I-Team: Planning for a disaster – How several local cities are updating their plans to keep you safe

From wildfires to earthquakes and even a tropical storm hitting the Coachella Valley, disasters can strike unexpectedly.

I-Team investigator Jeff Stahl is digging deep into Emergency Operation Plans and finding that there is a lot of work to do. 

Nine cities have nine unique plans.

The I-Team has been requesting and combing through the documents. 

Palm Desert and La Quinta approved their latest plans in 2010, and Palm Springs in 2012, but you'll find most cities are updating their plans right now.

What could this all mean during our next widespread emergency? 

Disasters come in many forms, Coachella Valley residents can all relate to, from Tropical Storm Hilary's rain and widespread flooding, to lockdowns during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the Los Angeles wind-driven wildfires to our west. 

In Palm Springs, Emergency Planning documents show the city's top disaster concerns include a major earthquake, fire, flooding, dam failure, hazardous materials spills, severe heat-- even civil unrest and terrorism.

Palm Springs Emergency Management Coordinator  Daniel DeSelms confirmed with News Channel 3, "Those are our major ones."  

Like others we examined, the city's plan presents an organizational chart for the police, fire, and all other department operation centers to work together and with outside districts, state, and federal agencies during high-stress times.

DeSelms said, "When two more of those are activated on a single incident, the Emergency Operations Center gets kicked into gear." 

He says the city's new plan will be more streamlined, closer to a hundred pages from the current 600. It will list important crisis job requirements and remove many redundancies to make the new document more readable. DeSelms has been working on it for several years now.

"What any community member can take from this," DeSelms said, "is knowing that the city is planning for protecting the community. That is our number one priority."  

Cathedral City is like most others in the Coachella Valley with these Emergency Operations Plans. They run several hundred pages. This is just a fraction of Cathedral City's and was produced in 2022. They are working on a new version of this plan and hope to have it completed by June."

"Now, for us, we were already in the process of planning it out when we had Hurricane Hilary," Fire Chief Michael Contreras said, adding, "While I think we did everything we could, what can we do better?

Contreras says the pandemic and especially Tropical Storm Hilary highlighted the need for updates including the types of services the fire department should be involved with that previously it had not been.

"Depending on jurisdiction, because a lot of it was run by the county," Contreras said, adding, "but in a lot of places, the fire department ran the vaccination clinics, because that's one thing we do pretty well."   

As for those updates. Who can forget the images of a neighborhood flooded with gooey mud-- a derailed freight train-- or those senior citizens rescued from a flooded care home in a tractor's scoop? Here is exactly what Contreras hopes the new plan solves.

The city is streamlining its emergency plan by making it shorter and easier to read, and with more specific information on all of the potential resources available to help when disaster strikes. 

Contreras says the city secured the heavy equipment to rescue those stranded seniors from the mud that came from the Edom Hill Landfill, which is not a traditional equipment supplier. Now, the new plan will also list that and other non-traditional potential sources for potentially needed resources. 

Yet questions remain.

"Now, for us, we were already in the process of planning it out when we had Hurricane Hilary," Contreras said, adding, "While I think we did everything we could, what can we do better?

DeSelms said, "Things like Ebola and other pandemics have occurred that really changed the thinking of, 'What is a public health crisis?'"

Agencies we spoke to say they're already prepared for wildfires so January's Los Angeles fires in January have not required any changes for an already well-defined command structure.

The new Palm Springs plan is set to be approved by the city council this month. Rancho Mirage tells us its plan is still current, but it will be updated next year. 

ey're already prepared for wildfires-- so January's LA fires have not required any changes for an already well-defined command structure.

The plans are intended to facilitate multi-agency and multi-jurisdictional coordination, particularly between the cities and Riverside County, special districts, and state agencies, in emergency operations.

The new Palm Springs plan is set to go before the city council for approval this month. Rancho Mirage tells us their plan is still current, but they are set to update it next year.