This weekend’s Holiday Fire was a reminder of the vulnerability of our community to wildfires. It also highlighted the importance of timely information and we wanted to take this opportunity to share more about the City’s role in emergency communications.
Please note that if an evacuation order is implemented, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office’s (SBSO) attempts to make contact through phone calls (Reverse 911), emails and text messages, knocking on doors or and making direct, personal contact with residents in the affected area.
While the City is not a first responder like Fire and Sheriff, we are committed to the following:
- Providing timely and accurate information.
- Providing Goleta-specific information.
- Sharing information released by other agencies as appropriate.
- Directing people to accurate resources.
Our notifications are not emergency alerts. These are done for the City of Goleta through a partnership with the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management (SBCOEM), at no cost to the City. Typically, we send notices via email/text after briefings from Incident Command (the agency or agencies coordinating the response). Sign up for City of Goleta email/text notifications here! We regularly post information to Facebook and Twitter (@goletapio) which also feed to our website. In rare instances, we send recorded phone messages.
Our practice is to notify people when we have information that can help people make decisions about how they should proceed without unduly alarming people.
We encourage you to:
- Sign up for emergency alerts from the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management (SBCOEM) at www.ReadySBC.org.
- Make an evacuation plan. www.ready.gov/make-a-plan
- Have a battery-powered radio ready to listen to local radio stations if the power goes out.
- Be familiar with 211. Santa Barbara County’s 2-1-1 Helpline is the first point-of-access to all community services, including emergency information. A live person is available to answer questions 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, and in multiple languages. www.211sbco.org
- Finally, know your neighbors and look out for each other. Share verified information from trusted resources.