In light of the recent fires in Los Angeles and across the state, the Isla Vista Community Services District led a panel on crisis preparedness and resilience planning on Jan. 23 with local first-response leaders. 


“These events really are a sobering reminder of how important it is to be prepared, be ready and be resilient,” IVCSD Assistant General Manager Sydney Castendeda said. Lizzy Rager / Daily Nexus

“These events really are a sobering reminder of how important it is to be prepared, be ready and be resilient,” Isla Vista Community Services District Assistant General Manager Sydney Castaneda said.

While the Palisades fire, the largest of several devastating fires since Jan. 13 across Los Angeles that have burned over 40,000 acres of land and displaced thousands, is nearly contained, the scope of the fires have spurred questions for disaster preparedness across the state. In Isla Vista, residents are prone to earthquakes, tsunamis and, in extreme cases, wildfires. One of the deadliest wildfires in California history, the 2017 Thomas fire, spread from Ventura to parts of the south county. 

Inside the Isla Vista Community Center, the panel featured local experts on fire and emergency management, alongside representatives from the county board of supervisors and a disaster nonprofit. Members of the UC Police Department, Isla Vista Foot Patrol and long-term residents of Isla Vista attended the panel. 

In the Isla Vista community, there are risks posed by rises in sea level, bluff erosion, potential for a landslide along the bluffs and coastal erosion, Santa Barbara County Emergency Management Director Kelly Hubbard said. 

“But with the change in climate, and as our coastal waters change and the temperatures [change], we’re starting to see tornado events in Santa Barbara. They’re fairly small. They’re fairly insignificant. But again, it’s one of those things that, if you’re just aware these are concepts that can occur, it does build more resilience,” Hubbard said.

Isla Vista is not in a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood zone, but is surrounded by them including areas around Campus Point, northwest Isla Vista and next to Devereux Creek. This can contribute to “urban flooding,” Hubbard says, which can cause issues getting in and out of the area. She recommends knowing multiple routes to evacuate your home.

“We want you as a community to be part of this resilience. Know who your neighbors are. Knock on their doors. Those kinds of things help us to make sure that we’re taking care of one another, and we’re really watching out for our community,” Hubbard said.

Scott Safechuck, the Public Information Officer for Santa Barbara County Fire Department, said not to trust social media for alerts on wildfires, as many false evacuation alerts for Los Angeles were posted on social media. FEMA has restarted a vetting website due to an influx of false rumors and misinformation spread about the LA fires. Safechuck recommended to follow his X for the latest official county fire information.

While the Santa Ana winds help fan the flames in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara County is largely unaffected by them. Instead, the county gets sundowner winds due to the unique composition of the Santa Ynez mountains. They have about the same strength as Santa Ana winds, Safechuck said.

He added that residents should create defensible space around their homes, clearing anything that’s flammable like vegetation within several feet, and hardening structures, switching out flammable materials for flame-resistant ones.

“The county of Santa Barbara is unique, especially the South County, because we have a 101 and it has these different pitch points where we can have a disaster that can make it so we’re landlocked to any of those, to highway 101, and the 154,” Safechuck said. “So being self-sufficient is really important.”

While Isla Vista has not experienced a major earthquake in almost a century, it is in an earthquake prone area. In 1925, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake left most of downtown Santa Barbara destroyed or heavily damaged and killed 13 people.

Jim Caesar, with UCSB Emergency management, said his office organizes a Community Emergency Response (CER) team workshop where peers teach one another about how to be ready for disasters as part of a disaster-preparedness effort. He recommends students and community members sign-up for CER classes in the next few weeks.

“We’re one of the few, we think we’re the only university in the nation that does this peer to peer instruction,” Caeser said. He added that the first Spanish delivery of the class was done in Isla Vista.

American Red Cross volunteer Erick McCurdy told the audience that dialing 911 is “not a personal preparedness plan” when emergency services are unable to reach you in a disaster. The American Red Cross helps people prepare, respond and recover from disasters. 

“We’re talking about preparing for a situation where there’s going to be a delay in the help. Where you could be faced with power outages, road closures and significant property damage. It’s what you should do in planning ahead for a situation where help from the site is not immediately available,” McCurdy said.

He recommended preparing an emergency kit at home with supplies for three days in case of emergencies, including food, water, a communication device like a radio, clean clothes and whatever other essentials necessary. 

Near the end of the presentation, District 2 County Supervisor Laura Capps announced that her office can help direct constituents to the right people and offices in the case of an emergency.

“Understandably, it’s incredibly terrifying what happened in Los Angeles, and it triggers a lot of fear from what we all went through with the Thomas fire,” Capps said. “So if you have a question, if your friend has a question, say, hey, check with your supervisor, check the board of the office. We’ll track it down for you.”

When the time came for questions from the audience, one long-term resident asked several questions citing concerns over the lack of a definite evacuation plan in Isla Vista.

“So one of the things that response agencies struggle with is we’re never going to tell you, ‘This is your way out to your community,’ right? I’m not going to say if you live in this house, this is how you get out of your community, because we don’t know which path is going to be blocked or not accessible,” Hubbard answered. 

“So when we do talk about evacuation plans, and if we as a county do board with evacuation planning, it’s often going to be around the concepts of, how do we coordinate and communicate our resources to make sure we’re assigning them in the most efficient way possible?” Hubbard said. 

A version of this article appeared on p. 3 of the Jan. 30, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.

Print

Lizzy Rager
Lizzy Rager (she/her) is the Lead News Editor for the 2024-25 school year. She can be reached at lizzyrager@dailynexus.com