The fire at the Benicia Port on Saturday was the focus of your City staff this weekend, and as such, I want to use this opportunity of the City Manager's message for “This Week” to share my thanks to those who responded to this incident. It is so true that when an event of danger, crisis or emergency arise we get to see, experience and feel the professionalism, leadership, and resolve of those who are tasked to provide us care and safety. When an incident of this nature occurs, it is our Fire Department that takes centerstage and it was our Fire Chief Josh Chadwick and Division Chief Todd Matthews, who was the Incident Commander on site all day and night of the fire incident, that coordinated not only our fire crews but the firefighters of multiple jurisdictions. Their leadership was exemplary, so too was the crews they commanded.

And while many saw with their own eyes or on video from news outlets our firefighters responding to the incident what most did not see was the staff support behind the scenes that not only supported the fire incident directly but created the human infrastructure to keep our community and the region informed of the incident. When an incident of this nature occurs cities initiate an E.O.C. – an Emergency Operation Center. This is an operation that few citizens get to see and so I thought I would share with our community a little background on the “backstage” of Saturday’s fire incident. Within thirty minutes of the fire alarm, City staff were contacted and alerted to the situation. Within an hour the Mayor and City Council were alerted and advised on the potential of this fire growing into a larger incident. It is in this window of time where there are only a few staff involved, our Fire and Police Department respond immediately and then members of the City’s Public Information Team are engaged to provide information to our community. Within two hours of the fire alarm, seeing its escalation and the need for additional resources, the EOC was activated. What does that mean exactly? It means that a back room in the Fire Department at Station 12 becomes the command headquarters for City staff and related agencies to streamline information, coordination, and action. This incident in scope was rather small and so it was only necessary for a partial activation of City staff to come into the EOC, even still most City departments were engaged in this incident.

Of course, in these types of incidents our public safety personal are always engaged and we had our Police Chief present in the EOC but it may be interesting for you to know that we had Parks and Community Services staff present leading logistics, coordinating equipment, supplies and very important the food for the staff responding to the incident. Library staff were engaged to prepare the Dona Benicia Room for our Press Update. Related to our Press Update was the ingenuity of our IT Manager, who in less that 30 minutes conceived of a way to utilize the Library’s internal ZOOM camera called an “Owl” so the press update could be live streamed to various media outlets and recorded allowing us to post on the City’s website and social media platforms. We had our Public Works Director and Deputy Director in the EOC coordinating with Public Works Crews that were dispatched to aid the firefight by breaking up the concrete on the dock deck to allow firefighters access to the burning timber underneath. Our Finance Director reported to the Library to coordinate with our Mayor and Council members who received a briefing in the Edna Clyne room at the Library. In addition, there was a team of our City’s analysts working to provide updates to our community and coordinate with other agencies who joined our EOC; this included Valero, Amports, the US Coast Guard, California Fish and Wildlife, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the Solano County Environmental Health Division.

The incident response on Saturday was truly a team effort. As the Acting City Manager for the past 10 days (Erik Upson is on vacation, he is back on Tuesday!), I could not be more proud of my colleagues and our elected officers for their amazing work.

Thank you for your interest in the City of Benicia This Week!