Letters to the Editor

Evacuation

On the morning of Tuesday, August 29, there was a truck that spilled some material onto Pacific Coast Highway, resulting in the closure of the highway. All traffic was routed on to Sunset Boulevard, resulting in traffic bottlenecks on Sunset and all the side streets.

Frankly nothing was moving, not only creating bottlenecks, but also a traffic safety hazard for the children at Marquez Charter Elementary School.

Truly our community’s political leaders need to address this situation. If there was an evacuation of Malibu, Topanga Canyon, Sunset Mesa, the Highlands, Marquez Knolls, etc. similar to Lahaina, we would all be trapped.

I recognize there have been previous efforts and “safety meetings” to address our community’s unique geographical situation in an emergency, but was concerned and disappointed at the recent event on PCH that raised serious questions about an effective evacuation plan for our community. This was compounded by the recent photo images of Lahaina and all the vehicles bottlenecked on the shore drive with their occupants burned to death.

While there have been multiple citywide earthquake drills and a disaster plan for LA, I have not seen anything for the Palisades. There are numerous seniors in our community, and with PCH, Sunset and multiple side streets totally blocked with no traffic control causing the inability of emergency vehicles to access the residential areas, we were lucky.

I think it would be a good benefit to our community if the Palisadian-Post ran a series of public information articles, and worked in conjunction with the leadership of the police and fire departments, as well as various homeowners associations and the Pacific Palisades Community Council, to arrive at a plan.

At minimum, there should be an immediate system to establish a traffic control and evacuation signage to minimize the bottlenecks.

Peter Friedman