"In the event of a flood threat, leave city"
December 14, 2005
KEN RUZICH, Director of a West Sacramento flood control authority called Reclamation District 900, atop a levee at West Sacramento's deep water shipping canal (photo by Troy Turner)
By Steve Marschke
News-Ledger Editor
The answer to a flood is to first find out about it, then get out of town, said Bill Summers, Hazardous Materials Manager for the West Sacramento Fire Department. Summers is charged with overseeing evacuation plans for the city.
In light of all the publicity about the New Orleans flood tragedy and recent levee trouble in the California Delta, you may not be surprised that Summers thinks a flood might be the biggest disaster threat faced in this town.
“I think the primary threeat to the city is a flood or levee break, simply because the city is surrounded by the river, essentially,” he told the News-Ledger. “In most places, the city is below or at the river’s level.”
Unlike the Sacramento area, he added, there isn’t a lot of difference in elevation within different parts of West Sacramento. So while a small levee problem might only impact a local area, floodwaters would mean there is really no good place to be within the city.
The city has in place a monitoring system and response system to watch flood waters as they rise. As waters rise, people should pay attention to local news and radio stations.
“My belief is if you’re going to evacuate, you should do it early, not later. At a certain stage, you think about evacuating people who need extra time, like the elderly or people with medical conditions. At a later stage, you evacuate everybody else.”
Where does a West Sacramentan go to escape a rising flood that threatens to top the levees?
“People can ask what the evacuation routes are,” said Summers. “My advice is to get on Highway 50 or 80 and go east or west.”
But if the flooding threat to West Sacramento is more than a local problem – if it is a flood problem that also threatens Sacramento – it would probably be best to head west, he added.
“Yolo County would probably open up the fairgrounds for people to come to,” Summers said. “That part of Woodland is higher – Woodland has its own flooding issues, but the threat there is generally from Cache Creek and that is to the north of the city.”
Summers added that local news programs might be the best source of information regarding a threat. But he was asked what happens if people are asleep or otherwise out of contact with the media as a threat develops.
“If it’s a surprise problem, we’ll put out a message on (cable) channel 20 and we’ll contact the state to put out an emergency broadcast. More than likely, we’d have firefighters and police going door to door.”
And the city is working on a new program that would result in phone calls going to area residents, in cooperation with the phone company.
“It’s called “Reverse 911,’” said Summers. “We’d initiate calls to residents.”
That program is not yet operational, he said, but “it’s supposed to become operational right about this time. You mark the area you want called and the system then makes those calls.”
Is there any kind of a siren system to warn residents of a natural disaster, or an environmental disaster?
“There is no siren system in the City of West Sacramento,” Summers said. “There were air raid sirens way back, but they are gone. One problem is you have to test them every few weeks, and people lose sensitivity to them. It’s also expensive – it would cost about $3-4 million.”
Ken Ruzich, manager of Reclamation District 900 (the city’s largest levee and flood protection district) made a presentation to the city council in October about the local flood threat. His district is one of those that has worked with the Army Corps of Engineers and others to improve the local levee system.
“Prior to 1986,” he told the council, “our levees were rated by FEMA as providing better than 100 year flood protection.”
That standard “translates” as meaning that the chance of being overcome by water is about one in one-hundred in a given year.
“(In 1986) we experienced record flows on both the American River and the Yolo Bypass, which tested all of the levees in Northern California. These record flows caused the federal and state hydrologists to recalculate and increase the projected flows for major storms in our area.”
Workers have since improved the river levees to reduce seepage and water-side erosion, bringing protection above the “hundred year” level.
At one area along the norther baypass, the 1986 waters had removed “about a third of the crown width in 24 hours before rock and sandbags could be placed on the waterside to stop the damage from the waves.”
The Corps has also reinforced some problematic levees with “slurry walls” or drains.
“The original West Sacramento Project was designed to provide 400 year protection, but that assumed that Auburn Dam would be constructed to provide storm water detention during major storms,” said Ruzich. “Since that didn’t happen, estimate that with the work that we have completed, based on the Corps critera at the time, the design should provide something in excess of 250 year protection.”
West Sacramento does have higher levees and better flood protection than much of Sacramento.
Residents concerned about a perceived emergency threat such as a threat may visit the city website,www.cityofwestsacramento.org, or call the city’s emergency operations center (if it is convened) at 617-4900 for emergency information.
The News-Ledger attempted to reach officials from the superintendent’s office and the maintenance and transportation department of the Washington Unified School District to find out how the district might evacuate students, if necessary, during a large emergency. It could find no information other than plans by individual campuses to release children home, when possible, and gather them for “directed transportation” if they cannot go home.
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