Issaquah study finds most neighborhoods can clear within about two hours; Highlands could take nearly three

An Issaquah emergency-management study presented June 16 found that under the modelled scenarios 90% of the city’s residents could leave Issaquah’s municipal boundaries in about 2 hours and 20 minutes, but Issaquah Highlands could take about 2 hours and 50 minutes to reach that same level of clearance.

Jared Schneider, Issaquah’s emergency manager, told the Committee of the Whole the evacuation time estimate (ETE) combines three factors: how long households take to start a trip, the amount of traffic generated during an evacuation, and the transportation network available to carry vehicles. “The wildfire evacuation time estimate study is really made up of 3 main factors,” Schneider said. The study used a community survey (more than 380 respondents) and a traffic simulation built from detailed roadway observations.

The nut graf: the study is intended to show how quickly people can exit city limits, not how long it takes to reach a designated safe shelter, and to help the city choose mitigation steps — from public outreach to physical infrastructure changes — that reduce evacuation time and avoid gridlock.

Key findings and immediate implications

- Citywide: the ETE for 90% of residents is about 2 hours 20 minutes under the study’s baseline conditions (mixed day/weekend and seasonal scenarios). Schneider said the study reports neighborhood-level times; “most of the neighborhoods individually ……