Town Of Truckee Large Scale Evacuation Community Workshop October 28th

The Town of Truckee is taking action to improve emergency evacuation planning and enhance the ability of emergency services to rapidly move residents and visitors out of harm’s way during large-scale emergencies. Unfortunately, most of the opportunities for public input happened earlier this year, before many of us became aware of the Brockway Collective project, or the Joerger Ranch Parcel 4 Project on the other side of Brockway Road.

Amongst Sierra Meadows residents, evacuation and road congestion is one of the three largest concerns about the development. Knowing that the Parcel 4 development and the Soaring Ranch Phase 2 development will likely all be built on the same timeline means that our neighborhood will be getting much more crowded in terms of vehicles and full time residents, as most of these units are being built as rentals. Theoretically each unit represents 2 or more vehicles, and there is a potential of adding about 400 units within a 1/4 mile radius of the Brockway/267 intersection.

The committee that has been doing the Large Scale Evacuation Study is holding a Community Workshop on Wednesday, October 28th. The meeting will be held at the town council chambers from 5:30 until 7:00.

During this update on the Evacuation Study you will:

• Get updated on the Large Scale Evacuation Study findings
• What has the community and other agencies said so far?
• See early finding and projects under consideration to aid in a large scale evacuation
• It also is your last chance to give your input before the study is finalized

So even though we don’t know all of the details about all of these projects that are about to happen in our neighborhood, we must speak up about our concerns before it’s too late. How many times have we already been told that if we had concerns about the Brockway Collective property zoning, we should have been going to all of the Truckee 2040 general plan meetings.

The meeting page at the town of Truckee website teases that food and free emergency power banks will be offered as an incentive to attend, though supplies are limited. There is an RSVP link on that page.

We need to stand up to over development on all fronts to protect Sierra Meadows and the town of Truckee.

After The Meeting Highlights

Here’s the key takeaways from the meeting, which was basically a report on what the study considered:

• The study is being conducted by a private contractor, DKS Associates. The same contractor is doing the study for the town of Truckee, the Tahoe Donner HOA and Placer County.

• The study focused on five possible scenarios: fire near Donner Laker, fire in Tahoe Donner, fire in Glenshire, a hazmat incident in the downtown railroad area and one more.

• Curiously absent from the study was any significant fire incident or aircraft related incident in Sierra Meadows and Ponderosa Palisades. Audience members pointed out that those two neighborhoods have a very high portion of full time residents. Evacuation of Sierra Meadows and Ponderosa Palisades could be heavily impacted by additional evacuations from Placer County neighborhoods like Shaffers Mill, Martis Camp or North Lake Tahoe areas. That is a plausible scenario for a wildfire occurring in the Sawtooth Ridge area.

• There was no specific evidence that any consideration was made for future developments of the Brockway Collective, Joerger Ranch Parcel 4 or Soaring Ranch Phase 2.

• About ten different capital projects should be considered to improve traffic flow during evacuation. The most expensive of these was to consider a double lane roundabout at 267 and Brockway Road. There is not any plan for this at this time, it’s just one idea. The OES coordinator suggested the placing law enforcement at critical intersections to keep traffic moving is likely the most important tool during an evacuation sequence.

• Free pizza was served. Free emergency power banks were available. Town of Truckee officials seemed grateful to get constructive feedback from residents.