Council Adopts Recommendations From Emergency Management Department To Ensure The City Of Los Angeles Is Equipped To Respond To Severe Weather Emergencies

For Immediate Release: June 22, 2023

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COUNCIL ADOPTS RECOMMENDATIONS FROM EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT TO ENSURE THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES IS EQUIPPED TO RESPOND TO SEVERE WEATHER EMERGENCIES

LOS ANGELES — Yesterday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to approve recommendations from the Emergency Management Department to create a comprehensive emergency response across City departments and Council District offices and delineate clear channels of communication both internally between departments and externally to the public. The report comes in response to a motion introduced by Councilmember Nithya Raman in February following a series of atmospheric river storms that struck Los Angeles and produced widespread damage to City streets, hillsides, and stormwater infrastructure. 

“We witnessed unprecedented levels of rainfall at the beginning of the year, bringing with it extreme damage to our hillside communities and widespread infrastructure hazards,” said Councilmember Raman. “With severe storm events expected to worsen with climate change, we need to ensure that the City is armed ahead of time with a comprehensive response plan in order to swiftly share information, distribute resources, and address damage to minimize their impacts.”

The Emergency Management Department (EMD) report includes the following proposed solutions:

• EMD will update the Adverse Weather Annex to include hosting an annual meeting with elected official offices to review response strategies, incident specific contact information, public information tactics, identification of communication channels, and appropriate seasonal information;
• EMD will produce an “Elected Officials Emergency Management Handbook” to serve as a reference document for Councilmember Offices when an emergency occurs;
• EMD will improve access for Councilmember Offices to Veoci, the City’s EOC information and resource management software;
• EMD will codify within the Emergency Operations Plan that the Office of the Chief Legislative Analyst will serve as the liaison between the Emergency Operations Center and all City Councilmember Offices;
• EMD will provide training to elected official offices and the Office of the Chief Legislative Analyst on liaising with the Emergency Operations Center;
• EMD will support collaboration among appropriate City stakeholders to create a single public platform that hosts both emergency and non-emergency information including updates to resident service requests; and, 
• EMD and Joint Information System partners will increase public information campaigns relating to incident specific contact information and the City’s 3-1-1 phone service and application prior to forecasted adverse weather events.

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