Residents press for clearer evacuation alerts; experts urge a "know your zone" campaign

Multiple attendees told consultants they had difficulty understanding evacuation alerts and locating their evacuation zone during the Eaton Fire. The confusion ranged from unclear terminology ("watch," "warning," "mandatory") to difficulty using the mapping features in the notification app.

Curt Johnson and Dana Carey, consultants running the session, said inconsistent terminology across agencies and interface issues with third-party systems complicated residents' decisions. Johnson said the team would recommend simplifying messaging and improving consistency: "One of those things that we try and do is make recommendations to kinda clean up terminology to make sure it's consistent across the board so that if you happen to get a message from Pasadena ... you're getting the same message." He and others suggested a "know your zone" public-education effort so residents can quickly identify their evacuation zone and associated bounding streets rather than relying solely on zone numbers.

City staff and volunteers discussed practical communications steps: clearer language in alerts, showing bounding streets in messages, improving the usability of the Genesys Protect lookup and making zone lookups easier on phones. Consultants urged the city to include these recommendations in the after-action report. No technical vendor changes were ordered at the session; consultants said they would document recommendations for City staff and, where relevant, for private providers such as Genesys to consider.