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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC_8_12_2025_Public Comment Received by Email1 From:Sue Luft <> Sent:Tuesday, August 12, 2025 4:50 PM To:City Clerk Cc:Kelly Arebalo; Susan Funk; Charles Bourbeau; Mark Dariz; Heather Newsom; Seth Peek Subject:City Council agenda item I.1 After Action Report Llano Fire City Council members and Fire Chief, First we would like to express our extreme gratude to Atascadero Fire & Emergency Services and the cooperang agencies for their amazing response to the Llano Fire. We have some comments regarding the noficaon process and are glad to have this opportunity to comment. We live on Graves Creek Road between San Fernando and Santa Ana, which is within Evacuaon Zone ATA-002. We received the following noficaons regarding the fire. - 1:49 pm (1349). Watch Duty (free phone app) sent noficaon of fire. Minutes before we had heard sirens in our area. We went outside and saw smoke to the west. Within a few minutes, aircra and engines began arriving. The air response was amazing! We began watching Watch Duty and SLO County News on Facebook, and communicated with our next door neighbor. We collected some items, including stuff for our dogs, and watched the aircra and the smoke plume. - 3:08 pm (1508). Watch Duty sent noficaon of the Evacuaon Order (Level 3). We packed the vehicles, gathered the dogs and connued to watch the plume and the posngs. At this point, the smoke plume was decreasing somewhat. We didn’t know whether we needed to leave, although we were ready to do so. We understand that Level 3 is mandatory GO. - 3:43 pm (1543). We received calls on both of our cell phones and our home phone, labeled “Spam Risk” and “Potenal Spam “. When the home phone answering machine picked up, the message clearly stated that “residents within a half mile of the 6700 block of Llano Road need to leave immediately”. We checked the Watch Duty map and measured the distance to our property, which is greater than 1/2 mile from that locaon. We decided to stay based on that informaon. - 4:37 pm (1637). We received calls on all phones from the same “spam” number which stated the Evacuaon Order was cancelled. Based on posngs on SLO County News, it sounded like the affected residents were nofied directly by emergency personnel. So people were adequately protected. We are in no way cricizing the response, since it was incredible, and we do appreciate the noficaons. We are just offering some comments regarding the noficaon system. Hopefully, the Wireless Emergency Alerts / Reverse 911 can be sent out more quickly in the future. Also, the caller ID needs to indicate it is an emergency call. A spam call can be easily ignored. Consideraon should be given to use of text messages for addional noficaons. Text messages seem to be received more readily when cell service is weak. Cell service is basically non-existent on our property, so we use a Verizon network extender that works via Charter Cable. Our home phone service is also through Charter since AT&T is no longer servicing the landline system in our area. We have installed outdoor cell booster antennas in case Charter Cable is down. People in our area need mulple noficaon methods, since communicaon in this area can be difficult. We would also like to see people encouraged to use the Watch Duty app. We appreciated receiving the early Evacuaon Order noficaon, although we later learned the evacuaon area was more limited. 2 We are impressed to see that the Fire Department does an Aer Acon Report. It is great for us to all learn more, as fires will only be more frequent in our future. Thanks so much. Sue & Karl Lu ATTENTION: This email originated from outside the City's network. Use cauon when opening links and aachments.