Mandated State Evacuation Modeling is the Moral Duty of Colorado Leadership

As dire fires like Waldo, Black Forest, Paradise, Marshall and Lahaina are now far too frequent and common, it is imperative that we pass a state law to use the science of evacuation modeling to:

• Identify and mitigate chokepoints in advance of the chaos.
  Provide residents and visitors with their times and maps to evacuate a location.
• Provide residents and visitors evacuation maps that also identify refuge areas.
• Implement evacuation modeling and standards as part of the development process so we avoid worsening evacuation times and trapping people and pets.

RtePM and FLEET (Fast Local Emergency Evacuation Times) is a FREE software program developed at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, funded by DHS and used by DHS, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, the Nuclear Regulatory Council, MIT and many cities across the United States. This modeling software can identify times, choke points and evacuation flow hazards in blue sky AND obstacles created, for example, by cars exploding on roadways blocking those egresses. This software can also help identify the impact developments have in specific locations so the infrastructure can be addressed BEFORE the chaos.

Popular programs that claim to address evacuation concerns by creating zones are terrific tools in normal weather conditions, but in these dire fires, the communications always fail leaving people with no tools to navigate in dark skies with billions of embers flying at 60-100 mph.

The Developers are the ones pushing back against this science just like they did the GeoHazard Laws which are ubiquitous across the nation today. How many developments get stopped with those laws in place? Close to zero. What those laws have done is made building safer, reducing lawsuits and saving lives. Many of the fixes will be easy. For example, in the Paradise fire, they learned there was a light 9 miles outside of the town in Chico that back up traffic into Paradise; had they done evacuation modeling in advance, they would have easily addressed that choke point by making sure the light was green or having an officer there to wave traffic through the light. Just think how many lives this simple solution could have saved.

3 hours beats 5-8 hours all day long. Knowledge is power. There is no worse death than humans and animals burning to death in their cars, in their homes, or trying to flee on foot - and there's no bigger disgrace to willfully ignoring the science of evacuation modeling that can mean 10 versus hundreds or thousands, now, of lives lost.

Please also take the seconds to copy/paste and send this as a personal email to our governor and state legislators mandating evacuation modeling to protect human life and our furry friends.  You can find the sample email with email addresses here.  

Thank you for being a great neighbor!  Leave a comment on this petition that will also be emailed to our leaders.