Report 2019-103 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2019-103: California Is Not Adequately Prepared to Protect Its Most Vulnerable Residents From Natural Disasters (Release Date: December 2019)

Recommendation #3 To: Sonoma County

To best prepare to protect and care for people with access and functional needs, the county should revise its emergency plans by following the best practices that we included in our report. The county should begin implementing these practices as soon as possible. By no later than March 2020, the county should develop a schedule for completing updates to its emergency plans.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2022

The County of Sonoma's Board of Supervisors adopted an updated Emergency Operations Plan on March, 22, 2022, in both English and Spanish.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

Sonoma provided its updated Emergency Operations Plan, which describes collaboration with representatives of individuals with access and functional needs in its development. Additionally, Sonoma has developed updated plans for alert and warning, evacuation, and sheltering and each describes consideration of and actions to meet access and functional needs. Going forward, Sonoma county should continue to include representatives of those with access and functional needs in the development of its plans to ensure that it can meet those needs during natural disasters.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2021

Sonoma County has implemented the recommendation to update emergency plans including those for Pandemic, Public Safety Power Shutoffs, Extreme Heat, Russian River Flood, Community Preparedness, Alert & Warning and Evacuations. The County has delayed completion of the primary Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) in order to address the new state requirements contained in SB160 that direct counties to integrate cultural competence into their EOPs upon their next update. The County expects to bring the revised EOP to the Board of Supervisors for adoption in January 2022.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

We look forward to receiving Sonoma's updated emergency plans. If the updated plans contain updates to its alert and warning, evacuation, and sheltering plans in line with the best practices we describe in our report, we will consider this recommendation to be fully implemented.

1-Year Agency Response

The County of Sonoma has fully implemented this recommendation by implementing many of the best practices outlined in the Audit Report, even before its release, during the successful responses to the Kincade Fire, the PG&E Power Shut Offs in 2019 and 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic, the LNU Complex Fires, and the Glass Fire. Additionally, as recommended by the Audit Report, on May 12, 2020, the County adopted a schedule for completion of updates to its current emergency operations plan. The updated emergency operations plan will integrate considerations and resources for individuals with Access and Functional Needs as well as serve as the coordinating document for supplemental functional annexes including Care & Shelter and Evacuation. The updated plan will also include a review and addition of Disabled and Access and Functional Needs (DAFN) considerations as well as fully implement the new SB160 requirement for integrating Culture Competency as a key element of the updated plan. The Department of Emergency Management will develop the new emergency operations plan in 4 phases:

Phase 1: Review of the existing emergency operations plan to identify area(s) that are out of date, places where new information is needed, identify stakeholders (both internal and external), develop a timeline, and develop checks/balances to ensure goals are met.

Phase 2- Conduct stakeholder engagement, review and update Part 1 of the emergency operations plan.

Phase 3- Conduct stakeholder engagement, review and update Part 2 of the emergency operations plan.

Phase 4- Conduct Stakeholder engagement, review and update Part 3 of the emergency operations plan, and conduct final stakeholder engagement.

Due to the emergency responses to ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, the LNU Complex Fires and Glass Fire, the current schedule for completion of the updated emergency operations plan is August 31, 2021.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

We look forward to receiving Sonoma's updated emergency plans. If the updated plans contain updates to its alert and warning, evacuation, and sheltering plans in line with the best practices we describe in our report, we will consider this recommendation to be fully implemented.

6-Month Agency Response

The County of Sonoma has fully implemented this recommendation by implementing many of the best practices outlined in the Audit Report, even before its release, during the successful response to the Kincade Fire and the PG&E Power Shut Offs in 2019. The County has continued implementing applicable best practices during the response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Finally, on May 12, 2020, the County adopted a schedule for completion of updates to its current emergency operations plan.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented

Sonoma provided a schedule for updating its emergency plans. Although the schedule does not explicitly state that Sonoma will update its alert and warning, evacuation, and sheltering plans, the county stated that those plans will also be updated. We recommended that Sonoma incorporate best practices for protecting people with access and functional needs into its updated plans. Until Sonoma updates those plans to include those best practices, this recommendation will not be fully implemented.

60-Day Agency Response

The County of Sonoma's Director of the Department of Emergency Management is in the process of developing a schedule for completing updates to the County's emergency plans. The schedule will be completed by the end of March 2020.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2019-103

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.