Marc Choquette
Perspectives Editor
Those who have lived in Malibu for a while know all-too-well the price that some pay for the picturesque views and ideal weather. But for those who are new to town, last Monday’s eruption of flames near Bluffs Park quickly provided that reminder.
Hopefully last week’s fire was not foreshadowing what is to come as the second semester got underway. The blaze, which erupted at the rather inconvenient rush-hour time of 5 p.m., on Monday, Jan. 8, provided quite an illuminated finish to our first day back in the grind.
With such a big deal (insta-chopper news coverage from about five different local TV stations, consequently double the local TV personalities) happening so close to campus, it might have gone unnoticed among the disaster that Pepperdine played a big part battling the blaze and assisting the L.A. County Fire Department because of the school’s preparedness and rapid response.
The co-operation between the city, county and Public Safety regarding the redirection of Pacific Coast Highway traffic up the hill onto Banowsky Boulevard must have been quite a task to undertake, yet if things had not gone smoothly, most people living anywhere past the fire would not have been able to get home.
But in the case of this instant flare-up of Bluffs Park, most of the credit must be given to the 300 firefighters from all over the county who instantly mobilized to battle the blaze, but especially the Pepperdine firefighters, who were among the first responders and have been waiting (but not hoping) for something like this to happen since fire last threatened campus in the 1990s.
While watching television coverage of the smoke I could see from my balcony, one reporter mentioned the university’s intricate “Emergency Plan,” which protects our campus from most types of destruction known to Malibu.
Luckily, the wind that day was blowing hard enough to push those walking to class off a cliff and onto the tennis courts. Those winds also pushed the fire right down to the ocean, instead of allowing the flames to jump PCH and reach Alumni Park, which is so full of green that nothing could conceivably burn.
Knowing that Alumni Park is a fire barrier in itself, with its abundant lawn and lack of dry brush, the chances of flames reaching campus were low regardless of the winds. But the fire threat remains, and its encouraging to know that if something sprung up, we might next time get timely e-mail notification of what is going on.
Even though we had constant e-mail updates regarding our Internet connection (ahh the irony), a fire rages across the street from campus and students are not really notified as to what is going on besides walking down to Alumni Park to “feel the heat,” as Whitney Houston would say, and watch helicopters buzz around and pick up water from the reclaimed water ponds/water hazards for golf practice.
Humor aside, residents of Malibu Road had fewer than 10 minutes to gather whatever belongings they could and take off before their houses were incinerated, and while we are considerably safer on campus than those on Malibu Road, communication to those in and around campus should be a priority.
To the school’s credit, it posted information later that night on the school’s website, but nothing was communicated as the fire broke-out. If a fire began in Malibu Creek or Calabasas with those wind speeds, it would take less than an hour to reach campus. Could an entire campus mobilize in that amount of time?
The lesson from this near miss is to scope those emergency booklets they throw in our mailboxes from time to time just in case there is something else we are supposed to do besides be frozen in amazement when we see flames come over the mountains. There is not much else to do but trust the “plan” and hope disaster never arrives.
Overall, this fire displayed the amazing response time of the fire department, public safety and Pepperdine’s ability to combat imminent disaster, but also communication issues that should be attended to before the next Malibu disaster approaches.
01-18-2007