Hundreds of Montecito residents were rescued in the immediate aftermath of the 1/9 Debris Flow, some locking arms with firefighters to wade through thigh-high mud, others signaling frantically at U.S. Navy helicopters to pluck them from their roofs. The death toll was staggering — 21 lives lost, and two young people still missing — but more would have perished were it not for the first responders who lined up below the maw of the mountains before the storm blew in.
Here, Montecito Fire Division Chief Kevin Taylor explains how his small department of 47 men and women, in step with countless others across Santa Barbara in county, state, and federal agencies, prepared for the worst, and how they’re girding themselves and the community for more dangers ahead.
Walk me through your preparations. We started on December 26 with a meeting at 8:30 a.m. We said, hey, we have this new risk, and in order to communicate that to our chief officers, I showed them a couple of debris-flow videos. That got everybody’s attention. We utilized the FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] flood-risk model to figure out what preparation and response and recovery things to do internally at Montecito Fire. Then we brainstormed about what to do next.