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When the Carr fire moved toward Redding, authorities sent out updates through reverse 911 calls \u2014 a method that has proved unreliable in the past \u2014 as well as text messages to residents who had subscribed to the county\u2019s emergency warning system. When they had time, authorities posted the latest news to social media. The county used Amber Alert-style messages three times, records show.<\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t go as planned<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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But not everything worked out as planned. A citywide evacuation order was issued for Shasta Lake, though only the community of Summit City on the town\u2019s west side was notified, authorities said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Farther south, along Quartz Hill Road in Redding, Ed Bledsoe said he never got word that he and his family were supposed to flee. Not long after he left his home to run errands July 26, he got a frantic call from his wife back in their trailer. The fire was fast approaching her and their great-grandchildren, and they begged Bledsoe to come back to rescue them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But he was too late.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The fire, driven by gale-force winds and feeding on timber dried out by days of triple-digit temperatures, overwhelmed Bledsoe\u2019s neighborhood. His family was lost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Elizabeth Barkley, acting commander of the California Highway Patrol\u2019s Northern Division, was at the intersection of Placer Street and Buenaventura Boulevard when the fire shifted its direction to the northwest. Officials began mass evacuations about 7 p.m., she said, and she raced door-to-door imploring people to leave. Traffic was sent out of the city on wrong-way lanes. Dispatchers began fielding 911 calls for rescues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Officials left one flag at the front of homes where residents agreed to leave and two flags if they didn\u2019t or if no one was home, said Shasta County Undersheriff Eric Magrini. Bledsoe\u2019s property was too badly scorched Wednesday to determine if it had been visited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI know we were in that area conducting evacuations. We had saturated that area, everybody was leaving,\u201d Magrini said. \u201cIt was very chaotic. But we were managing the chaos at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019ve never seen anything like it\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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But he also stressed that the area was faced with an unprecedented situation. \u201cIf you told me a week ago that this fire in the French Gulch area was going to downtown Redding, I would\u2019ve called you a liar,\u201d Magrini said. \u201cI\u2019ve never see anything like it. I hope I never see anything like it again.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Bledsoes lived in a hideaway kind of neighborhood, in oak-and-hill country of northwest Redding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Their property, like many others in the area, was large and decorated with vintage farming equipment fronting a slender two-lane road.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The night the fire arrived, its embers quickly leapfrogged from house to house as the oak trees that gave them cool shade this time of year became fuel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Several structures on the property were reduced to piles of twisted metal siding, brick and metal bed springs and shattered pottery.<\/p>\n
Among the few things unscathed by the firestorm were half a dozen basketballs and kickballs \u2014 some of them decorated with silver stars \u2014 stacked beneath a tree. A few feet away, a 10-speed bicycle leaned against the skeletal remains of a shade tree.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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There was a burned-out hulk of a pickup truck, and a roof collapsed to the ground. Geese, roosters and chickens waddled through the rubble.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The areas hardest hit by natural disasters in the state last year relied mostly on third-party companies to handle their emergency messaging and operated on a subscriber-based model that has little success reaching the majority of the public. If residents want to be safe during an emergency, Rudman said, public agencies need to clearly communicate where the disaster is located and residents need to take them seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these things happen in the middle of the night \u2014 social media, emergency alerts \u2014 short of knocking on your door, those may not work,\u201d he cautioned. \u201cAnd lives will be lost.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Being faced with the unexpected is something Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea knows about. Last year, he was given about an hour\u2019s notice to evacuate the county when authorities feared a structure at the Oroville Dam was going to fail and flood the town.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cNo matter how much you prepare, there\u2019s always the possibility that there will come along an event that outpaces your resources,\u201d Honea said. \u201cThe best plan often doesn\u2019t survive first contact. You\u2019ve got to be prepared for the situation to change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Since then, the county has revamped its entire evacuation process, setting up safety zones and giving residents specific meeting points.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kinds of potential mega-disasters seem to be happening with greater frequency, and law enforcement, fire, EMS and our public safety agencies I think have to look at public safety in a much broader context,\u201d Honea said. \u201cWhen I first got into this business, I thought my job was to enforce the law, investigate crimes and arrest criminals. But it\u2019s so much broader than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sahagun reported from Redding, and Serna from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\nLos Angeles Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joseph Serna and Louis Sahagun, Aug 2, 2018 It was Thursday evening when the Carr fire barreled out of the foothills and took aim at this city, with hot winds launching embers well ahead of the main blaze and engulfing neighborhoods along bends in the Sacramento River. When the flames approached western Redding, Shasta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3958,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/3958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}