To: Board of Supervisors, County of Sonoma
Department or Agency Name(s): Office of Equity
Staff Name and Phone Number: Melissa Valle / 707-565-8631
Vote Requirement: Informational Only
Supervisorial District(s): Countywide
Title:
Title
Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Report and Recommendations.
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Recommended Action:
Recommended action
Receive a report on community-identified gaps and associated recommendations in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery as part of the ARPA-funded Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project.
end
Executive Summary:
Funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project brought together County departments and community partners to better understand systemic gaps impacting historically underserved communities and incorporate solutions into existing disaster preparedness, response, and recovery frameworks.
This agenda item presents the final report of the Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project. The report includes 31 recommendations, with particular emphasis on closing the systemic gaps experienced by the historically underserved communities who shared their input throughout the project, and is intended to inform ongoing County planning, program development, cross-departmental coordination, and future investments to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of emergency management and disaster recovery efforts for all Sonoma County residents.
Discussion:
The Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project established a three-year partnership between the Office of Equity (OOE), the Department of Emergency Management (DEM), the Human Services Department (HSD), the Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD), Feathervine, and other faith-based and nonprofit partners in response to the disparities experienced by historically underserved communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using a “design to the margins” approach, centering the experiences of community members with the most disparate outcomes to develop solutions that can work for everyone, the project team focused its efforts on understanding the disaster experiences of low-income households, communities of color, immigrants, residents who speak languages other than English, seniors, and people living with disabilities during disasters. The team sought to identify systemic barriers affecting these communities during emergency response and recovery and to develop long-term solutions to address those barriers through stronger collaboration between County departments and community organizations. Resulting recommendations are reflected in the final report of the Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project, included as Attachment A.
The report consolidates recent community feedback, the perspectives of participating community-based and faith-based partners, and County departmental updates to inform future policy, funding, and operational decisions by County department heads and the Board of Supervisors, as appropriate.
Key Findings and Considerations
While the County has made significant investments in emergency management and community resilience over the last nine years, persistent disasters have continued to reveal disparate outcomes in preparedness, response, and recovery across some sectors of the local population. Drawing on three years of community engagement and partnership-building with community-based organizations, the project identified gaps, both actual and perceived, that align closely with those seen in recovery gap analyses conducted after major disasters nationwide.
Local households with higher incomes, higher educational attainment, and homeownership were more likely to have taken preparedness steps than lower-income, immigrant, and renter households. Community members from historically marginalized communities emphasized the need for more accessible communication, transportation, and evacuation resources, as well as safe, inclusive, and culturally responsive shelters. Recovery emerged as a significant and prolonged concern, with community members identifying the need for streamlined recovery systems that reduce documentation burdens, improve clarity, and expedite support. Some of the gaps identified were based on events experienced from 2017-2020, many of which have already been addressed by the County. However, further community outreach and engagement are needed to inform residents of those actions and available resources.
Overview of Recommendations
The Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project report provides an overview of the project, engagement methods and findings, and recommendations across five key areas: 1) Preparedness; 2) Alerts, Warnings, and Communications; 3) Evacuation and Shelter; 4) Recovery Systems; and 5) Coordination and Sustainability. The report identifies areas where current systems need improvement and offers 31 recommendations across the five key areas presented above. Using a gap analysis framework, each identified gap is linked to its associated risk or potential impact, recommended actions, and lead County departments and community partners where appropriate.
Each recommendation is ranked by priority (high, medium, or long-term). High-priority recommendations focus on immediate life-safety needs, particularly strengthening alerting and warning systems and evacuation messaging. Medium-priority recommendations address important improvements that support preparedness, response, and recovery but are less time-sensitive. Long-term recommendations reflect ongoing initiatives or lower-urgency actions intended for sustained improvement over time. In addition, each recommendation includes a status update, incorporating contributions from lead County departments on progress where applicable. Of the 31 actions identified in the report, 9 are already in progress, 3 are on-going, 2 are planned, and 17 are pending.
Summary of recommendations by key area:
1. Preparedness
• Evacuation Awareness: Expand countywide outreach to ensure residents know their evacuation zone, routes, and where to obtain reliable evacuation information.
• Equitable Preparedness Capacity: Target preparedness resources and education to renters, low-wage workers, linguistically diverse residents, people with disabilities, immigrant households, communities of color, and other populations facing barriers.
• Community Drills: Expand neighborhood-level evacuation drills and preparedness activities that build relationships, shared knowledge, and community capacity before disasters occur.
2. Alerts, Warnings and Communications
• Language Access: Expand disaster alerts and preparedness materials beyond English and Spanish to better reach residents who speak other languages. Prioritize Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Portuguese, Korean, Laotian, and Khmer/Cambodian.
• Multiple Communication Channels: Strengthen redundant communication strategies (including accessible, low-tech, and community-based approaches) to reach residents who face technology, connectivity, literacy, or geographic barriers.
• Message Clarity: Standardize evacuation messaging across platforms to provide clear, consistent, and actionable information about where to go, when to leave, and how to get there.
3. Evacuation and Shelter
• Transportation Assistance: Establish and expand coordinated evacuation transportation options for residents who cannot safely evacuate independently.
• Accessible and Culturally Responsive Sheltering: Improve shelter accessibility, privacy, medical accommodations, disability supports, and culturally responsive services to increase residents’ ability and willingness to use shelters.
• Road and Egress Information: Improve real-time communication about road closures, evacuation routes, and re-entry conditions, with particular attention to areas with limited evacuation options.
4. Recovery System
• Recovery Navigation: Simplify and expand access to disaster recovery assistance, including culturally and linguistically responsive navigation for residents facing documentation, literacy, technology, or other barriers.
• Economic Recovery: Strengthen financial and housing recovery supports, including assistance related to lost wages, insurance gaps, housing instability, and other financial impacts of disasters.
• Behavioral Health: Expand accessible, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed behavioral health supports following disasters, with attention to communities experiencing repeated disaster impacts.
5. Coordination and Sustainability
• CBO Partnerships: Establish more consistent and sustainable funding and partnership structures for community-based organizations that provide essential preparedness, response, and recovery services.
• Sustained Equity Infrastructure: Identify a long-term funding and organizational structure to sustain the County’s equity-centered disaster preparedness, response, and recovery capacity beyond the December 2026 sunset of the ARPA-funded Disaster & Recovery Program Area.
High-Priority Recommendations
The following table presents the highest-priority recommendations identified in the report. A detailed Recommendation Matrix, including high, medium, and long-term priorities for all recommendations, can be found in Attachment C.
|
Priority |
Key Recommendation |
Lead Department |
|
High |
Strengthen public education on transportation assistance, Temporary Evacuation Points (TEPs), and shelter options, including information on resources and assistance for Access and Functional Needs residents. |
Department of Emergency Management |
|
High |
Continue education campaigns focused on advising residents to sign up for alerts at all regularly frequented locations, when they move or change numbers. Continued outreach is needed to inform the community about available resources like the NOAA radios and 2-1-1. |
Department of Emergency Management |
|
High |
Expand use of social media platforms for disaster or emergency information |
County Communications |
|
High |
Consider expanding emergency communication to include additional languages (besides English and Spanish.) Add audio/video alerting, and ensure plain language messaging. |
Department of Emergency Management |
|
High |
Strengthen coordination and consistent emergency messaging across all alerting platforms (SoCo Alert, radio, TV, social media) and include directional evacuation guidance in messages when possible. |
Department of Emergency Management |
|
High |
Formalize evacuation transportation protocols, expand partnerships with transit providers, and continue integrating AFN planning into evacuation operations. |
Department of Emergency Management |
Community Engagement Methods
The Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project used multiple engagement methods to gather community perspectives and inform recommendations. Engagement activities included:
• Targeted Focus Groups: With the support of Nuestra Comunidad, OOE received input from 107 participants, across 10 focus groups, representing communities that have historically experienced disproportionate impacts from disasters.
• Countywide Disaster Preparedness Survey: The OOE administered a bilingual (English and Spanish) countywide survey from September through November 2025 to gather household-level perspectives on disaster experiences. The survey received 190 responses representing 80 of the County’s 357 evacuation zones.
• Community Workshops: As part of the development of the Recovery Operations Plan (ROP) and updates to the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), DEM conducted 15 community workshops during 2024-2025, engaging approximately 185 participants across the county. OOE supported these events and maximized community participation in these forums by also gathering residents’ input to inform the Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project.
• Prior Community Engagement: The Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project also incorporated community input presented to the Board of Supervisors in March 2022 through work undertaken to implement SB 160, which required the County to incorporate cultural competency into the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) <<https://sonoma-county.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5525358&GUID=9589E075-3F92-4826-9E58-F8574C5FE2A5&Options=&Search=>>. At the time, the recommendations that spanned outside of the EOP were not formally assigned to County departments. This project revisited that earlier community input and connected it to more recent community perspectives and County departments’ input and ongoing work, bringing it all together in the recommendations of this final report.
• County Departments Review: County departments identified in the report were invited to review the recommendations, provide updates on relevant work already underway, and identify additional considerations within their areas of responsibility. Their final input was incorporated into the report.
From Findings to Action
Taken together, the findings in this report illustrate that barriers to preparedness, response, and recovery are deeply interconnected and often compounded by language, socioeconomic status, disability, immigration status, cultural factors, and other intersections. Improving disaster outcomes in Sonoma County therefore requires addressing systemic gaps by advancing solutions aligned with community-identified needs and County operations, while recognizing the strengths and value that community and faith-based partners bring to the community.
The recommendations resulting from the Sonoma County Unified Community Preparedness and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Project are intended to inform County planning, support coordination across departments and community partners, and help prioritize actions that address documented gaps in services and outcomes. The development of this report has already helped translate community input into a roadmap for strengthening equitable disaster preparedness, response, and recovery in Sonoma County. Through this process, County departments have engaged with the report’s findings and community-identified needs and gaps, and identified opportunities to align them with plans and initiatives currently in development.
Ongoing efforts and future opportunities should be informed by the report’s findings and recommendations, with particular emphasis on using the priority tiers to guide consideration of high priority actions and longer-term improvements. Implementation will require continued coordination across departments and community-based partners, consideration of staffing and funding needs, and identification of appropriate mechanisms for monitoring progress and sustaining the County’s equity-centered disaster preparedness, response, and recovery capacity beyond the sunset of the ARPA-funded Disaster & Recovery Program Area in December 2026. This report establishes an evidence-informed foundation for reducing disaster-related inequities and advancing more equitable preparedness, response, and recovery. Specific implementation commitments, timelines, and resource requirements will need be determined as opportunities arise in collaboration with responsible departments and through applicable County planning and budget processes.
Strategic Plan:
This item directly supports the County’s Five-year Strategic Plan and is aligned with the following pillar, goal, and objective.
Pillar: Healthy and Safe Communities
Goal: Goal 2: Establish equitable and data-driven distribution of services
Objective: Objective 3: Identify and eliminate data gaps for underrepresented groups, and collaborate with the community to implement measures to mitigate the negative impacts caused by the lack of access to services by racial and ethnic groups that are disproportion.
Pillar: Racial Equity and Social Justice
Goal: Goal 4: Engage community members and stakeholder groups to develop priorities and to advance racial equity.
Objective: Objective 2: Collaborate with community members and stakeholder groups to develop racial equity strategies for County emergency response, economic recovery and resiliency planning efforts.
Racial Equity:
Was this item identified as an opportunity to apply the Racial Equity Toolkit?
No
Prior Board Actions:
12/14/2021: Board allocated ARPA funds, including about $40 million to the Community Resilience Program and specifically the Culturally Responsive Disaster Response and Long-Term Recovery program area.
Fiscal Summary
Receiving the report has no fiscal impact. Implementing recommendations may require future funding decisions.
Narrative Explanation of Fiscal Impacts:
N/A
Narrative Explanation of Staffing Impacts (If Required):
N/A
Attachments:
A. Community Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Report - English
B. Community Disaster Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Report - Spanish
C. Recommendations Matrix - English
D. Recommendations Matrix - Spanish
E. Summary Report - Spanish
Related Items “On File” with the Clerk of the Board:
N/A