The cities of Manhattan Beach and El Segundo are preparing to roll out new emergency‑communications protocols after the October 2025 Chevron refinery explosion exposed major gaps in how residents were informed.

On Tuesday, the Manhattan Beach City Council will hear a presentation on changes to the region’s notification systems, with the goal of delivering faster, clearer and more detailed messages during any future refinery incident or other major emergency.

Much of the work is being led by El Segundo, due to a state law known as AB 1646 (2017), which requires a single “implementing agency” to manage notifications on a refinery emergency. 

Tuesday’s meeting will be the Manhattan Beach community’s first look at how the two cities plan to coordinate, and what questions possibly still haven’t been answered.

Delays Were Procedural, Fire Chief Said

Councilmember Nina Tarnay witnessed the refinery fire from her street. Recalling the infamous 26-minute delay, she said, “Those 26 minutes were just terrifying 26 minutes... it felt like a lifetime to get the communications in.”

Residents who did eventually receive notices found them thin on detail, offering little clarity about what was happening or what they should do.

Manhattan Beach Fire Chief Jesse Alexander told the council last year that the delay was largely procedural. Before any alert can be issued, multiple agencies must arrive, establish unified command and confirm the facts.

“We cannot send out information until we know what we’re dealing with,” Chief Alexander said. “That takes coordination, and it takes time.”

While those early steps can’t be eliminated, city officials suggest that the decisions that follow – how quickly to issue notices, and how much information to include – should move faster under the new systems now planned. 

Manhattan Beach has trained in‑house administrators for the Genasys platform, which can send targeted alerts online and through its app, including shelter‑in‑place or evacuation orders for specific zones. Alerts will also continue through Alert South Bay, and, when warranted, via Wireless Emergency Alerts that reach mobile phones automatically.

All of these systems were available during the October 2025 incident, and both Alert South Bay and Genasys did serve up notifications, though not quickly or clearly enough for many residents. By designating trained staff to operate Genasys and adopting a new “playbook” for critical‑incident messaging, the city hopes to standardize language, reduce hesitation and push out alerts more quickly once incident command identifies the threat and recommended actions.

The effort follows Chief Alexander's pledge to "strengthen our interagency communications protocols to ensure that in future incidents, the flow of information is as fast and clear as possible, regardless of who holds incident command."

Residents may still have concerns. In the incident‑response framework being presented to the council, public notifications appear only in “Phase 7,” after detection, assessment and the “protective action decision” in Phase 6. 

During the October refinery fire, that protective‑action decision – a shelter‑in‑place order – took 90 minutes. The first alerts went out before any formal guidance could be offered, leaving residents to largely interpret the danger on their own.

Alert South Bay Still Central to Communications

Alert South Bay drew heat after the refinery fire for both the timing and quality of communications coming through the platform. The agency put together its own task force and has revised its standard operating procedures for "industrial incident notifications." Manhattan Beach will continue to rely on the system going forward.

The platform sent three email notifications in the minutes after the 9:30 p.m. explosion. The first two, issued on behalf of Manhattan Beach, arrived at 9:56 p.m. and 10:05 p.m.:

• "We are aware of the unusual fire event at The Chevron Refinery in El Segundo. There are no evacuation orders at this time. Stay inside. Additional information will be sent out as we find out."
• "Chevron refinery fire. There are no evacuation orders at this time. Close doors and windows."

Seven minutes later – 42 minutes after the blast – El Segundo issued its own update: 

• “There is a fire at the Chevron Refinery. There is NO PUBLIC threat at this time and NO evacuation orders in place at this time. Please stay indoors. We will provide more information as we have it.” 

All three early notices lacked detail about the exact nature and location of the event. Each read like a shelter‑in‑place warning, but avoided that term, evidently because no order had been issued. Manhattan Beach had split “stay inside” and “close doors and windows” across two separate alerts; El Segundo never mentioned closing windows at all, but did seem to rush to say that there was “NO PUBLIC threat.” 

By the time these messages reached residents closest to the refinery, many had already left on their own. Others stood outside, observing.

When a shelter-in-place order was formally issued, just before 11:00 p.m., it was posted on the Genasys platform – for those who knew about the platform or had the app. 

But Alert South Bay, which appears to reach far more residents, never emailed the specific order or detailed recommendations found on Genasys. It also did not send out a notice when the order was lifted at 1:12 a.m.

Under the new, updated protocols, the two cities should be issuing single notifications using more standardized terms. Other nearby communities that could be affected by a refinery incident – Hawthorne, Lawndale and Inglewood – will also receive some upgraded notifications.

The new protocols still appear to rely on incident commanders on scene to recommend "protective actions" for residents – such as evacuation or shelter-in-place – prior to issuing public notices. Such steps might need to be taken much faster than they were during the 2025 fire. Also, a critical link in the new chain – "in-house" Genasys admins – will need to be available whenever an emergency breaks out.

Greater coordination may also prevent a repeat of an embarrassing disconnect that occurred overnight during the October event. 

El Segundo sent an update via Alert South Bay just after 1:00am declaring the fire contained, concluding, "Please check with your local PD for additional updates." At the time, the Manhattan Beach Police Department was not a source for additional updates regarding the refinery fire. To anyone who inquired, police could only suggest contacting the fire department or the refinery. 

Chevron itself did not issue a statement until after midnight – more than two and a half hours after the explosion – describing the incident as an “isolated fire,” after one resident told ABC7 that the scene felt "almost apocalyptic."

Chevron Paying for Upgrades, Mailer

Chevron committed publicly to paying for communications enhancements, with Bryon Stock, the refinery’s director, telling the Manhattan Beach city council in October, “We’re committed to working in alignment with the cities of El Segundo and Manhattan Beach to enhance, maintain, and fully fund a community alert and warning system designed to provide critical information in a timely manner."

It's not clear in the documents prepared for presentation on Tuesday what kinds of systems Chevron is laying out funds for. 

There is no new communications platform proposed – in fact, the city is dropping Nixle, one of the services used previously to send out public safety-related notices.

There is one reference to a mail campaign that the global oil company will underwrite, whereby the city of Manhattan Beach will urge residents to sign up for notifications from Alert South Bay. 

The city is also launching a "public awareness campaign" urging residents to "Know Your Zone," meaning to identify their "emergency zone" and to understand "appropriate protective actions for their area."

Resources for Residents

To register for Alerts South Bay:

• Go to: https://alertsouthbay.com/
• Text the keyword MBAlerts to 888777

When registering, you will provide your address to help with geographic targeting of notices. Also, there is an option under Alert Subscriptions -> City Services -> Refinery Information to select to receive notifications for "El Segundo Major Refinery Incident" regardless of your location.

To access the Genasys platform, go online to this link (Manhattan Beach-specific), or go to the main site at https://protect.genasys.com. Both pages include a link to download the Genasys app.

Below is a color-coded set of warning types used on the Genasys platform (as presented in the city's new "Public Alerts and Warnings Guide").

Prior MB News Coverage

"Bland Messages About Chevron Fire Offer Little Reassurance," Oct. 3, 2025

"Chevron and Manhattan Beach Officials Pledge Fixes to Emergency Communication," Oct. 8, 2025