RANCHO MURIETA, CA ( MPG) - Thanks to behind-the-scenes advocacy by three Rancho Murieta Regional Fire Safe Council representatives and staunch support from Sacramento County Supervisor Sue Frost, the Sacramento County Department of Transportation (SACDOT) has secured a $400,000 Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) Sustainable Communities Grant to study ways to improve evacuation and emergency access on Jackson Highway.

Although the highway’s infrastructure problems had been on the fire safe council’s radar for some time, members couldn’t gain any traction until flooding from the 2023 storm isolated Rancho Murieta and drew nationwide attention to the entire region. 

The study “will undertake a comprehensive study of wind-driven fire and flooding risks on the highway with a specific focus on six critical intersections between Grant Line Road and Ione Road in Sacramento County and flooding in the Sloughhouse area,” according to the grant application.

The consultant hired by the Sacramento County Department of Transportation will also identify infrastructure improvements, and develop a funding  and implementation plan that will meet a Caltrans requirement for highway improvement funding. 

The fire safe council representatives working with Frost to seek outside funding for highway improvements are Greg Pryor, John Merchant and John Long. Fellow community activists often refer to them as the “Three Amigos.”

Pryor, a retired firefighter, is president of the fire safe council.  Merchant, a retired businessman currently circulating a water moratorium petition, is a council member. Long, a retired traffic engineer with 46 years of experience, was a member of the Rancho Murieta Association Emergency Preparedness Committee that led to the fire safe council’s formation. He has served as an advisor to the council since then.

After the flooding exposed the community’s vulnerability, the three turned to Frost. “

We brought up the issues,” Long said. “Supervisor Frost was listening to us.”

Frost soon brought Supervisor Pat Hume into the conversation because the Sloughhouse flooding was in his district. Frost set up a March 21, 2023, bus trip with Merchant as their guide so elected and agency officials could see where the roadways had flooded in the New Year’s storm and the fire risk on Scott Road. 

“The real takeaway was that a lot of people didn’t realize how far away we were,” Merchant said. 

Frost and the three  fire safe council representatives also organized a roundtable on March 27, 2023 at the RMA  Building. The attendees included representatives from the California Highway Patrol, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District and State Senator Roger Niello’s chief of staff to discuss the critical importance of Jackson Highway during an emergency.  

Frost told the group that she had been working with the fire safe council as they looked at issues inside the gates. But the flooding of major access roads prompted a broader conversation about the infrastructure outside the Rancho Murieta area. 

Long explained why Rancho Murieta is the Sacramento County community uniquely at risk of flooding and fire. He said the largest population significantly impacted by the 2023 flooding lived in Rancho Murieta. Emergency access, not evacuation, was the issue because everyone could shelter in place as the community became an island. 

Although firefighters were on duty at Station 59, other fire equipment, along with CHP, and Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office could only respond from Amador County.

Fortunately no incidents requiring an outside emergency response were reported.

“We really dodged the bullet, Long said in retrospect.

In addition to major intersections going underwater, a low-lying section of Jackson Highway in Sloughhouse became impassable due to the volume of rain and flooding after the Deer Creek levee broke. Although boils threatened the stability of the Cosumnes River levee on the other side of the highway, it held even though the flow of water was only exceeded by the devastating flooding in 1997. 

When that same levee broke in 1997, the highway was impassable for days. Long expects that the Sacramento County Department of Transportation consultant will evaluate the Sloughhouse  levees as one of the factors affecting all-weather access on Jackson Highway. 

“We are trying to shame Caltrans,” Long said in a recent interview. “Don’t you want to keep your state highway open if it floods?”

Addressing fire risk at the round table,  Long used a CAL FIRE map of state responsibility area to show that Rancho Murieta was the only urbanized area in Sacramento County mostly surrounded by a high-hazard zone. 

Although not mentioned at the meeting, the 2021 Caldor Fire could have devastated Rancho Murieta if the wind had not been blowing east that day, according to the grant application. It would have been extremely challenging to evacuate the entire community in a short period of time, given the constraints along Jackson Highway.

Depending on where a fire was burning, residents might have to go east or west, traveling in only one lane to allow emergency vehicle access coming the other way. However, “the time it would take to get 6,000 to 9,000 out would be excessive,” Long said at the meeting.

To solve the capacity issue, Long said, the fire safe council wasn’t looking at widening Jackson Highway to four lanes, which would be exorbitant. Instead they wanted practical spot improvements, such as adding a lane in the outbound direction at a key intersection to eliminate bottlenecks. An example can be seen at the Jackson Highway and Excelsior Road intersection.

Or, as Long explained recently, “My thing is practical solutions. I want to do something sooner than later. If it is too expensive and takes too long, the problem will persist.”

Following the March 2023 meeting, the two supervisors began involving the top-level staff at Sacramento County Department of Transportation from Director Ron Vicari on down. 

“We convinced the county that these concerns were high enough so they went after the grant,” Long said.

Sacramento County Department of Transportation retained an on-call consultant to write the grant application, but Long, who has grant-writing experience, also assisted.

Long said his role was to provide local knowledge and to review and provide feedback on the application. Sacramento County Department of Transportation also applied for a federal grant along the same lines but didn’t receive it, he said.

Long said the county also has asked him to serve as an unpaid advisor for the study, which he expects will take at least two years. Long is hoping for a shorter time frame.

Pryor and Merchant described Long as the driving force in securing the Caltrans grant. Long demurred, saying it was a group effort. All three were unanimous in their praise of Frost, with Pryor describing her as the catalyst.

Frost remembers that Pryor often called her, asking if they should give up. 

“I told him that the squeaky wheels gets the grease so we’re just going to keep doing it until they give us what we want,” Frost said.

Frost said she was thrilled that Rancho Murieta was the Caltrans Sustainable Communities Grant recipient.

 “I’m especially grateful for community members who have tirelessly advocated for fire and storm safety in the vulnerable areas of Sacramento County. Special thanks to Greg Pryor, John Long, John Merchant, and the Rancho Murieta Fire Safe Council, who are long time champions for fire safety in our community,” Frost said. “We are all grateful for the help from SACDOT, Caltrans and a multitude of county, state and federal representatives that helped make this possible.”

Hume described the Caltrans grant as a “great first step” because rural communities often have only one way in and out. 

“We really have two disaster seasons that we need to worry about: fire season and flooding season,” he said. “In both cases, the community needs viable evacuation routes to get to safety.”

Asked about Long, Pryor and Merchant, Hume said:  “I think these guys have really leaned into these issues to raise awareness. They all bring personal expertise from their professional backgrounds in order to protect their neighbors.”

The Caltrans grant was the second time that Frost helped the fire safe council secure outside funding to help protect the community. The first was the CAL FIRE $4.5 million grant.

Pryor, Rob Schultz and Cheryl McElhany unsuccessfully applied for CAL FIRE grants for several years, each time needing to find a sponsor as the fire safe council wasn’t a nonprofit organization.

Frost brokered an agreement with Sacramento County Regional Parks to sponsor their 2022 application and to administer the project if a grant were awarded. Schultz spent weeks writing the application. The group landed the $4.5 million grant that year. 

The on-the-ground fuel mitigation inside and north of the community is expected to begin in the fall with a Rancho Murieta forester supervising the work.

Despite years of efforts, the fire safe council hasn’t been able to reach an agreement about evacuating from inside the gates with the Rancho Murieta Association Board. Prior said their primary concern is that the community could have very little time to evacuate if a fierce wind-driven fire approached from the north. 

Fortunately, the community has greenbelts where  residents could shelter if they couldn’t get out through the main gates.

As one last effort, Pryor has put together a Sept. 16 online meeting to again discuss evacuation from inside the gates. 

Vorster said the “stakeholders” at the upcoming meeting will include Sacramento Metro Fire Chief Adam House, Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services Director Mary Jo Flynn-Nevins, Supervisors Frost and Hume, and representatives from Rancho Murieta Association, the Rancho Murieta Community Services District and the fire safe council.