City officials present new evacuation plan to Colorado Springs City Council

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO)-- For the first time since 13 investigates highlighted concerns about wildfire evacuation plans, city leaders are presenting an ordinance to address those concerns. Colorado Springs Fire Chief Randy Royal, Police Chief Adrian Vasquez, and Deputy Director of the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management Andrew Notbohm, all presented a new plan to Colorado Springs City Council members Monday.

The ordinance relates to evacuations, whether that be a fire, an active shooter, or a different type of dangerous situation.

While the ordinance hasn't been voted on by the Colorado Springs City Council, Royal says the city has already signed a contract agreement with the emergency notification company Zone Haven. Zone Haven software allows cities to distribute information to specific neighborhoods.

Once operational, residents can either sign up for evacuation alerts, or the system will automatically alert people by location. Information on how to sign up is forthcoming. The system only works with cell phones, and online -- to include social media. Law enforcement would have to knock on the doors of those with only landlines to notify them of evacuations.

The city presented the idea of breaking up zones block by block. Royal says the city already identifies neighborhoods by zones, and will use Zone Haven to help coordinate which neighbors would need to evacuate, and when. He adds that the program will allow the city to create more zones, which helps the fire department move fewer people at one time, and coordinate exit strategies better.

"We do the ones that are closest to the threat, move them out, and then start moving the ones farther away," Royal added of how they'll use the system in the ordinance.

The police and fire departments are also considering time frames for reviews of evacuation plans, so as the city continues to evolve and grow, so do plans for disasters.

If passed, the proposed ordinance would require the city’s evacuation plans to be documented in the city’s all-hazards evacuation plan. 

That plan will then be reviewed every year by city officials and will include evacuation operations and evacuation zones pre-determined by the police and fire departments.

The city would also use the software Everbridge which sends out mass notifications in emergency situations. Both Royal and Vasquez touted a feature on Everbridge that would allow users to communicate to police if they have evacuated or not.

"During [The Waldo Canyon Fire], I remember having to get our officers out there and knock on doors and smoke and stuff was coming in, and it wasn't a tremendously effective way to get the word out to mass amounts of people at one time, because it's time-consuming and it's dangerous for officers," said Vasquez.

Royal and Vasquez add that both departments plan to launch an education campaign, "Know Your Zone," encouraging citizens to learn their new assigned zone in case of evacuations.

"Every cell phone that's in that circumference gets the notification," said Royal. "We also have the capability of taking an area and drawing our own zone and getting that area notified."

One issue that could arise, though, is a loss of power in the area. Royal adds if that happens, they'll adapt.

"That's the reality with technology, right?" Royal said. "All this is really good. But if something happened where all of our technology shut down, we go back to what we did 30, 40 years ago, and that's door-knocking."

Councilman Bill Murray supports the idea of the ordinance but says he still has unanswered questions. 

"It succeeds in the fact that we're making people do things they haven't done in the past," he said. Now, we didn't need a thousand homes burning in Denver to get our attention." Murray would like to see more mitigation efforts, like firewalls between homes and more fire hydrant plugs.

"We've gotten a little distracted by all these other bits and pieces, but I'm going to bring them back," Murray said.

The council is set to discuss the new disaster strategy again later this month. The city says the public will be a part of the discussion.