Wind gusts blow dense streams of dry leaves across the quickly filling parking lot at the Petaluma Veterans Memorial Building. The location is one of six evacuation shelters available to some of the more than 180,000 evacuees from Santa Rosa, Geyserville, Healdsburg, Windsor, Sebastopol, and more locations extending all the way out to the California coastline.

Inside, dozens of cots with exhausted people and their belongings fill the room. The next hall over is filled with breakfast tables and the last of the morning’s diners. Organizers are staffing tables checking people in. More people arrive by the minute.

The volunteers are busy and kind. One volunteer at the shelter said it was getting to capacity but they weren’t turning people away. The city of Petaluma released a statement Sunday that the County of Sonoma has arranged for more shelters throughout the region.

The city is working with faith-based and non-profit partners to open additional shelters on an ongoing basis to accommodate the many in need. Volunteers or donations can go through Petaluma People Services Center to ensure that evacuees and first responders receive what they need in the most organized and sensitive way possible.

Evacuees’ emotions range from stressed to going-with-the-flow. April and Todd Axberg, both nurses at Kaiser Permante and Santa Rosa Memorial respectively, arrived Saturday night from Santa Rosa. They were camped out in their truck in the Petaluma Veterans Building parking lot with their dogs.

“I’m a vet and ironically it’s the first time I’ve used the Veterans facility,” says Todd Axberg. Their former Mark West Springs home burned down in 2017 and they lived in a trailer for seven months while rebuilding. They have been living in their new home for about a year now.

“We already knew generator life, so we were fine with the outages,” he adds. “But when the wind started picking up we were acutely attuned to it.”

For now, their home is safe, but their evacuation was mandatory. “We put a lot of work into the house but we don’t have a lot of connection there this time so it’s different from before,” says his wife, April Axberg, of leaving their home in the wake of fire danger.

The public safety power shutoff is planned to continue through Monday, Oct. 28. Approximately 4,000 customers have lost power, mostly on the west side of the city. Another similar wind event is expected to begin early Tuesday, Oct. 29 morning and could lead to even longer power outages.

Ana Paladi from Romania and Jarkko Hartikhainnen from Estonia are interns at the Michael David Winery in Cloverdale, “We arrived in August to work” says Hartikhainnen. “Right now we’re staying with friends from work on an air mattress on the floor. What can you do about it?”

They are two among many young interns who chase the wine harvests across the world, working in countries as far a flung as Chile, Brazil, California, and Australia.

“I was riding my bike to work at 4 a.m. in the dark and could see the fire on the horizon and the helicopters working hard, they were like bees in a field, it’s traumatic, but it was also beautiful,” Hartikhainnen says.

Ultimately, the mandatory evacuations in potential fire danger zones made things more orderly for law enforcement and for people leaving their homes according to some volunteers at the shelters.

“It’s not as hectic as last time, says Morena Carvalho, a volunteer at the Sonoma County fairgrounds shelter. “It’s much more calm.”

Uniformed Sonoma County probation officers were there to help with providing additional security but are not there to ask anyone questions “we don’t want to cause any more stress, we’re just here to help with security.” one officer said.

Margery Egge of Healdsburg describes the surreal evacuation process, “I couldn’t believe how peaceful it was, you just watch your neighbors leave one by one and say goodbye,” she says.

They too eventually left in their trailer and are now parked at the AMF Boulevard Lanes next to the Petaluma Veterans Building, which is near their daughter’s family.

Her Husband Ross Egge agreed, “We weren’t going to leave but once we got the order we left. We’re lucky we have the trailer. There’s no point in rushing back, if we stay here 4-5 days we’ll be alright.” he says.

RESOURCES:
List of Evacuation Shelters:
https://socoemergency.org/home/emergency/evacuation-centers/

Showers: 24 Hour Fitness, located at 6 Petaluma Blvd North/Mill Building, is offering free showers at their facility through Friday, November 1st.

How to Volunteer and Donate Money: Volunteers and those who want to help with a donation can go through Petaluma People Services Center, which is coordinating volunteers and donations to assist with shelter and emergency response needs. To help, please send an email to ad***@************le.org, call 707-529-1201 or register in person at the Kenilworth Teen Center, 150 Fairgrounds Dr.

Limit Water Use:
Sonoma Water Agency water production facilities have been switched to emergency generator power. For this reason, we ask that all Petaluma residents, businesses, and visitors limit water use until further notice.

In what is possibly the largest evacuation in California history, 180,000 people are under mandatory evacuation from areas throughout the North Bay. At a press conference conducted by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), Sonoma County’s Sheriff Mark Essick addressed concerns that the extent of the evacuations might be overkill.

“Although I’ve heard some people express concerns that we were evacuating too many people, I think those concerns are not valid at this point,” said the sheriff, who reminded that there is still a significant danger to anybody who’s still in the Healdsburg, Windsor, and the unincorporated areas around Windsor. “If you were in those areas now we still encouraged you to get out. We have deputies and peace officers in your neighborhoods. They can assist you.”

Of concern to many evacuees is the prospect of looters taking advantage of the situation, which the sheriff also addressed.

“We will not tolerate it,” he said. “That’s why we have so many peace officers in your neighborhoods to protect your property.”

According to the sheriff, there are presently 262 police officers in the field whose efforts are being supplemented by the national guard.

“We are using our peace officers and the national guard to maintain checkpoints for evacuation areas. And we’re also having that strong police presence there to really assure people that if they have evacuated their property, their homes would be safe,” the sheriff said. He also added that his department had not yet received any reports of looting and emphasized that they are taking an “aggressive standpoint on looting.”

10 zones are currently being mandated to evacuate—these include:
Geyserville, Knights Valley, Healdsburg and Windsor, Dry Creek Valley, Mark West, Larkfield, Wikiup, parts of Santa Rosa that include Fountaingrove, Oakmont, Rincon Valley, Coffey Park, and those areas north of Guerneville Road, Steele Lane, Ludwig Avenue. Forestville, Guerneville, Duncans Mills, Jenner, Bodega Bay, Occidental, Sebastopol, and Valley Ford are also under mandatory evacuation.

Sheriff Essick asked that people not call 911 for their non-emergency information needs. He encouraged people to call the information line at 211 or use SoCo Alert and Nixle as well as the sheriff department’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“The sheriff’s office has been servicing the county for 170 years. This is our strongest moment now. Our staff are out there, they’re ready to go and they’re here to serve you,” he said.

Night has fallen on the North Bay as the historic exodus of tens of thousands of people from areas effected or endangered by the Kincade Fire continues. Due to preventative power shut-offs throughout Sonoma County, the evacuation is shrouded in relative darkness.

Mandatory evacuations are in effect for areas as disparate as Bodega Bay, Graton, Guerneville, Jenner, Healdsburg, and Windsor. A record number of people, upwards of 83,000, were fleeing their homes as a red flag warning officially went into effect for the entire North Bay at 8 p.m. tonight.

UPDATE: As of 7:47 a.m., Sunday morning, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Twitter account says that approximately 180,000 people are now under the evacuation order. “The is the largest evacuation that any of us at the Sheriff’s Office can remember. Take care of each other,” reads the tweet.

Approx 180,000 people under evacuation order due to #KincadeFire. This is the largest evacuation that any of us at the Sheriff’s Office can remember. Take care of each other.

— Sonoma Sheriff (@sonomasheriff) October 27, 2019

“What we expect as we approach the midnight hour, roughly between 10 and 12 p.m., a very strong burst of northeast winds are going to hit the fire area. Those winds will increase through the night and peak early Sunday morning,” explained Ryan Walbrun, a National Weather Service meteorologist during a press conference streamed live to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Facebook page. “We are expecting exceptional wind speeds of 60 to 80 mile an hour wind gusts.”

At present writing, the fire has consumed nearly 26,000 acres and is 10 percent contained. 77 structures have been destroyed, including 31 residential dwellings. Meanwhile, 2,831 emergency personnel are on the line. The fire began the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 23, in Geyserville and is not expected to be entirely squelched until Nov. 7.

Despite the nightfall and the fact that PG&E has shutoff power for much of the county, there is a bright spot in Petaluma at the Petaluma Veterans Memorial Building, an emergency evacuee shelter.

“We’ve been on generators since 10 a.m., the county was really proactive and brought a big generator unit and rewired the building to run off of the generator ahead of the power outage,” said Adrian Williams, a volunteer coordinator and Petaluma resident, who also volunteered to help coordinate the shelter back during the fires of 2017. “The second we heard it was opening back up we were back down here—a lot of the same people.”

By 6 p.m., Williams had already seen 56 evacuees arrive at the facility, which can accommodate up to 400 individuals.

Williams said the evacuees are coming from all points north.

A live evacuation map provided by Sonoma County’s Office of Emergency Service can be seen here.

“It’s a little stressful at first but then you get in a rhythm,” said Williams. “You definitely feel it but it also feels good on the flip side. We saw a lot of the same families and people from last time who needed help.”

Evacuees seeking shelter can find assistance at the locations below according to Sonoma County’s SoCo Emergency web page:

Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building
1351 Maple Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95404

Petaluma Fairgrounds
100 Fairgrounds Dr, Petaluma
UPDATE:AT CAPACITY

Petaluma Veterans Building
1094 Petaluma Blvd S, Petaluma, CA 94952
UPDATE:AT CAPACITY

Petaluma Community Center
320 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma, CA 94954
UPDATE:AT CAPACITY

Sonoma County Fairgrounds (Large animals only)
1350 Bennett Valley Rd, Santa Rosa

After several years of droughts, floods and fires, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors passed a nonbinding resolution in September acknowledging the role of climate change in the events and highlighting the need for increased local action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, local activists and a climate-science expert at Sonoma State University say the county’s emergency resolution, similar to resolutions passed by a handful of other local jurisdictions, does not sufficiently meet the challenge of climate change.

In the past several months, local groups joined an international movement pushing for governments at all levels to treat climate change as a current threat to society rather than as an issue that can be ameliorated by reducing emissions over the next several decades.

On Sept. 17, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution “endorsing the declaration of a climate emergency and immediate emergency mobilization to restore a safe climate.” Petaluma and Windsor passed similar declarations. Sebastopol and Santa Rosa are expected to consider similar resolutions soon.

While jurisdictions in Marin and Napa counties have been slower to pass similar resolutions, some residents are pushing them to do so.

But activists ask: Will the declarations change anything? Not fast enough, according to
Dr. José Hernández Ayala.

Hernández Ayala, a climate scientist at Sonoma State University, compared the county’s recent emergency declaration to a New Years Resolution and noted the goals set are not sufficiently urgent.

“We’re saying we’re not going to eat as much and we’re going to do a lot of exercise,” he says. “We make all of these promises that we really want to be reality but, at the end of the day, there’s nothing really forcing us to actually achieve those things.”

During their discussion of the resolution on Sept. 17, several supervisors seemed to agree the resolution is inadequate; however, they did not immediately amend it.

“The verbs are incredibly passive,” said District 3 Supervisor Shirlee Zane, of the resolution. “It needs to go well beyond ‘explore’ and ‘coordinate.'”

District 5 Supervisor Lynda Hopkins went somewhat further.

“This is scary stuff and we have to stop acting as if business as usual is cutting it, because it’s not,” Hopkins said. “We need a transformation … we really have 10 years to dramatically transform ourselves into a post-carbon economy.”

The current resolution won’t meet that high bar, according to Hernández Ayala and other local climate activists.

The supervisors also discussed creating a new, ad hoc committee to focus on possible actions to address climate change. It was not clear at the end of the meeting when they will form the committee or when they will amend the resolution.

Supervisor Hopkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what specific amendments she would like to see made to the resolution.

Climate Anxiety

This year, activism around climate action increased in urgency.

Around the world, groups like Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement took to the streets en-masse to push for immediate action on climate change.

On Sept. 20, hundreds of students and adults in Sonoma County participated in the Climate Strike, a worldwide movement that called on students to leave school that Friday to draw urgency to the issue.

The Sunrise Movement, a national organization with regional chapters which organized strikes nationwide, advances the idea of shaming politicians into taking immediate action on climate change. Politicians, they argue, are negligent in sitting idly by while the earth continues to heat, setting off a chain of negative consequences.

Christine Byrne, organizer of the Sunrise Movement’s Sonoma County Hub, says the current crop of climate activists is more prone to anger than previous generations of activists.

Byrne says they should keep the focus on systemic change, with a focus on those profiting from carbon emissions.

In 2017, a report by the nonprofit CDP concluded that just 100 companies are accountable for 71 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

“It’s good for us in our individual lives to take some ownership [for our lifestyles.] … but more and more, especially young people, are recognizing that they as individuals did not create this problem,” Byrne says. Instead, a select group of businesses and the politicians who enable them are to blame.

That causes anger among young people who realize they will live with the cascading damage of climate change for the rest of their lives.

Net Zero

The Regional Climate Protection Authority, a body that coordinates the actions of governments within Sonoma County, developed the template behind recent emergency resolutions passed in Sonoma County. The resolutions differ slightly, but all commit the signatories to participate in “the development and implementation of the 2030 Climate Emergency Mobilization Strategy.”

Once completed, the “Strategy will identify key local actions, including a list of the most impactful local policies to drive system changes and identify key areas for state level advocacy,” according to a staff report.

Pete Gang, a member of Climate Emergency Resolution Santa Rosa, a group pushing Sonoma County governments to pass emergency resolutions, says the county’s current resolution isn’t sufficient.

“The current resolution before you is a good first step, but as it is understood this morning, it is timid and doesn’t go nearly far enough,” Gang said at the Sept. 17 Board of Supervisors meeting.

However, a truly comprehensive climate emergency resolution would set a goal of zero net emissions by 2030 or sooner, Gang said at the meeting.

The county’s resolution acknowledges that “an urgent global climate mobilization effort to reverse global warming is needed to achieve zero net emissions as quickly as possible,” but does not set a date for reaching the milestone. Last September, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed an executive order calling on the state to reach carbon neutrality by 2045 at the latest. Brown’s order is nonbinding.

The goal local activists call for—zero net emissions—means eliminating all current and future emissions and removing man-made emissions already in the atmosphere, rather than just reducing future emissions to zero. Put simply, it’s a higher bar than the state’s current goal.

The difference is crucial, says. Hernández Ayala, because of the damage already done by man-made emissions already in the atmosphere, which fuel a dangerous feedback loop of damage.

“Even if we stopped all of this today, the sea levels will continue to increase. The planet will continue to warm up. Now we’re in damage control,” Hernández Ayala says.

If humans keep pumping gases into the atmosphere until 2045, even at a reduced rate, it will make the situation that much worse.

Bold Suggestion

After passing the emergency declaration ordinance unanimously, the discussion amongst the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors turned to the potential cost of the actions and other competing county projects.

Board Chair David Rabbitt said the county laid off nine county staff members this year due to budget shortfalls.

“This is a tough budget year,” Rabbitt said.

Hernández Ayala suggests local governments take a bolder approach to the problem of financing climate action, keeping in mind that large investments in resiliency and efficiency now could potentially reduce future expenses incurred from natural disasters.

He has pushed local politicians to declare a legally binding state of emergency around climate change similar to the declarations the supervisors passed after the October 2017 North Bay fires and March 2019 West County floods.

Although he admits local leaders met his proposal with some skepticism by, Hernández Ayala argues there is no downside to trying it.

In an ideal world, declaring a state of emergency would open state and federal coffers for climate change measures, similar to the way FEMA money floods—albeit more slowly than disaster survivors would like—into regions affected by disasters.

At the very least, such an action would start conversations, Hernández Ayala says. If state and federal officials decided not to release any money, they would have to defend their decision.

Napa and Marin County Proposals

To date, Napa and Marin county governments have yet to pass any climate emergency resolutions. However, there are early signs they may face pressure to do so.

The Napa Valley Unified School District Board of Education adopted a “Call to Climate Change Action” this May and the activist group Napa Climate NOW! prepared an emergency resolution for consideration by the county, according to the Napa Valley Register.

In Marin County, emergency declarations are slow to get off the ground, but there may be hope yet.

“So far, in Marin County the only city to pass a Climate Emergency Declaration is Fairfax; we want Mill Valley to be the next, with the goal of getting all other Marin County towns to follow suit,” the Mill Valley Community Action Network announced in a newsletter on Monday.