Thomas Fire & Mudslide After-Action Report

At a meeting earlier this week, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors heard from Katie Freeman, a consultant with Hagerty Consulting, who presented an After-Action Report on the Thomas Fire and January 9 debris flow. The purpose of the report was to highlight the strengths of the County during the emergencies, while taking a thoughtful look at areas that could be improved upon. 

The report, which is six months in the making, stated that the greatest strength of the incident response was the robust information sharing through the County’s Joint Information Center. The County’s website was viewed 2.2 million times from December 6 through December 26. “From the onset of the incident, through today, the JIC has been able to come together, and provide consistent information across multiple channels, multiple platforms, and in multiple languages,” Freeman said. “For an incident of this duration, it was a Herculean effort to bring together those different stakeholders and provide information.”  

Other strengths included the quick development of map products, use of a call center to support public safety and increase situational awareness, timely planning executed to support contingency operations as the incident evolved, use of volunteers to support response operations, implementation of County-wide behavioral wellness response, and execution of a robust Public Health response including the support of animal evacuation and care, ocean water testing, hazardous material removal, the disbursement of face masks, and more. 

Freeman outlined five areas where improvement could be had. The first is to formalize and socialize evacuation planning, including standardizing evacuation terminology across the area and adjoining counties. Freeman said the County can also serve to continue to refine and enhance emergency public information and warning, and increase collaboration with local government partners. She suggests the County enhance its ability to respond to a sustained activation of the Emergency Operation Center, including equipping the center to be used as a shelter for disaster service workers. Another consideration is to increase the County’s capability to recover from a major disaster, including appointing a Recovery Unit Leader early in the incident. 

Office of Emergency Operations director Rob Lewin reported that several long-term plans are in place for future disasters, including debris removal, recovery plans, contingency plans, and hazard mitigation plans. 

Montecito resident David Boyd spoke at the meeting, voicing concern that the report does not discuss the 23 deaths that occurred from the mudslide, and does not discuss how future deaths can be prevented. “The twenty-three lives lost are undoubtedly the single and most enduring legacy of this tragedy. And yet, they are mentioned in only one brief sentence and are not analyzed to determine how and why they occurred,” he said. 

“As decision makers, we base our decisions on the best information we have at the time, and we believe that we did that,” Lewin said, adding that the messaging and the debris flow maps are changing this year. “There is not a moment that we don’t think about everything that we have learned collectively in response to this disaster.” 

 “We are not done with reflections and lessons learned, and increased preparation. We are not done,” said board chair and First District supervisor Das Williams.