City staff and residents reviewed the effects of the New Year’s storm at the Jan. 12 city council meeting, and evaluated the city’s response to the death of a bicyclist, Daniel Plummer, on Natoma Road.
Confused communications between emergency responders after Plummer’s death resulted in a breakdown of the chain of command. Los Altos emergency crews and former Hills Mayor Emily Cheng were both contacted in the attempt to respond to the accident and Los Altos diverted one of its emergency contractors to Natoma Road.
Santa Clara County Sheriff’s
Department Capt. John Hirokawa
reported to the Hills city council that county communications operators
had been retrained in emergency response protocol since the incident. Los Altos Hills contracts with private vendors such as PG&E to respond to downed power lines and trees blocking roadways. The county dispatcher should contact those vendors to respond to emergencies like that on Natoma Road, according to Hirokawa.
Hirokawa said that dispatch had fielded 192 calls from the north county area the morning of Jan. 1. “We had a lot of people taking hikes and walking dogs and we had wires down, trees coming down. We drove at least seven groups home to get them off the street. Our main concern was to make sure that pedestrians and other town members knew it was unsafe.”
PG&E responded to the storms by calling in extra crews from Southern California, Las Vegas and Kansas, according to company representative Darren Defner. He reported that there were 5,507 unique outages in town over the stormy weekend and that more than 300 residents had lost power for more than 24 hours.
The city spent approximately $77,500 in storm cleanup, most of it on debris removal, according to City Manager Maureen Cassingham.
After hearing from residents concerned about the danger posed by eucalyptus trees, the council approved an additional $10,000 to evaluate and remove the most perilous trees around town.
The council discussed possible townwide incentives for the removal or heavy trimming of eucalyptus trees, a ban on new eucalyptus plantings and a possible permit requiring major remodels and new residences to remove existing eucalyptus stands. The council directed staff to survey existing eucalyptus ordinances in other towns for precedents.
