Technology upgrade boosts disaster evacuation process

Key Takeaways

During a disaster, the San Bernardino County, Calif. Sheriff’s Department used to track evacuations using paper forms and radio calls. Now, deputies can document and track evacuation points in real-time through the county’s Evacuation mobile app, streamlining the evacuation process, according to Frank Kams, the county Sheriff’s Department’s emergency services coordinator.

“When you have all these deputies out running, knocking on doors, the radio got cluttered,” Kams said. “It was a lot of paperwork, and not very efficient.”

During a disaster event, deputies report each step of the evacuation process through the platform, allowing the supervising sergeant to follow each point and identify if there’s a tract of homes that have been missed, according to Kams. 

“It’s in real-time,” Kams said. “Now, we just put up a big map, and we can see exactly who’s staying, who’s leaving and who we haven’t been able to contact.

“… We get an idea of how effective we’re being and how we’re doing timewise evacuating these neighborhoods, so it’s really made a big difference.”

The creation of the evacuation solution platform was a joint effort between Kams and Natalie Campos, a Geographic Information System (GIS) specialist. Campos was working on a county fire damage assessment dashboard when Kams asked if the technology could be adapted for evacuations. 

“This was just a wild idea that they were able to pull together for us,” Kams said. “And it’s worked very well.”

Sprawling more than 20,000 miles, San Bernardino County is the largest county by area in the contiguous United States. The county’s diverse geography includes mountains, deserts and developed urban areas. 

“You can have writing ‘x, y’ locations in text, but that doesn’t actually tell you where those people are, who is actually evacuated,” Campos said. “So, it’s a situational awareness I think that it’s brought them.”

Deputies may not be familiar with the areas they’re evacuating, so the technology helps ensure they don’t miss certain spots that might not be visible from the road, according to County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Kyle Glozer. He noted that during an evacuation of Angelus Oaks, an unincorporated mountain community in the county, he had no idea that there were camps there, which could have led to them being overlooked.   

“You could drive past them 100 times and never know that [the camps] are there,” Glozer said. “But with this mapping system that Frank and Natalie developed, we can actually see where these areas are or give our deputies an idea of where to go.”

The app has enabled more effective communication, which is crucial with all the uncertain variables disasters bring, according to Kams.

“Wildland fires are very dynamic and fluid,” Kams said. “So, this also gives us an idea of where our folks are, in case there’s a shift and the fire takes another direction, we can alert our people to get out.”

The technology was initially used in the 2022 Sheep Fire, and has since been used in response to fires, including in the 2024 Line and Bridge fires, and flooding events in the county. 

The Evacuation mobile app has recently evolved to better serve the county’s most vulnerable populations. San Bernardino County is divided up into pre-drawn polygons for its evacuation areas, so now moving forward, when someone clicks on a polygon on the map in the app, it will pull up the names and locations of people who are registered as having access and functional needs.

“So, we will know that prior to having to evacuate them,” Kams said. “And it will give us enough time, hopefully, to get in and knock on their door and make sure they have transportation. If they don’t, then we’ll arrange that. 

“So, that’s going to be a big improvement and change from what we started with.”