After delayed response to Bite of Seattle shooting, Mayor Wilson orders emergency changes

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has signed an executive order directing Seattle city departments to improve how they prepare for and respond to major emergencies, with an emphasis on coordination, training, public communication, and preparedness.

The order requires all city departments to participate in updating emergency response plans and to make sure employees understand their roles and responsibilities during a major incident. The order also requires departments to maintain and regularly exercise plans designed to keep essential city services operating during an emergency.

“The first part of this executive order starts with setting a shared expectation that my office will take an active role in coordinating across city emergency planning, response, and recovery efforts,” Wilson explained.

Wilson: Alert Seattle ‘could and should have been used’ during Bite of Seattle shooting

The order comes nearly two months after the deadly Bite of Seattle shooting, which raised questions about communication and coordination during the city’s response. Newly released Seattle Police Department (SPD) text messages showed confusion among police leaders about command responsibilities in the early stages of the shooting.

However, the executive order does not specifically mention the Bite of Seattle shooting, gun violence, mass shootings, or firearms. It does address improvements to the city’s Alert Seattle system, the city’s official emergency alert system that wasn’t used during the deadly incident. If it was, users who signed up, including anyone sheltering in place, could have received text, email, and phone alerts during the emergency.

“I think that we all agree that would have been an appropriate tool to use in that instance,” Wilson said when asked about Alert Seattle by reporters after she signed her executive order. “I think as we’ve said a few times, Alert Seattle is one specific tool that could and should have been used in that instance. So, I would expect that people in that vicinity, or perhaps everyone who signed up across the city, would receive an alert on their phone saying, ‘Maybe, don’t go to Seattle Center right now.’ Something like that.”

OEM director didn’t know if anyone requested Alert Seattle be activated

According to Seattle Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Director Curry Mayer, any department across the city can request an alert be sent out to subscribers. During the event, one reporter asked Mayer if she knew on the night of the shooting whether any departments asked OEM to activate an order of the Alert Seattle system. Mayer paused, then responded, “I do not.”

Moments later, another reporter asked Mayer why Alert Seattle wasn’t sounding during the Bite of Seattle shooting. As Mayer began to answer, Wilson quickly walked to the podium and interrupted, “I think we’re probably going to wait for the inspector general report to tell us more about that.”

Other big changes to how departments across Seattle government will respond in emergencies involve coordination between those departments. According to the executive order, OEM will lead a new interdepartmental training team that includes representatives from SPD, Seattle Fire Department, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, and Human Resources.

The city will also conduct at least two citywide tabletop exercises each year and one functional exercise in the Emergency Operations Center. The exercises are intended to test emergency plans, train employees, and evaluate how well departments coordinate with one another. The order also calls for the city to explore a full-scale exercise involving the actual mobilization and deployment of resources.

City departments must now participate in after-action reviews after major incidents

The order places particular emphasis on learning from previous emergencies. City departments involved in incidents that activate the Emergency Operations Center or involve OEM coordination will participate in after-action reviews. Those reviews are intended to identify lessons learned and develop improvements to the city’s emergency response capabilities.

The order also addresses what the mayor’s office describes as increasingly frequent, severe, and complex emergencies. It cites extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, sea-level rise and severe storms as growing threats, and says climate change is compounding risks to public safety, infrastructure and the economy.

The order directs the city to prepare for a broad range of threats, including extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, sea-level rise, severe storms, earthquakes and other regional hazards, as well as Seattle-specific vulnerabilities such as unreinforced masonry and privately owned critical infrastructure. It also calls for coordination around potential large-scale and disruptive deployments of federal law enforcement or military personnel.

Wilson on how her plan differs from previous mayors: ‘I just signed it, so it is now in effect’

However, by far, reporters wanted to know how Wilson will respond to future incidents of gun violence like the Bite of Seattle.

When asked how her plan differed from previous mayors, Wilson said, “Yeah, so I just signed it, so it is now in effect. So, we’re doing the work here.”

After a pause, she added, “Obviously, we saw room for improvement, which is why we are doing this now. So, we are going to be more prepared. City employees are going to be more prepared to play their roles. City departments are going to be better coordinated.”

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