Could you get out with flames beside your car?
Councilmember Kitty Klitzke recounts stalled evacuations and texts with State Senator Marcus Riccelli as he tried to leave Five Mile. She credits firefighters and police but challenges calling the evacuation successful. This is her account; captions are not independently audio-verified.
“It was not a successful evacuation to have people watching flames beside their cars, sitting there for three hours, texting their council members, ‘We still haven’t moved,’ every 15 minutes for three hours.”
Clip transcript
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But, we have to find a balance there. I know we can't build this infrastructure before the growth goes in, but this is a ridiculous lag, and it was not a successful evacuation to have people watching flames beside their cars, sitting there for three hours, texting their council members, "We still haven't moved," every 15 minutes for three hours.
And me texting Chief Hall again every 15 minutes for three hours, "My people still haven't moved." And then on the other side, on Five Mile, texting back and forth with Marcus Riccelli as he's trying to evacuate, and they finally got that cleared up. That took civilian ground guides, which is super dangerous.
And then on the Indian Trail side, it was just bumper to bumper, not moving. There was nothing anybody could do, including the police. People were getting out of their cars and walking up and down and knocking on each other's windows and saying, "Have you heard anything? Everybody was being very polite. They couldn't move. It was insane that we didn't have mass panic there. But luckily, Indian Trail, a little calmer, a little more polite than Five Mile. They stuck it out, and they survived.
There were people who didn't evacuate because they looked and saw that there was nowhere to go. I hosted a family whose plan was to go through the dump site because they knew there was an easement, and then they looked out and the dump site was on fire, and they're like, "Never mind." And then their other friends had to convince them. It was a nightmare. We are so lucky nobody died. That was the skin of our teeth. That was not something we can claim was successful.
And I think the firefighters and the police did the best they could. I'm not blaming anybody on the ground. But having fought some of those developments up there for the last 20 years with this same argument and having nothing have happened except some connectivity at the top of Five Mile with Barnes Road and Strong Road, I can't help but also be livid for these people.
And I don't know if any of you have gone up yet, but even though it's been a month now, it's still... I was just at Indian Trail Neighborhood Council last night. Driving by those sites, it's really shocking and visceral, especially when you've been up there working with those people, trying to prevent this exact scenario from happening for 20 years. I guess I'm curious as to how do we address...