1 David Yakobson
From: Eve Lopez <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2026 9:09 AM
To: Caroline Torosis; Jesse Zwick; Barry Snell; Dan Hall; Lana Negrete; Ellis Raskin; Natalya Zernitskaya
Cc: councilmtgitems; Oliver Chi
Subject: Agenda Item 11 A: Palisades Fire After-Action Report, Emergency Evacuation Capacity Study
EXTERNAL
Dear Mayor and Members of the City Council:
I respectfully ask the Council to adopt the report’s recommendations and clarify that Recommendation 6.1 includes a quantitative emergency evacuation capacity study to establish Santa Monica’s current capacity, identify critical routes and choke points, and model realistic emergency conditions.
The Palisades Fire After-Action Report gives us an important opportunity to turn the lessons of January 2025 into concrete public safety improvements. One lesson is especially clear: we need to know, quantitatively, the actual capacity of our evacuation routes.
After-Action Report Recommendation #6, Evacuation Planning and Traffic Management
6.1 Develop a Comprehensive Evacuation Annex
The report recommends a detailed evacuation plan addressing triggers, zones, warnings and orders, law enforcement and fire roles, public messaging, and repopulation. But a safe and effective evacuation plan must begin with a basic question: How many people can our evacuation routes actually move, and how quickly? The Palisades Fire showed the consequences when evacuation routes reach capacity. Sunset and PCH became gridlocked, residents abandoned vehicles, and bulldozers cleared cars so fire apparatus could get through. Santa Monica ultimately ordered approximately 5,550 households and businesses to evacuate.
The report also identifies Santa Monica as a “primary evacuation route” for the region, even as PCH and portions of I-10 were closed. That is why the independent reviewers specifically recommend pre-incident traffic modeling of freeway closures, choke points, transit rerouting, and signal management.
We cannot responsibly improve an evacuation plan without first knowing the capacity of the routes residents and first responders will depend upon.
The recent Ocean Way Festival cancellation reinforces the same public safety principle. After Hurricane Marie changed beach conditions, the City reassessed emergency vehicle access, crowd circulation, available capacity, tides, and other safety factors together. When the site could no longer safely accommodate the expected crowd, the City appropriately put public safety first.
We should apply that same safety standard citywide.
The After-Action Report was intended to turn lessons from the Palisades Fire into “measurable improvements” in the City's emergency capabilities. A quantitative evacuation capacity study is necessary to give meaning to Recommendation
6.1. Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
2 I respectfully ask the Council to adopt the report’s recommendations and clarify and direct staff to includes a quantitative emergency evacuation capacity study to establish our baseline, identify critical routes and choke points, and test our evacuation system against realistic emergency conditions.
Thank you.
Eve Lopez
Sunset Park
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
1 David Yakobson
From: Council Mailbox
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2026 10:38 AM
To: councilmtgitems
Subject: FW: Helping Pacific Palisades to water their trees Thanks,
Amy Larkin
Administrative Staff Assistant- City Council Office
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Robertson <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2026 2:43 PM
To: Council Mailbox <[email protected]>
Cc: Cindy Kirven <[email protected]>; David Card <[email protected]>; Jimmy Dunne <[email protected]>
Subject: Fwd: Helping Pacific Palisades to water their trees
EXTERNAL
> Dear Caroline Torosis,
>
> I am sending this email in advance of my coming to your council meeting this Tuesday, September 22 at 5:30pm. >
> Below is what I am planning to say in my 2 minute address to you. >
> As you can see, I will be referring to this email so that your council members may review it following your meeting. >
> Thank you so much for your attention and thoughts about this particular matter. >
> Sincerely,
>
> Susan Robertson
> 310-383-3134
> SMR [email protected]
>
> #####
>
> Good evening, Council members.
> My name is Susan Robertson and I am a resident of Santa Monica. >
> The devastating Palisades fire was a wake-up call for our entire community, and while the fire stayed on the other side of the border, the environmental impacts - like the loss of our shared coastal tree canopy - directly affect Santa Monica‘s microclimate and long-term fire safety. >
> Pacific Palisades is committed to trying to save the trees that are still standing after the fire. The Palisades forestry commission (PFC), a nonprofit managed by community volunteers, is soliciting for donations for an initiative called the Palisades Parkway Promise (PPP). These funds have been used since spring of 2025 to pay a Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
2 local landscape company to use their water truck to drive down each street to water the parkway street trees.
Funds are running low, and additional assistance is being solicited. (For those like me who are not familiar with the term “parkway”, it is a strip of land between the street and the sidewalk). The parkway trees have usually been watered by the homeowners as an extension of sprinkler systems in their landscaping in front yards. Since so many homes burned down, and many homeowners with standing homes are not home yet, and may not have working irrigation, these surviving trees are not getting watered and are at risk of dying. >
> I understand that legal boundaries prevent our city from sending resources like water trucks to Pacific Palisades.
However, I urge this council to direct the City Manager to proactively reach out to Los Angeles Council District 11 to explore a collaborative cross- border mutual aid framework for environmental stabilization. >
> Fire risks do not stop at city lines, and a regional recovery shouldn’t either. >
> Thank you for listening.
>
> For your reference, I have sent a copy of this statement, along with the link to the street tree mapping program for the city of Los Angeles, including Pacific Palisades to: [email protected]., attention Caroline Torosis
>
> I hope we can do something to help.
>
> Link:
> https:://losangelesca.treekeepersoftware.com/index.cfm?deviceWidth=1920 Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
1 David Yakobson
From: Noma Boardmember <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 10:55 AM
To: Council Mailbox; councilmtgitems; Lana Negrete; Caroline Torosis; Jesse Zwick; Dan Hall; Ellis Raskin; Barry Snell; Natalya Zernitskaya
Cc: Oliver Chi; Matthew Hallock; Joe Cavin; Lindsay B. Call Subject: SUPPORT (with suggestions), Item 11.A, Palisades Fire After-Action Report
EXTERNAL
To help protect your privacy, Microsoft Office prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.
Dear Mayor Torosis and Councilmembers,
On behalf of the North of Montana Association (NOMA), thank you, and thank you to our Fire Department and City staff, for a thorough response to the Palisades Fire and for the diligence reflected in this AfterAction Report. The fire reached within 0.4 miles of our northern boundary, so this work is deeply felt in our neighborhood.
We support two of the report's directions and offer a suggested refinement to each:
1) Red Flag readiness. We support formalizing Red Flag protocols, and we encourage inclusion of neighborhood-level measures in the Very High and High Fire Hazard Severity Zones.
First, proactive vegetation management is a clear example. On windy days, some of our streets accumulate large piles of dry pine needles, at times as tall as a car, that represent a real fire load and are rarely cleared on any regular schedule. The report's finding that the PCH Bluffs "had not been cleaned in years" until crews removed 85 tons of overgrowth reinforces the value of routine, scheduled clearing rather than post-incident cleanup.
Second, street clearance: many of our streets are narrow, and on a Red Flag day, cars parked on both sides leave little room for residents evacuating and fire apparatus entering simultaneously. We'd encourage the city to evaluate and consider temporary Red Flag parking measures to keep these routes clear when it matters most.
2) Evacuation capacity. We share the concern, raised by residents across the city, that the evacuation annex should include a quantitative evacuation-capacity study, one that establishes our baseline, identifies choke points, models realistic conditions and accounts for how increased housing density may affect evacuation capacity. Understanding whether our routes can actually move residents and first responders is essential not only for wildfire, but for every natural disaster we may face.
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
2 We are grateful for this work and glad to serve as a resource to staff and City Council as it moves forward.
Respectfully,
The Board of NOMA
CC: Oliver Chi, Captain Hallock, Fire Marshall Cavin, Lindsay Call. smnoma.org
[email protected]
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
3 David Yakobson
From: Marc Verville <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 10:57 AM
To: Caroline Torosis; Barry Snell; Ellis Raskin; Lana Negrete; Natalya Zernitskaya; Dan Hall; Jesse Zwick
Cc: councilmtgitems
Subject: RE: Agenda Item 11A: Palisades Fire After-Action Report
EXTERNAL
Mayor and Members of the City Council:
I am in support of the Council adopting the After-Action Report recommendations but with one crucial clarification:
Recommendation 6.1 should direct staff to conduct a quantitative emergency evacuation capacity study.
The Palisades Fire demonstrated how quickly evacuation routes can become gridlocked and emergency access compromised. The report itself recommends traffic modeling of freeway closures and choke points. This recommendation corroborated by public Staff comments that in their current non-quantitative “holistic” approach to evacuation “planning”, they are assuming vehicular gridlock and that the residents will need to “walk” out of the evacuation zones. This is an unambiguous admission that we are sitting on an avoidable compounding factor in any disaster, the underlying drivers of which need to be clearly and forthrightly addressed so that that compounding loss can be avoided.
But we cannot effectively plan an evacuation without knowing how many people our routes can actually move, and how quickly.
Please clarify Recommendation 6.1 to require that quantitative analysis.
Thank you.
Marc L. Verville
Former Chair, Santa Monica Audit Subcommittee
Sunset Park
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026
Item 11-A
September 22, 2026