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Crisis Management
Preparation and communication key to handling oil spill crisis in Huntington Beach
By DENISE FEDOROW | The Municipal
Some might think luck played into the quick response to the oil spill at Huntington Beach, Calif., in October, but despite a couple of providential circumstances, Public Information Officer Jennifer Carey said preparation and established relationships were key. The spill occurred on Friday, Oct. 1, reportedly 4.5 miles off the coast of Huntington Beach. City officials first learned of the spill at an emergency operations center meeting planned for a large air show being held in Huntington Beach that weekend. “Luckily, we happened to have someone from the Coast Guard in that meeting. If not, I don’t know when we would’ve found out,” Carey said. Anytime a large event is hosted by the city, city officials assemble an emergency operations center team and meet for support in case something should go wrong. Carey said she was there in her role as public information officer for the police department. There were also representatives from the Federal
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Aviation Administration and Huntington Beach Fire and Marine Safety. The Coast Guard official received word there was a possible oil spill, but until 12:30 p.m., city officials still had not received notification that there was a spill and where it was located, but the Coast Guard official was “working with us to get confirmation.” Carey said sometimes residents will call 911 to report a strong smell of gas, something that happens a couple of times a year. Typically, dispatch will contact the Coast Guard and other agencies to look into it, and sometimes it ends up being nothing. However, since so many officials were in the same room when the news came, “it was the best-case scenario combined with the worst-case scenario,” Carey said.
ABOVE: Huntington Beach is a popular destination for surfing, swimming and sunbathing. During the oil spill, the beach was closed until water quality testing showed it was ready to reopen. (Photo by Sarah Wright)
On Saturday, officials were expecting 1.5 million people on the beach for the air show as well as hundreds of boats in the ocean. The Huntington Beach Air Show was canceled in 2020, so the organizers came back with a big bang in 2021. Carey said this air show was only the second time that the Blue Angels, the Thunderbirds and Canadian Snowbirds were all at the same show. “It was a huge spectacle,” she said. Officials wondered whether to evacuate the beach and how to get word to all the boats in the ocean. “Fortunately, because of the air show, everyone was in the room, and there was no lag time in assembling people.” The Coast Guard representative initially got word of the spill through a boat radio frequency channel, and he spent a lot of time
