Portola Valley schedules Sept. 11 evacuation exercise; officials outline alerts, outreach and resilience work

Portola Valley officials and members of the towns Emergency Preparedness Committee laid out plans for a communitywide evacuation exercise set for Friday, Sept. 11, that will simulate a fast-moving wildfire scenario in the Los Trancos/Buck Meadows area and test communications, evacuee routing and resource coordination.

"The exercise... will start with a WE alert," Kim Cashen said, describing the alert as equivalent to the highest-level emergency messages that reach devices in a geographic zone. Organizers plan to initiate the simulated evacuation from roughly 9 a.m., exercise immediate evacuation messaging and direct evacuees toward the Town Center community hall for a post-exercise debrief, vendor fair and public education on home hardening and defensible space.

Kim said the drill will invite a broad set of partners to make the scenario realistic, including CalFire, Menlo Park Fire, Redwood City Fire, PG&E, Cal Water, large-animal rescue teams, the county sheriffs office, the Woodside Fire Protection District, the Portola Valley amateur radio group and WPVERT. The exercise will use the towns radio resources, test high/low siren recognition and exercise unified command functions among responding agencies.

Ray Rothrock, reporting on recent outreach, called the town's Emergency Preparedness and Safety Day "a roaring success," and said radio and volunteer groups would be mobilized again for the Sept. 11 exercise.

Committee members also discussed parallel resilience work. Fred reported staff contacts with Rebecca Flynn and vendor West Light Energy (formerly Peninsula Clean Energy) to examine battery backup options for the library and to identify which meters and circuits serve the town center and library so planners can define a 72-hour power need for refuge or staging locations.

Officials asked the EPC to help plan outreach and to form a small ad hoc subcommittee to compile recommendations for populations with access and functional needs. Kim proposed that EPC members lead the subcommittee and named Dale and Lynn as volunteers; the group will coordinate with senior communities and county resources to craft a targeted two-page analysis and recommendations.

Organizers emphasized the public-education component: residents will receive WE alert notices for the simulated evacuation, social and forum postings, banners with QR codes driving to a preparedness page, and specific guidance on what is expected of participants during the exercise. The town will also push materials explaining high/low siren meaning and how to use WatchDuty and other local alert tools.

The committee noted it has only two EPC meetings before the exercise and asked staff to provide details to chairs so the EPC can finalize roles, outreach and the access/functional-needs report ahead of the Sept. 11 date.

The meeting closed with the committee setting up follow-up actions for staff and the newly formed subcommittee; no formal vote on the exercise was recorded at the EPC meeting.