In news heard ’round the world this week, an attempt to make s’mores in Manorville Saturday morning at 9:30 is thought to have sparked the brush fires that burned more than 600 acres. While the s’mores theory may have provoked general head-scratching and even a bit of cynical laughter, the iPhone videos of smoke and flames towering apocalyptically above Sunrise Highway were enough to send a chill down the spine of anyone who would rely on Montauk Highway for evacuation in case of wildfire here.
Suffolk County’s Hazard Mitigation Plan, completed in 2020, lays it out plainly: “Route 27 is the only main road that will allow people to evacuate East Hampton. Evacuees must pass through many other towns before getting off Long Island, so to help avoid a logjam effect, the Town of East Hampton will ask secondary homeowners to vacate long before any mandatory evacuation orders are put in place. Mandatory evacuations will be made before most other towns to help ease traffic problems.”
You can only work with what you’ve got.
The South Fork has topographical pinch points that are what they are.
As we watch wildfires from Maui to Malibu on the evening news with horror, the question arises of how, exactly, the aforementioned staggered approach to evacuation could in reality be achieved. Are second-home owners aware of this responsibility? Is anyone likely to proceed in an orderly, staggered fashion when fleeing for their lives in a raging wildfire?
Our minds go to that moment on Sept. 11, 2001, when ferry operators carried evacuees away from Lower Manhattan to safety by water. We think of residents leaping off the docks at Lahaina in 2023. Would there be wisdom in investigating a plan in which certain residents of Montauk, identified by neighborhood and officially notified in advance, were directed to the commercial dock rather than rushing to join the traffic crossing the Napeague stretch? (Indeed, what if the fire is at Hither Hills, or on the stretch?)
Does anyone know the carrying capacity of the Montauk fleet? It worked at Dunkirk.
According to the county’s hazard-mitigation document, East Hampton Town is not even required to have a “community wildfire protection plan” or “forest management plan” — and indeed does not have those, yet — but a comprehensive plan to mitigate fire risk in what’s left of our woods is underway as local planners work with state, county, and fire officials. That is progress, and good news.
This may be a good moment for officials to plan outside the box.