County issues evacuation zone maps

Sonoma County officials last week released permanent evacuation zone maps designed to help residents be ready for emergencies that may require them to leave their homes.

The new maps standardize evacuation zones for every emergency, in contrast to the county’s previous practice of issuing new instructions with each new emergency event. Now zones will remain the same in perpetuity, and residents are urged to learn their evacuation zones and be ready to go when an order is issued.

“With wildfire season upon us, these official evacuation zone maps are an essential part of doing everything we can to make sure our families and neighbors are safe if disaster strikes,” said Lynda Hopkins, chair of the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Officials say that knowing your evacuation zone number is a key element of a disaster preparedness plan. Residents are urged to write down their zone number and consider learning the zones near their residence to help them better understand the level of risk to their property when an emergency arises. Beyond knowing the zone for an individual’s home address, it is important to know the evacuation zones assigned to their workplaces and schools, too, officials said. To find the zone assigned to any particular Sonoma County address, go to socoemergency.org/evacuation-map.

In October 2019, more than 190,000 county residents were ordered to evacuate their homes. The Sheriff’s Office was in the process of developing evacuation zone maps when the Walbridge and Meyers fires hit in August 2020, followed by the Glass fire one month later. A decision was made then to release the draft maps in response to those large fire events, and feedback received from the community and first responders was incorporated into the final evacuation zone maps.

Evacuation tags

To help first responders evacuate neighborhoods quickly during a disaster, the Sheriff’s Office is giving away evacuation tags to residents living in incorporated Sonoma County and its contract cities of Sonoma and Windsor. Tags come with a bilingual instruction flyer, and are available during business hours at the Sonoma Police Department at 175 First St. W.

“When they evacuate, residents tie the tag in a location that is highly visible from the street,” said Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick. “This saves time because first responders can immediately check the next home.”

Tags should be placed in a location easily visible to first responders from the street, like on a gate, mailbox or a front door. If there is more than one home on a property, all should be evacuated before displaying the tag to indicate that all residents at the address have safely left the area.

County residents are also urged to sign up for emergency alerts to ensure they receive critical updates, including evacuation alerts. Text your ZIP code to nixle.com at 888777, and sign up at SoCoAlert.com or by calling 565-1369. Activation of the federal Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system is also advised. WEA notifications send a text message with a special warning tone to registered cell phones, and is managed through the phone’s settings tab.

For more information on how to prepare, go to socoemergency.org/get-ready. Ten thousand evacuation packs with emergency plan templates, an evacuation checklist, and tips on how to handle emergency power shutoffs are available to residents in both Spanish and English. For information on how to get one, go to sonomalibrary.org/emergencypreparedness.

Contact Kate Williams at kate.williams@sonomanews.com.