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General (02) Susana Barrios From:Terry Hanly <terryhanly@outlook.com> Sent:Friday, June 26, 2026 3:12 PM To:Cory Wilkerson Cc:Public Comment Subject:\[EXTERNAL\] Comments on Draft Anaheim Wildfire Evacuation Study and Request for Stronger Safety Requirements Some people who received this message don't often get email from terryhanly@outlook.com. Learn why this is important Warning: This email originated from outside the City of Anaheim. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and are expecting the message. Dear Mr. Wilkerson, I am writing as a 34-year resident of Anaheim Hills regarding the Draft City of Anaheim Wildfire Evacuation Study. I appreciate that the City has finally prepared a wildfire evacuation study for East Anaheim. However, after reviewing the draft, I am deeply concerned that the study identifies serious and potentially life-threatening evacuation problems, yet fails to require the level of action needed before additional development is approved in our Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. This study should be a warning, not a permission slip for more density. The draft confirms what residents have been saying for years: East Anaheim has limited evacuation capacity, constrained roadways, vulnerable hillside neighborhoods, and a long history of dangerous wildfire events. The study acknowledges that wildfire can reach the Wildland-Urban Interface in approximately 15 minutes in some scenarios. At the same time, the study models evacuation times that can take many hours, including catastrophic scenarios exceeding 10 and 12 hours. That gap is unacceptable. A plan that shows fire can reach neighborhoods in minutes while evacuation takes hours should not be used to justify more development. It should trigger immediate restrictions, enforceable infrastructure improvements, and a pause on additional density until safety is proven. The draft relies heavily on phased evacuation, but phased evacuation only works if alerts are timely, residents understand them, people comply, communications function, traffic signals work, and roadways remain open. The study itself acknowledges resident confusion about alerts versus evacuation orders. In a real wildfire, people do not behave perfectly. Parents may go to schools, seniors may need help, residents may return home for pets or medication, and people outside evacuation zones may leave out of fear. These are not minor details. They are real-world evacuation behaviors that can determine whether people live or die. The study also repeatedly points to future improvements such as signal interconnectivity, CCTV monitoring, flush strategies, contra-flow planning, shoulder widening, changeable message signs, emergency power, additional roadway connections, and improved SR-91 access. These are not existing protections. They are 1 recommendations. Until they are funded, designed, completed, tested, and proven effective, they should not be used to support approval of additional housing in high fire risk areas. I am especially concerned that the study creates a CEQA framework that may allow future projects to add evacuation delay as long as the modeled increase falls within a statistical “confidence interval.” That may sound objective, but public safety should not be reduced to statistical tolerance. If a project adds people, vehicles, congestion, or complexity to an already constrained evacuation network, that impact is real to the residents trying to escape a fire. The City should not ask existing residents to accept greater risk because a model says the added delay is within normal variation. The study also does not adequately answer the most important life-safety questions: How many residents remain in evacuation zones after one hour? How many remain after two hours? How many structures are exposed to fire before residents have evacuated? What happens if one major evacuation route is blocked? What happens if power fails at key intersections? What happens if cellular service fails? What happens if parents attempt to retrieve children from school during an evacuation? What happens if multiple developments are approved and cumulative evacuation demand increases? What is the maximum population East Anaheim can safely evacuate? Until those questions are answered, the City should not approve additional high-density residential development in East Anaheim’s fire hazard areas. The draft study should be revised to include clear, enforceable safety standards. Recommendations are not enough. The City should require completion of critical evacuation improvements before approving additional development. This should include, at minimum, operational signal interconnectivity, emergency signal timing, backup power for signals and communications, tested contra-flow plans, vegetation management along evacuation corridors, stronger protections for constrained neighborhoods, and a cumulative evacuation analysis that includes all approved, pending, and reasonably foreseeable projects. The City has already seen what happens when evacuation concerns are minimized. California has too many examples, including Paradise, where assumptions failed, roads failed, communication failed, and people were trapped. East Anaheim must not become another cautionary tale. The City Council’s first duty is to protect the residents who already live here. This draft study shows that our evacuation system is fragile. It does not show that East Anaheim is ready for more density. 2 I respectfully urge the City to revise the draft study, adopt stronger enforceable safety standards, and pause approval of additional residential development in East Anaheim’s High and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones until evacuation safety is demonstrably improved. Sincerely, Teresa Hanly East Anaheim Resident District 6 3