It’s been a busy week catching up and so I wrote this eNewsletter in between meetings to share with you my experiences during a week that brought out the best in people at Qualcomm Stadium during such a difficult time.

 

The Qualcomm Stadium Evacuation Shelter

The day the fires started

On Sunday October 21st, my wife Sally and I left our home around 3:45pm to meet some friends for dinner.  I hadn’t been outside since returning from church around noon that day.  Right away I noticed what looked like ash on the roof of her car when I looked up in the sky and said my God, this does not look good at all.  Last I knew when I got home from church; it was another beautiful day in San Diego.  Little did I know what would unfold in the hours and days ahead would be so similar to the Cedar Fire of 2003.  

Ironically, we were heading to dinner in North County with friends Jeff & Denise Bowman, our former San Diego fire chief during the Cedar fires.  The drive up the I-15 was anything but normal and by now we were listening to the radio, hearing the fire in Ramona was burning strong.  In fact, as we drove through Rancho Bernardo, the smoke was quite thick – so much so I snapped a few photos along the freeway as my wife drove the car. 

As the day turned to evening, it became evident that San Diego was getting ready for the worse.  The other guest of the Bowman’s for dinner that afternoon was none other than San Diego’s current fire chief, Tracy Jarman.  She was on her cell phone most of the time, as I heard her directing her senior staff and making sure resources were in the field well in advance.  Our dinner with Tracy would have to wait for another day.  Following a conference call with the Mayor and his top team, our Fire Chief was quite busy and on her way to the soon to be activated Emergency Operations Center where she did an commendable job leading the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department in saving so many homes that might otherwise have been destroyed by fire.

DejaVu All Over Again

I was up very early Monday morning and my worst fears proved to be true.  I headed downtown to the City’s Emergency Operations Center where I met up with the Mayor, the Police Chief and Councilmembers Maienschein and Peters.  Councilmember Young soon joined us.  The Mayor informed us he had established Qualcomm stadium as an evacuation center for the City.  After getting briefed on the severity of the fires, I knew there would be lots of evacuees so I volunteered to head over to Qualcomm Stadium and help out there.  I told my staff to leave City Hall.  They would be needed at Qualcomm as we anticipated huge crowds.

The Makings of a Small City

Arriving at Qualcomm Stadium, it was still relatively quiet with some evacuees arriving, but the makings of a City were quickly beginning to take shape.  Upstairs, the City Box became the command center.  Our “offices” there would soon expand to other boxes nearby that included press and medical as well as meeting areas for regular briefings.  

Jill Olen, the Mayor’s Chief for Public Safety and Homeland Security was designated by the Mayor as the Qualcomm Stadium Incident Commander.  She along with two other City employees and three volunteers were the first on the scene shortly after 6am.  As volunteers, we worked stripped of our official titles and I along with a handful of City employees fell into place as part of a structure that is modeled after what is known as ICS or “Incident Command System”.   ICS is part of “NIMS”, something many of us have been trained in.  NIMS uses a system approach to integrate the best of existing processes and methods into a unified national framework for incident management. This framework forms the basis for interoperability and compatibility that in turn enables a diverse set of public and private organizations to conduct well-integrated and effective incident management operations.  In other words, our structure at Qualcomm stadium was very formal and our operation was a satellite of the City’s emergency response which in turn was a part of the overall County effort.  Our entire focus at Qualcomm was to provide safe emergency short-term shelter for as many people as possible.

Management positions were assigned to City employees that included food, donations, volunteer coordination, comfort, medical, animal care and media.  Each of these respective leaders set out to establish their own business operations in different areas of the stadium.  In some cases due to demand, several people shared one role – volunteers and food for example required a number of key leaders.  The stadium security office became the volunteer command center and it was apparent that as many volunteers began to arrive as there were evacuees.  In fact, many of the evacuees didn’t waste any time and became volunteers themselves.  In the press relations area, I along with George Biagi, the Mayor’s Deputy Press Secretary, served as the public information officers or “PIOs”, providing open access to the media and sharing information to media from throughout the world.

The magic of a stellar evacuation center at Qualcomm stadium would soon blossom.  Almost out of nowhere, the spirit of a City which only four years prior had suffered greatly in the Cedar Fire would rise to the occasion with an outpouring of donations and volunteers unlike anything we are used to seeing.  In fact as news spread around the nation, we began receiving donations from across the United States.

In the days that would follow, Qualcomm Stadium was described like a "festival" - hardly a word associated with an evacuation center.  But in pure San Diego style, we showed that if we could blend some fun with the seriousness of providing safe emergency shelter, people would have a good time and take their minds of an otherwise sad situation. 

City employees became the leaders of the operation and the backbone for the volunteer base.  Our emphasis was on customer service from the top down.  Customer service was key and it was exemplified at Qualcomm Stadium.  The City Council offices were there early also as I asked my Chief of staff to organize as many volunteers as she could at City Hall and get them out to Qualcomm.  They each went different ways – some to helping off load busses from the nursing homes and others who ended up working nearly 20 straight hours helping in the animal care area at the old practice field.  Almost every City department helped in one way or another with special thanks to the Park & Recreation Department employees who did so much throughout the stadium.

By mid-morning we knew we needed canopies for shade and within an hour, they were showing up from the public and recreation centers.  Walkie-talkies showed up that provided for essential on-site communications.  As fast as the phones began ringing offering things from food to blankets, almost spontaneously, people in cars and trucks began arriving at Qualcomm Stadium with almost everything imaginable.  The area inside gate A and P of the stadium bean filling quickly.  We soon had to set up an area out in the parking lot the size of a football field to take our donated goods overflow.

We received word we would be getting evacuees from several nursing homes from around the region both north and south.  We designated the Club level as our medical ward and along with the evacuees came medical professional donating their time and talent. 

Each of the Club restaurants began filling with both evacuees and patients.  Medical experts created a floor plan and set up the Club level inside Qualcomm almost like a hospital.  

Donations From Everywhere

At our overflow donation receiving area, also known as te Distribution area, we requested and received  warehousing experts from Wal-Mart who helped set up our donation area almost overnight just like the inside of a Wal-Mart store.  Wal-Mart by the way kept sending truck after truck – all in addition to the $1 million cash they donated to the Red Cross.  And had it not been for Home Depot and the employee they sent who stayed with our donations area for three days, we could have never done it.

On Day Two, 21 volunteers from the Alpha Project arrived and really helped make the efforts go even smoother.  Semi truck after semi truck began arriving to the donation area.  We let the EOC know we would likely have more donated items than we would need and could serve as a central distribution point for other shelters in the regions.  Soon we would get calls from other areas with needs.

As our children population was quickly growing, Park & Recreation employees took it upon themselves to organize a game area.  Teachers off from work volunteered to teach in makeshift classrooms.  

In a matter of several hours we received hundreds of calls from companies wanting to donate their services.  We didn’t say no to very many and what followed was almost like magic.  We had clowns, jugglers and many different bands.  We had comedians from Los Angeles, massage and acupuncture, arts and crafts, clowns, a circus show and plenty of books and things to do.

Our animal area was at the old Charger’s practice facility and had become quite the menagerie.  At one point we had over 24 horses, 10 birds, 92 cats, 1 chinchilla, 73 dogs, 3 ducks, 15 rabbits, 5 rats and 2 lizards.  Our thanks to some very dedicated city staff members and to Noah’s Wish who provided expert care and security for our animal visitors.

On Monday night, it was estimated we provided shelter for nearly 13,000 people.  Over 5,000 vehicles were in the Qualcomm parking lot that night alone.  Evacuees slept in cots, tents, and in their cars.  As each night went on, fortunately we had fewer and fewer stay with us.  Tuesday night we were at 5,000 and Wednesday night we were at 750.  On Thursday night, we counted only 190 who stayed overnight.  And that was a good thing as the temperatures dropped significantly reminding us that Qualcomm stadium is great for short-term evacuation stays – but it is outdoors and lacks adequate showers facilities.  By 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning, less than 10 remained.  At 12 noon on Friday, the Qualcomm Evacuation shelter was closed.

For me, I ended up “living” at Qualcomm stadium for the week.  I did get to go home to shower and sometimes spend a few hours at home in the middle of the night – and every now and then I’d catch some sleep on one of the couches in our stadium box, but for the most part, myself and Jill Olen and George Biagi bridged both 12 hour shifts and ran on adrenalin.  We would be at the 6:00 a.m. briefing and the 6:00 p.m. briefing when we would have a shift change.  The Mayor would be there regularly to receive his breifings and to give direction to his top staff.  It seemed as though we dealt with everything from where to set up a booth for another company providing a service to making the PA announcements to all our guests.  I was personally amazed over the international interest in what we were doing.  We responded to media calls from around the globe and did interviews with countless media reps from both inside the United States and abroad.  Our message was as simple as our mission: provide a safe place for evacuees, warm food and a little San Diego style fun to help take their minds off the troubles back home.  

Many Lessons Learned

The experience of the Qualcomm Stadium Evacuation Center provided many valuable lessons.  We truly set a new standard and we plan to create a report on what we did, what worked and what didn’t.  Most important, we will be even better prepared for next time.  And yes we must be prepared as sadly, there will be a next time.  

And I can’t leave this without reiterating that without the outpouring of donations and the selfless volunteers who worked tireless hours, the Qualcomm Shelter would not have been successful.  It wasn’t about one person or a group of persons.  It was a true team effort that everyone should share in knowing they made a terrible time a lot better for those who needed some help and a place to sleep.  

Videos worth watching –

Click here for a slide show I produced from the photos I took during my week at Qualcomm stadium

Click here for a Katie Couric story abut Qualcomm on YouTube

Articles worth reading –

Click here for an outstanding article about the Qualcomm evacuation center that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday October 24, 2007

While some in the media tried to compare us to what happened in New Orleans, we shied away from that, saying that wasn’t fair and we would not even think of comparing.  Even the Times-Picayune in New Orleans weighed in with a positive story about what took place at Qualcomm stadium. Click here for their story.

Without the Donors, It Would Not Have Been As Successful

In addition to the thousands of thoughtful San Diegans who came and donated their treasure, please join me in thanking these corporate donors who helped make the Qualcomm evacuation center so successful (this is a partial list):

91X
Anheiser Busch
AT&T
Bank of America
Boy Scouts of America (Volunteers and cots)
California Restaurant Association
Carls Jr.
Chevron
Costco
Cox Communications
CVS
Dr. Erik White
FedEx
Ford
Hershey
Howard Johnson
Hurricane Store
Latter Day Saints
North Park Main Street Association
Pajama Program
Pat & Oscars
Pepsi
Petco
PetSmart
REI
Rite Aid
Royal Canin
San Diego Chamber of Commerce
San Diego Metropolitan Credit Union
Sea World
Second Harvest
See's Candy
Sharp Healthcare
Singeree
The Home Depot
Union Telecard Alliance
United States Navy (Volunteers)
UPS Freight
Urban Kitchen
Verizon
Walgreens
Wal-Mart
Westfield
Whole Foods

If I left anyone out, please email me and let me know.

Volunteers and Staff Who Made The Difference

Please join me in honoring and thanking these City employees and the volunteers who without them our operation would not have been a success:

Management Team
(City of San Diego personnel)

Jill Olen – Incident commander
Captain Bob Kanaski – Incident commander
Mario Sierra – Incident Commander (6pm-6am)
Jennifer Wolff – Donations
David Bryant – Donations
Hung Tran - Donations
Ray Roberson – Comfort Services
Debra Terry – Volunteer management
Juan Baligad – Food management
Dr. Jim Dunford – Medical
Alyssa Ross – Medical
Kerry Santoro – Animal services
George Biagi – Public information officer
Jim Madaffer – Public information officer
Sue Pelley – Donated goods warehousing
Bob Ferrier Donated goods warehousing
Erik Stover – Stadium General Manager

Countless City employees served in various roles – and again, this is an incomplete list

Abby Jarl
Mike McSweeney and the awesome stadium staff
Gail Granewich
Councilmember Kevi Faulconer and the District 2 staff
Councilwoman Toni Atkins and the District 3 staff
Council President Pro Tem Tony Young and the District 4 staff
Councilwoman Donna Frye and the District 6 staff
The District 7 staff
Robin Kullick
Sara Creiton
Joyce Edgar

Here are some non-city employee volunteers that helped in leadership roles as well:

Carl DiMaio - Volunteers
Frank Santos - Distribution
Chris Prewett - Distribution
Chris Groshong - Distribution
Scott Kubicek/Wal-Mart - Donated good warehousing 

And the over 2,000 citizen volunteers from throughout the region who came to assist.  We thank you once again.

Neighborhood E-Watch Keeps You Informed

The City of San Diego's Neighborhood eWatch provides information about crime incidents in the City of San Diego to the public for free via the Internet and is updated every 24 hours. I introduced this popular service in 2002 and encourage you to use it.  The web site address is: http://ewatch.sandiego.gov.

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I welcome hearing from you at any time and rely on your opinion. It is an honor to serve you on the San Diego City Council.

Jim.