The morning of Jan. 14 kick-started a long weekend of misfortune for many Cambrians, such as Jacob Rooker, who had two trees come crashing down on his property, causing not only damage to his home, but also dislodging a piece of sheet rock that hit Rooker in the back.
“What else can go wrong around here?” Rooker said. “You know this a lovely place to live, but I’m just kind of starting to think is it worth it?”
While the Cambria Fire Department couldn’t do much to help Rooker’s situation at the time, the Cambria Community Services District (CSD) had attempted to prep residents for the coming storms, starting the week before.
Employees traveled around the coastal community, securing roadways, cutting down trees, and posting advisory messages for residents to stay safe amid the storms that hit the area starting Jan. 8. Acting CSD General Manager and Cambria Fire Chief Justin Vincent said that he was on duty the first week of the year for 60 consecutive hours, making sure that the CSD staff had all hands on deck.
“We realize that here in Cambria there is a tendency for us to get cut off during a regional disaster. So we had our admin office work remotely to keep them safe but keep us functioning and support it,” Vincent said, adding that CSD staff who lived outside Cambria were put up in hotels to respond to after-hours emergencies. “And honestly in the end, our jurisdiction has zero flood injuries, zero accidents from the flood, and zero fatalities, so I do think the steps that we took were life-saving when you look around the county.”
For unincorporated towns like Cambria that sometimes get overlooked during natural disaster situations, Vincent said he did whatever he could to get the word out.
“We use Everbridge and Nixle to put out some of the either shelter-in-place or evacuation orders that went out during this event. So multiple mediums,” Vincent said. “At the same time, we did receive phone calls into the fire station, and we were able to fill those phone calls or return those phone calls to give accurate information to the public.”
Toni Davis, the public information officer for Cal Fire, told New Times that sending out evacuation warnings and performing rescues in rural communities such as Cambria is a bit different than what those who live in cities are accustomed to.
“We have to do everything that we can as far as getting some of our [vehicles] out—ours are built like a smaller fire engine and they have four-wheel drive capabilities, but even then, if the roadways are flooded, we can’t drive out because then we’re putting ourselves in danger,” Davis said. “So that’s when we would do everything we can to find an alternate route or possibly get a helicopter.”
But before it gets to the point where evacuations become necessary, Davis said that local law enforcement and emergency services work directly with the community to make sure that everyone knows about the evacuation order.
“Every one of these communities has some form of communication as far as a spokesperson. I’ve been out there, and cellphones are spotty. And if they lose power, it’s difficult,” Davis said. “At the same time, they have a group of people, they have landlines, they have their ways to where they know that they’re going to communicate ahead of time and make sure that everybody understands.” ∆
This article appears in Jan 19-29, 2023.