EMERGENCY PLANNING

State, federal, and local representatives need to improve the coordination and resources brought to the table for potentially dangerous debris flow areas. While some debris flow areas are older and known and have been addressed over the years, other risks are short-term and develop after a large-scale wildfire.

In particular, there is an immediately need after a wildfire when information about debris flow hazards needs to be assembled quickly in order to protect the public from the secondary impacts, such as debris flows. No mapping of burn areas at the state level is completed after most small-scale local events. After the 2000 Hi Meadows and Bobcat wildfires the CGS and DEM worked together to fund and map the potential debris flow hazards for those areas. After the 2002 wildfires, DEM, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) and FEMA used presidential disaster funds to have the USGS, CGS and CWCB do two phases of mapping hazard risks. The first phase included providing quick hazard maps depicting the new areas at risk from debris flows, based on burn area. The second phase included providing more detailed maps of the three largest burn areas: Hayman, Coal Seam, and Missionary Ridge. While the maps provided valuable information to the emergency managers, they would have been more valuable if provided sooner. From the emergency management perspective, the debris flow risk starts immediately following the wildfire. Residents demand that elected officials and emergency managers make immediate decisions about emergency warning and evacuation procedures and related public education. Until information is provided to local decision-makers they are working with very limited information. Types of information emergency managers need from scientists, including but not limited to geologists, weather forecasters, and foresters, is information that can be put into potential scenarios, to predetermine best courses of action. This includes changes in drainage patterns and velocities and dangerous precipitation levels.