Tangled Web of Evacuation Plans at Ports

The Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex sits close to earthquake faults and oil refineries and has been identified as a potential terrorist target.

So it is no surprise that the complex would be of special concern to emergency planners.

But like many institutions in Southern California, the ports and nearby residential areas are overseen by a bevy of agencies. As a result, nine evacuation plans have been drawn up for the port area alone, even though some residents say they have never seen a plan and have no idea how to evacuate in case of terrorism or a tsunami.

Now the Coast Guard is spearheading an effort to create a unified evacuation plan, the first of its kind in the nation. A panel representing the ports, police and fire agencies, and other groups will meet next month as they weave a comprehensive plan that can be molded to different kinds of disasters.

Those charged with the work say they are studying the lessons of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to determine how to move people from the port area if needed.

“Evacuation ranks very high for all of us,” said George Cummings, homeland security director for the Port of Los Angeles and a 21-year Coast Guard veteran.

The twin port complex, the largest in the nation, has increasingly become a focus of disaster planning, in part because most of the nation’s Asian imports move through it, making it a critical factor in the country’s economy. Planning is especially challenging because thousands of residents live close by.

Noel Cunningham, the Port of Los Angeles’ emergency management director, said that although the ports are technically responsible only for their own acreage and the periphery, they must be a “good neighbor” and think beyond those boundaries.

The Coast Guard’s commanding officer for the ports, Capt. Peter V. Neffenger, said evacuation planning began months ago but the hurricanes have given it new urgency. Emergency officials are learning from recent events, he said.

“I learned that a large-scale mass evacuation is a much more difficult proposition than I think anyone realized,” he said.

A draft plan should be ready by January, and public education will be a major goal, he said. “If I’m the public, I don’t want to find out about it from a bullhorn going through the streets.”

That is encouraging news for residents of San Pedro, Wilmington and western Long Beach who have worried since Sept. 11 about a possible terrorist attack on the ports. Concerns mounted after the 2004 tsunami in South Asia, followed by the tangled Gulf Coast evacuations in the face of Katrina and Rita.

San Pedro resident Janet Gunter said she was pleased by the news, adding that because her community sits on a peninsula, there are only a few arteries that could carry evacuees north from the port. Traffic is already heavy on Gaffey Street and Western Avenue, she said. “You can’t get out of town on those streets on a good day.”

Gunter said she first asked port officials five years ago for an evacuation plan, prompted largely by quake fears. She was given the plan for evacuating the port administration building, she said. The ports now have a more comprehensive plan.

Jesse Marquez of Wilmington, executive director of Coalition for a Safe Environment, said he did not know about any of the existing plans.

“Nine plans are ridiculous, because in any emergency, there has to be one plan,” Marquez said.

Wilmington residents have also called for details of evacuation plans, after the blackout Sept. 12 forced three refineries to shut down and vent excess pressure by flaring and burning gases. Some residents feared the refineries were exploding.

Officials say the decision to create a single plan sprang from a drill in summer 2004 in which emergency workers responded to mines being placed in the harbor, forcing the ports to close.

Planners will determine how to alert area residents to threats. An automatic telephone alert system is already in place near the local refineries, and it could be expanded and improved.