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Sonoma Valley residents could face hours of gridlocked traffic jams in the event of an evacuation because of a wildfire, according to a new study commissioned by a local nonprofit organization.
The findings by KLD Associates Inc., a San Antonio, Texas-based consulting firm, drastically differ from the county’s assessment of its evacuation time estimates, as well as the impact of developing the Sonoma Developmental Center into a housing and visitor complex and the Hanna project proposed to develop a 60-acre site on Arnold Drive with housing, commercial space and more.
An environmental impact report prepared by Sonoma County’s permitting agency Permit Sonoma for the proposed Sonoma Developmental Center said that constructing up to 1,200 housing units, a 160-room hotel and a conference center would only add about a minute to the area’s evacuation time.
But the report from KLD Associates, completed for $90,000 at the request of the local nonprofit organization Valley of the Moon Alliance, suggested that traffic would quickly come to a crawl once residents evacuated on one of the only three routes available — state Highway 12, Arnold Drive and Bennett Valley Road.
Valley of the Moon Alliance is a nonprofit formed by residents and property owners to advocate for and advise the county’s land use policies. The organization said in a press release that it commissioned the study to provide more facts about evacuation plans to residents and county leaders.
“A key finding of this study is that the available roadway supply (evacuation routes and roadway network) is not sufficient to allow the entire evacuating population (number of evacuating vehicles) within the valley to exit without significant delays,” KLD consultants wrote in the study’s executive summary.
The study used surveys, data collection and analyzed road specifications and conditions to arrive at its conclusions.
A full evacuation of the valley, including the communities of Oakmont, Kenwood, Glen Ellen, Eldridge, El Verano, Boyes Hot Springs, and Fetters Hot Springs-Agua Caliente, would likely involve about 27,000 people evacuating in 25,000 vehicles, while taking into account about 9,000 vehicles that could be traveling through the valley at any given time.
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Time ranges for an evacuation varied widely depending on the scenario, including whether authorities would stagger evacuation zones or order them evacuated all at once, and whether traffic controls would be set up.
The study, titled the “Sonoma Area Fire Evacuation Study,” found it would take four and a half hours to evacuate the valley when school was not in session, and another hour if it was.
The report also noted that there were not enough ambulances to evacuate medical centers in the county.
The county’s environmental impact report for the Sonoma Developmental Center project said the impacts would be minimal and could even improve some evacuation times.
“Evacuation traffic added by the Proposed Plan would increase travel times to areas beyond the evacuation areas by up to 1.2 minutes and by up to five percent, although the average increase will be 0.2 minutes (less than 15 seconds) and one percent,” the county’s report said.
But the report from KLD said it would add more than a half an hour to evacuation times if that and the Hanna project are built out.
A spokesperson for Permit Sonoma said the department could not comment on the study because of ongoing litigation related to the Sonoma Developmental Center, but also said the department would not comment on private studies conducted outside of its permit process.
That environmental impact report was the subject of a successful lawsuit from another nonprofit organization, forcing the county to decertify it and start again.
The study will be presented at a community meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 24 at Altimira Middle School, located at 17805 Arnold Drive.
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