The City Council unanimously approved an updated Local Hazard Mitigation Plan on Tuesday, a federally required document that makes Santa Monica eligible for disaster preparedness grants, despite vocal community concerns about evacuation capacity during emergencies.
The 6-0 vote came after a lengthy presentation by Lindsay Call, the city's Chief Resilience Officer, who outlined the plan's response to Santa Monica's greatest risks: earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, dam failure flooding, severe weather and sea level rise.
The plan's approval is critical for the city's access to Federal Emergency Management Agency grants for major infrastructure projects, including seismic retrofits and other hazard mitigation work. Without FEMA approval of the plan, Santa Monica cannot apply for certain categories of federal disaster preparedness funding.
"This plan opens the door for us to be eligible for certain grants," Call told the council. "Without approval, we are not eligible for those grants, and so we will be constrained to the existing funding resources we have available to the city."
The 400-page plan underwent significant revisions after the January 2025 Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,800 structures in neighboring Pacific Palisades and Malibu. The wildfire forced evacuations in northern Santa Monica and prompted the state to release new Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps in March that, for the first time, designated parts of Santa Monica as very high, high and moderate wildfire risk zones.
"The Palisades fire occurred in January and destroyed almost 7,000 homes, and so it has reshaped our local wildfire risk," Call said. The event required city staff to rewrite three chapters of the plan, including sections on wildfire and climate change.
The plan includes 13 mitigation action items that city departments committed to implementing over the next five years, including developing a comprehensive citywide evacuation plan, conducting a water infrastructure seismic assessment, expanding tsunami warning systems, and creating wildfire safety education programs for newly designated hazard zones.
However, the plan became a flashpoint for ongoing community tensions over housing densification and public safety. Multiple residents criticized the document for lacking a detailed quantitative analysis of evacuation route capacity, citing state laws AB747 and SB99, which they said require cities to evaluate whether evacuation routes can safely move populations out of harm's way.
Critics argued the absence of capacity studies appeared designed to facilitate increased development without scrutinizing emergency evacuation constraints, particularly since most new housing developments are exempt from environmental review under state law.
Staff acknowledged they did not conduct a specific quantitative capacity analysis, stating the law requires an analysis but not necessarily a quantitative one. Instead, they used what Call described as a "holistic and qualitative" approach, identifying major arterials and boulevards that could handle larger traffic volumes.
"We identify multiple routes of evacuation, taking into consideration that there are going to be increased density in those areas," Call said. "However, just having a quantitative capacity analysis is slightly difficult, just because we don't know that the numbers of people that will be evacuated will depend on the actual emergency and the areas that are affected."
Council members sought reassurance that the plan accounts for future development. Mayor Pro Tem Caroline Torosis confirmed that the city's emergency response experts participated in creating the plan, while Council Member Ellis Raskin noted the Safety Element of the city's General Plan "has been designed to contemplate the buildout that could occur under the projections in the housing element."
In response to community feedback, Call said staff revised language in the evacuation planning section to "specifically address capacity and ensure the plan meets anticipated demand during major emergencies." The city plans to undertake robust evacuation planning in 2026.
The plan also addresses tsunami evacuation procedures, recommending that people evacuate on foot rather than by vehicle during a local seismic event that could trigger a tsunami. Call explained that with only about 10 minutes to evacuate, traffic gridlock would make vehicle evacuation impossible.
"In a local seismic event where there could be an underwater landslide or the displacement of our local Bay, you have about 10 minutes to evacuate, and traffic gridlock would be so much that we would never advise people to evacuate by vehicle," Call said.
For tsunami warnings from distant sources, such as earthquakes in Alaska or Russia, the city works with the National Weather Service to determine when waves will reach shore and implements evacuation procedures accordingly.
Mayor Lana Negrete pressed staff on whether additional fire hydrants should be added in densifying areas, noting concerns about water pressure when multiple hydrants operate simultaneously. Call said the plan includes a water deconfliction effort to prioritize water use during emergencies.
The plan used FEMA's risk assessment software to analyze various disaster scenarios. For earthquakes, the analysis examined four different fault scenarios, with damage estimates varying based on proximity to Santa Monica. The closest faults would cause the most intense shaking and highest damage numbers, while faults farther away would result in less severe local impacts but could still cause significant regional disruption.
A catastrophic failure of Stone Canyon Dam in Bel Air could impact 214 buildings in Santa Monica, including 23 residential structures, according to the plan's analysis.
Call emphasized the plan is "not a response-focused plan" but rather identifies long-term mitigation strategies. Actual emergency response is guided by separate documents, including the city's Emergency Operations Plan.
"This is not a response plan. A lot of the elements that people are asking for are response plan efforts that we want to prioritize, and that's why they are included in this plan," Call said.
Following council adoption, the plan will be submitted to the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services and FEMA for review. Call anticipates final approval in spring 2026, though she noted federal staffing conditions could cause delays.
There is no dedicated city budget for the mitigation action items, which staff selected based on what could realistically be accomplished within existing departmental workplans and budgets over five years.
The National Institute of Building Science has found that for every $13 spent on hazard mitigation projects, $6 is saved on disaster losses, according to the city's staff report.