Grandview/Thorpe residents, who face high wildfire risk, practice evacuating west Spokane neighborhood

An imaginary wildfire ripped through the Grandview/Thorpe Neighborhood Saturday, sending hundreds of drivers seeking safety onto residential streets and through limited exit points in the area.

Residents in the forested neighborhood vulnerable to wildfires asked the city of Spokane to help them prepare for a potential fire, and they turned out in large numbers for the voluntary evacuation drill on a rainy morning the eve of Bloomsday.

“This exercise was really spearheaded and pushed by the community residents, which I just love to see, and I think says a lot about our community cohesion and dedication to preparing ourselves and taking care of our neighborhoods and each other,” said Sarah Nuss, city director of emergency management.

Nuss, Spokane fire and police departments, Washington State Patrol and volunteers met before the drill at Grandview Park to coordinate the drill plans. First responders and volunteers then headed to one of three intersections – 14th Avenue and Lindeke Street, Grandview Avenue and Garden Springs Road, and Thorpe Road and Westwood Lane – where neighborhood residents would exit if there was a wildfire.

Volunteers, or “observers” wearing bright green construction vests, documented the number of drivers at each intersection by taking a written tally or having stopped drivers scan a code with their cellphone before turning at each intersection.

For example, drivers turning north from 14th onto Lindeke scanned the northbound code and drivers turning south on Lindeke scanned the southbound code. Many drivers chose not to scan the code, so observers took a written tally.

Between 150 and 200 drivers came down the neighborhood hill and turned at the 14th and Lindeke intersection. A long line of cars could be seen at the intersection shortly after the Level 3 evacuation alert went out to residents at about 10 a.m.

Residents registered for ALERT Spokane, the program behind the public alert and warning notifications sent to Spokane area residents, to receive evacuation alerts Saturday for the drill. Many residents received Level 1 (be ready), 2 (get set) and 3 (go now) on their phones.

Nuss encouraged all Spokane County residents to sign up for ALERT Spokane at spokanecounty.gov/3007/Alert-Spokane. CodeRED is the mobile application that accompanies ALERT Spokane.

Nuss said the data collected at the three intersections will be compiled and discussed in a meeting Monday when she and other officials review how the drill went. She said she will draft a review and improvement plan that entails what they can do better to prepare residents and improve egress routes.

Nuss said the drill was important to understand strains on the egress points neighbors mentioned and how they can be improved.

“There will always be bottlenecks in evacuations, but when it comes to underdeveloped or less-developed areas it’s important to understand where those are and if they can truly withstand the incoming of first response apparatus while egressing the residents that live in that neighborhood,” Nuss said.

Mary Beth McGinley and Elizabeth Goldsmith, observers who volunteered at the 14th and Lindeke intersection, said many more residents participated in the drill than they expected.

McGinley, secretary of the Grandview/Thorpe Neighborhood Council, said she was extremely proud of her neighbors, noting they were engaged despite the bad weather on a Saturday.

“It wasn’t a test of first responders,” McGinley said. “It was a test of the system and what would happen in an evacuation, and I feel like that was done extremely well.”

Goldsmith, member of the Comstock Neighborhood Council, said she wanted to gather information from the drill to take back to her neighborhood, which is also vulnerable to wildfire, she said.

Goldsmith said she worries about the limited number of exit points and traffic congestion if residents had to evacuate her neighborhood or the Grandview/Thorpe Neighborhood. She also expressed concern about emergency vehicles getting into the Grandview/Thorpe Neighborhood with the large volume of cars evacuating.

McGinley and Melinda Johnson, a 35-year Grandview/Thorpe resident, worry that adding more housing developments, which are proposed in the neighborhood, would only cause more traffic congestion when neighbors choose one of the few streets to leave the neighborhood during times of evacuation.

McGinley said she believes developers and city officials are not looking at these housing projects with a holistic approach.

“I think everything is evaluated a little bit in a vacuum,” she said.

Johnson, who participated in the evacuation drill with her husband, said she wasn’t as concerned about a possible evacuation when she moved into the neighborhood 35 years ago because fewer people lived there, meaning everyone could easily evacuate with no traffic congestion.

Now, her concern level for wildfires is high as the wooded neighborhood has become more developed.

“It just has gotten to be more and more of a concern as more homes go in and as the climate changes,” she said.

Johnson said she was impressed with first responders and the American Red Cross, which had a booth about wildfire preparedness at Grandview Park, in her neighborhood Saturday.

“It was kind of eye-opening to, you know, get up this morning and see fire people and the police people here and feeling like, ‘OK, they really are trying to figure out a way to make this safer and to support our community,’ ” Johnson said.