. Of course, one should take hotos once a year or after major additions, etc. But if you haven’t, well….. Google did it for you.
2) An agency our tax money goes to takes good pictures of post-storm and post-flood and so forth just for this purpose and also for city use re-establishing property lines, roadways and so forth
https://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/
So one can use number “1” and the current aerial photos for claims and later re-building purposes.
Your county or city may have to request the aerial survey, but it was done here within a week and a half or so of H-hour. I live close to Michael’s impact but came theu fine. I also had relatives use the photos after Katrina back in 2005.
PLZ spread the word and maybe inquire if the state or county has requested the service.
Gums sends…
Gums, it’s an honor to see your participation here knowing your experience in living, understanding, and managing life and death risks on an acute basis!
Taking your suggestion and Anthony’s article one step further: Is it possible to get historical traffic data which had been measured in real-time from Google or Waze?
We all have these apps and maps which show real-time congestion and speeds for route planning and show as green, yellow, and red coloring of the road or street. This congestion is monitored by, depending on the source, installed radar devices, in-road sensors, or the movement of actual phones and cars within the traffic (Waze).
I am wondering if the actual recorded traffic flow is available for the peak of the Camp Fire during evacuation which would show the impact of curb-outs and other factors described above. Seems that it should be possible to re-create the evacuation and show precisely where traffic was impeded or bottlenecked.
Maybe the concept of defensible space should be applied to roads that would be used as evacuation routes.
Salute!
@ur momisugly Late Who must know me from another aspect of my life, and
@ur momisugly Bill
Some cities have traffic pattern systems that the local TV station will use to show the traffic levels and routes. But the records and data capture is up to the local government and then the civil service “engineers” will set the light sequences and times, and approve all the new street changes when WalMart moves in, and so forth. So “it depends”.
My old hometown got a lot of flak during the Katrina evacuation because everyone focused on pictures of a few hundred school buses that might have driven a few thousand folks that could find the buses. And the drivers had not signed on to haul basic civilians outta danger and leave their own family behind!! Besides, the government had already ordered “mandatory” evacuation. So Catch 22. Meanwhile, after “practicing” with a real storm or two, the “contraflow” concept for all the big highways and interstates resulted in a half million people getting out in a very short time. South Florida is a mess, with only two main roads heading north that 95% of folks think of. But my son escaped and evaded for the storms in 2017 using the older U.S. and state highways. Took him a lot longer to reach the Panhandle, but was able to keep working here usingour confusers and ‘net. So preparation is key, and you don’t have to be a “prepper”
So city and county governments should look at evacuation routes considering their likely hazards, be they nature or an industrial chemical spill or whatever. Looks to me that Paradise decided to provide more parking for the local businesses on a thoroughfare at the expense of more lanes of traffic. Guess they could pay for parking behind all those stores. Go see what “old” Colorado City and Manitou Springs did during the early 2000’s with off-street parking.
Defensible space is a great idea. Having gone thru more storms than most up here in the Panhandle, out electric and utility companies do great things, and all winter you will see tree trimming and repairing the phone pedastals, cable TV posts and so forth. At my cabin in Colorado’s mountains, the IREA came thru this summer and trimmed trees and thinned. a few big fires provide the incentive.
One thing that bugs me about Paradise is some folks claimed no warning. Our poor county in Colorado has had the previous largest fire-Hayman. So a few years ago we got the “reverse 911” system for the county, and have had several calls about a nearby fire or an “all clear”. And I must remaind all that it doesn’t work on cell phones, only landlines or maybe a cable/phone/net package. Besides, we don’t have cell phone coverage at our cabin, heh heh. So pay the $$$ and have a real landline with minimal features, but will work when all the other stuff doesn’t. And at least one old phone versus the walk-around ones that need electric power to your home and the base station.
Gotta go.
Gums sends…
It looks like many California cities may have to take a much more serious stance on protecting people and property from wildfires. This may necessitate concentric, vegetation free zones and clearing trees and brush within 150 ft of the evacuation highways. Deeply forested areas may have to be isolated from the built up housing and business areas. On a personal note, our thoughts go out to the people of Paradise and the surrounding area. We used to play sports against their teams in the 1960s and have fond memories of driving up the hill, only to get creamed by their very good basketball teams! I also was a member of the Butte County survey crew that staked the Skyway upgrades in 1981. Man, we all got a terrible case of poison oak going out into the brush to put in our survey markers! Best of luck to you as you rebuild your beautiful town.
Salute Donald!
An extremely good point about mitigation for fires, and for that matter wind and water. In fact, an outstanding point.
Because we choose to live in two areas each year, we are “sensitive” to fire hazards and then we have the hurricane threat here on the Gulf coast. See Michael from a month ago. I-10 about 25 miles of ground zero is still clearing trees that were too close to one side and this primary east-west thoroughfare was down to one lane in spots as late as yesterday. When I evacuated my parents after Katrina ( no possible power for about 5 weeks and their insulin was getting hot) , I had to drive over powerlines and downed trees for about 7 or 8 miles on I-59. Both southbound and northbound lanes had trees on them, and we all used the shoulder and pressed on to our homes or rescue meeting locations. And BTW, no cell phone coverage and I drove right past many towersofr about 100 miles but nada, nyet, noway dot com When I reached them, their old landline phone still worked, so I could call home to say I made it. Heh heh.
Some places have codes and such, and others use a combination of codes and the utilitycompany policy to clear underbrush, thin the trees and so forth. For example, in Colorado, the IREA will cut down a “beetle kill” tree on your property if it is close to a powerline. Saves you big bucks and they have the good equipment to do the job. Ditto for your community services to clear drainage ditches, re-work sewer lines and so forth.
My cousin at ground zero for Katrina built a few feet higher than the surge, but was far enuf from the beach that he didn’t have big waves. He had cut down all the 70-foot pine trees within 80 feet of the house, and guess what? Duhhhh. Just a block away were trees in or on roofs and minor flooding.
Lastly, we live adjacent to the Eglin AFB bombing range. It has the largest stand of longleaf pines in the U.S. The base does controlled burns on a weekly basis because they test bombs and missiles here. So we have had only one or two small, but uncontrolled fires the 33 years we have lived here. AND WE LOVE OUR OLD LONGLEAF PINE TREES! They do not blow down in hurricanes or they would not live to be 300 years old. They also require brush fires to reproduce. So our controlled burns are win-win.
‘nuf philosophy, but you can demand mitigation from the government and to some extent from your utility companies. And don’t forget the reverse 911.
Gums opines/ suggests…
a similar narrowing from two lane each way to one lane each way bottle neck also was done on Pearson Road at Clark which leads directly to Skyway