Flood Maps Help Plan For Peril

Levee by levee, road by road, the city and county of Sacramento have pieced together plans for something they hope they never have to do: evacuate whole neighborhoods in a catastrophic flood.
The two governing agencies have developed an eye-opening collection of flood maps that show 18 hypothetical levee breaks, where the water would spread under worst-case scenarios, and how deep it would get.

Another 18 companion maps show evacuation routes and, chillingly, which of those routes could become inundated in a flood.

The maps, which have been shared with residents at recent city meetings and are being distributed online today by The Bee, come as part of a wave of stepped-up preparedness by cities, counties, school districts and hospitals across the region.

Heavy on the minds of those entrusted with public health and safety: the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in the South in late summer. And the fact that there is no other major American city more at risk of a Katrina-style flood than Sacramento.

For people who live and work here, the maps couldn't have arrived too soon.

Joan Irving, for example, is a legal secretary who lives in south Sacramento. After attending one of the city's emergency preparedness meetings in September, she left with a boatload of questions.

"I'm a mother working downtown, with a daughter in college and three grandchildren at two different schools," she said. "If there's an emergency and they evacuate the kids, where are they going to be taken? How will we all find each other?"

Her concerns echoed the thoughts of many, who have questioned how prepared the community is to handle a flood.

Both the city and the county of Sacramento have lengthy plans in place to handle a flood emergency, from monitoring levees to ordering sandbags to sheltering evacuees.

But a number of local agencies and institutions are far from being ready. Several are retooling plans after watching the inadequate emergency response in New Orleans. Others acknowledged they are starting from scratch. Still others are simply scratching their heads.

The new city of Rancho Cordova, for example, does not yet have an emergency plan for a flood, and would follow Sacramento County's if a crisis arose. The city of West Sacramento has a plan that was updated last year, but the city still is working to identify day-care centers, senior centers and other vulnerable populations on its maps. The Grant Joint Union High School District has no plan for evacuating schools in flood-prone areas.

"If Folsom Dam suddenly gave way, I don't know what any of us would do," said John Raymond, assistant superintendent of facilities for Grant. "After New Orleans, we're all taking a look at what we need to do."

A major question mark involves local hospitals. Several in flood-prone locales - Sutter General, Sutter Memorial, Kaiser Permanente South and Mercy General - keep their main emergency generators at ground level or in the basement. In a flood, the generators could become inundated and not work. The UC Davis Medical Center's power plant and backup generators are located on higher ground but could be vulnerable in a big flood.

The hospitals have portable generators that could keep some lights and ventilators going, but they might not sustain all systems in the buildings.

"It's a vulnerable area," Kaiser spokesman Jeff Hausman said. "We are all realizing it."

Kaiser, like other area hospitals, has been beefing up its disaster plans in recent months, Hausman said. With enough warning time, the hospitals would move patients out in advance of a flood. If a wall of water came suddenly with no warning, patients would be moved to higher floors.

In the most likely flood scenario for Sacramento - which would involve heavy warm rains over multiple days, rapid snowmelt and steadily rising rivers - the community would have several days of preparation time.

If the rivers rose high enough to create the possibility of levee breaks or overtopping, officials would call for voluntary evacuations in vulnerable areas.

Depending on weather conditions, people would have six, 10, maybe even 24 hours or more to prepare their belongings and leave. Local officials hope people would take heed and drive to safety while roads were still dry.

If the situation became more grave - levees about to overtop or a sudden levee failure - mandatory evacuations would come.

Unlike the massive evacuations in the Gulf Coast during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, people here would not have to drive for hours to reach safety.

They would just need to get to high ground.

"Three miles is all it would take in some places," said Carole Hopwood, manager of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Emergency Operations Division.

"You don't have to get to San Francisco. You just need to get to Davis," agreed Michael Peterson, principal civil engineer with the Sacramento County Department of Water Resources.

For most flood-prone areas of Sacramento, high ground would be as close as Carmichael, Citrus Heights, Rocklin, Auburn or other cities along the eastbound I-80 corridor.

"The best thing is for people to have a plan in advance for getting to a friend's or a relative's home, out of the flood-prone areas," said Jerry Colivas, manager of the city's office of emergency services.

The new collection of flood maps underscores the importance of getting out early. The maps reveal neighborhood after neighborhood at risk of inundation.

One of the most startling maps shows a sample levee break on the Sacramento River in the Pocket. The bulk of the Pocket neighborhood, which sits low and is wrapped by levees, would be under a foot of water within two hours, meaning people would not be able to drive out. The point is driven home by a large red blob on the map, signaling that the Pocket would become a "rescue zone," too late for evacuation.

The maps, along with other flood information from the city, prompted Pocket residents Larkin and Jim Penrose to take dramatic steps.

This fall, they packed tubs of provisions (food, flashlights, water, rope) and placed them in an upstairs bedroom. They mapped a route out of the Pocket toward a relative's home in Gold River. They planned how they would get onto the roof. And they made sure their small recreational rafts were in good shape.

"I don't expect this to save us," Jim Penrose said as he displayed one of the rafts. "It's our last resort."

City officials want everyone living in flood-prone areas to do similar crisis planning.

By studying the maps, people can get a better handle on their personal risks.

A review of the maps shows that evacuation routes are no mystery, but rather an exercise in common sense. They involve the same roads a person would take to get to the store, to work, to the Bay Area or Lake Tahoe.

If evacuation routes became flooded, officials would use radio and other media to identify safe, dry roads. For that reason, it is important to have a battery-operated radio as part of a home emergency kit.

In general, Colivas and other emergency experts said, they would send people east or west on I-80 and Highway 50 during an evacuation.

They would stay away from northbound I-5 and Highway 99 because of low spots, and because many waterways drain southward in those areas. Likewise, southbound Highway 99 would be iffy because of low spots, although with enough lead time people might be able to drive to Elk Grove, where much of the ground is high.

The area's two former Air Force bases, Mather and McClellan, are on high ground and are designated as primary shelters. Other shelters would be opened as needed.

Colivas and others stressed that precise evacuation directions are impossible to spell out in advance of a flood. Many factors - such as the location of the levee break, localized flooding and traffic accidents - could alter evacuation routes.

The Sacramento area also faces a more remote, and more nightmarish, risk of Folsom Dam overtopping or suddenly breaking. If that happened, even places outside the regular floodplain, such as Gold River and Carmichael, could be threatened and vast areas could be underwater within a few hours.

Though such an event is highly unlikely, local officials have plans in place across a five-county area for massive evacuations of 250,000 people or more, Hopwood said. People would be sent in different directions, depending on what roads are open, she said.

The state Office of Emergency Services is developing guidelines for such mass evacuations, spokesman Eric Lamoureux said. "We're looking at maximum exodus scenarios," he said. "The amount of warning that we'd have is hard to say."

Beyond the city and county of Sacramento, other jurisdictions also are sharpening emergency plans. West Sacramento, for example, is considering creating similar flood depth and evacuation maps, said Bill Summers, hazardous materials manager for the West Sacramento Fire Department.

School districts, including San Juan Unified and Sacramento City Unified, are in the process of updating emergency plans. They are reviewing such aspects as evacuation plans, parent notification and storing enough provisions to sustain people for several days.