I'm just curious, but does your city have a plan to set up at least one shelter/relief site somewhere in the city limits? Like a baseball field, city hall parking lot, etc? Seems like that kind of info would be part of any city-run CERT curriculum.

Also, as Katrina demonstrated, often it is the private groups like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, local churches, or even private citizens that get relief centers set up first or in places without "official" relief centers. Obviously, you'll need to hold out for a time before any of these centers can be fully up and running, but I would suspect that help will be a lot closer than hoofing it all the way to San Jose. But these groups won't be there for long, though, so you'll still need to think about what to do "after".