Wednesday night, bleary

[cleolinda]

My eyes are really bothering me, so I'm just going to post the time-sensitive wildfire links tonight, although I will say that I wrote 2200 words today (mostly freewriting, trying to sort out the revised opening to the story, although I do think I came up with a good first line) and then watched Transformers this evening (am I soulless if I say it did nothing for me?). So... my eyes hurt, is what I'm saying. My hand's rested up, though.

California fires create 'utter devastation'; Wildfire losses top $1 billion. I also heard on MSNBC this afternoon that an area twice the size of NYC has burned, and something like 1500 homes (as of this afternoon) had been lost. But, for comparison: something in the neighborhood of 200,000 homes (if I heard correctly) were lost during Hurricane Katrina. Nonetheless, seven counties were declared emergency zones. Someone (a Louisiana Congresswoman? I missed the name) pointed out that while there were racial issues involved in the way Katrina was handled, she couldn't fault the California rescue efforts for being quicker or more efficient--after all, during Katrina, people were stranded in water, unable to move in or out of the area, whereas the fires move quickly and don't bog rescue attempts down. They might resist firefighting efforts, but at least people are able to evacuate in a quick, orderly fashion. Another difference they mentioned on the news: California has had wildfire protocols in place since 1915 (1950? Not sure what I heard, but I think it was 1915), whereas the government was ignoring the need for additional dam funding right up until the moment all hell broke loose.

Were the fires started on purpose? "Amid worries of new blazes adding to the firestorm already afflicting the region, a man in Hesperia has been arrested on suspicion of arson, and police reported shooting and killing another arson suspect after chasing him out of scrub behind Cal State San Bernardino.... Investigators have said that at least two of the huge wildfires, one in Orange County and the other in Temecula, were the work of arsonists."

Some firefighters had been laid off. I can't help but wonder if this is related--a reason for arson, perhaps.

"Washington Wire was a little stunned to receive a press release today hawking disgraced former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown as 'available for interviews' to discuss the wildfire crisis in Southern California."

And finally, how to help fire victims.

Comments

[thansunshine.livejournal.com]

):

I live by all the fires, and I'm really really hoping they won't evacuate me. Like I'll probably cry and be a wreck.

But we can smell the fires, there's smoke on the horizon, and there's ash and dust in the air. It's really unhealthy.

[lylassandra.livejournal.com]

(I'm in San Carlos/ El Cajon.) Most of the people I know have already evacuated or have others who did staying with them.

But don't forget, if you get the reverse-911 call, that one of the reasons so few people have died this time is that they're telling people to get out way early. Evacuating doesn't mean the fire will necessarily come your way.

[artemis-lizzie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm totally loving the post-apocalyptic orange sky and ash falling around everywhere. Lovely. *gag*

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

watched Transformers this evening (am I soulless if I say it did nothing for me?).

No. It's quite a souless movie really. Big booms and smashings though.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

See, that's the thing. I heard from all these people that it was such a great summer movie, and my sister loved it, and we started watching it and like half an hour in I said, "Is shit going to start blowing up soon?" Because that's really what I was there for. But then when it did start blowing up, I liked the movie even less. I don't know, it just left me totally cold.

[sdshellybean.livejournal.com]

i was meh about it too. though i have to say, if michael bay has a genre then "fighting tranforming robots from outer space save the world" is probably it.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

Glenn Beck says San Diegans hate America (http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/23/glenn-beck-people-wh.html), implies they deserve to lose their homes.

Incidentally, San Diego County is a conservative-leaning district with a huge military population (the city itself is more liberal, but only just) so what exactly is he implying?

[leucocrystal]

Wow. I... wow. I'm a San Diegan, and... I'm not America's biggest fan, by any means, but I don't think anyone here deserves anything that happened. Isn't that the whole point of being American, being free to not have to love or hate what you're told?

I know people are always saying stupid shit like this, but... ouch.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Epic disasters only happen to Bad People! And he and his listeners are Good People, so they're totally safe! But those Bad People had better stop Being Bad before they bring down plagues of locusts on the whole damn country!

Seriously, I truly believe that is actually what he is saying. The same kind of thing got said during Katrina.

[snacky]

Hey, Cleo, viv_wiley has some good links about charitable giving here, and she's looking for more via comments.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[nohara-megami.livejournal.com]

Were the fires started on purpose?
California as a whole seems to be having an extreme number of fires this past week. Yesterday in Sacramento a handfull of Victorian era homes went up in flames (I have not heard of a cause yet) and when I got home tonight my mom told me that the fire station down the street (we live 45 minutes out of Sacramento) has been way busier than normal today.
It could be that we are a little bit more aware of fires because of the SoCal fire, but we have had a lot more than normal this past week. I am not saying that they are all connected (that is pretty much impossible) but it is really worrying.

Thanks for posting the 'How to help' links.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Wicked Icon.

[leucocrystal]

Thanks very much for doing this, Cleo. Fortunately, my family and I dodged the evacuation bullet (though just barely, we're the little blue and white dot), but just barely, and I know many people who weren't as fortunate, and many more who have already lost their homes.

You're definitely right about the differences in these kind of disasters... fires have always, always been an issue here, it's just a matter of magnitute -- the combo of us being in the worst of a five-year drought and the 60-100mph winds just killed us over the past few days.

Re: arson? I honestly don't know, and who knows when/if we ever will, but I'm pretty positive that the Malibu fire was caused by sparks from a powerline downed by the severe winds. Thanks again, especially for the "how to help" links. We've received a lot of aid already (out-of-state firefighters, National Guard/Navy/Marines/FEMA aid), but we're still struggling, and the fires are still spreading, so every little bit helps.

[leucocrystal]

Oh, and I almost forgot -- the Channel 8 News site is the one I've been checking for updates, in case anyone wants to keep track of the fires' paths, homes that have been lost, and evacuation areas. Their updates have been very reliable and pretty regular.

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

I've heard conflicting reports of Transformers. I really have no desire to see it, but then I hear people saying they really liked it. So who knows.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I figured I might as well watch it just so that I could say I had and I wouldn't have to bother with it again, but yeah, I'd heard a lot of people loved it. I know that robots are up there with pirates and ninjas in the Eternally Cool pantheon, but... I think I have some kind of robot-centric blind spot. I really disliked Transformers as a kid, and all the robot stuff left me completely cold in this one. Actually, now that I think about it, robot movies I've liked, like Blade Runner and AI (and honestly, I'm not trying to pick the artsiest examples I can think of here) were about very human-looking robots. I don't know. My sister was all "BUMBLEBEE, NOOOOOO!" and I was just like, "I really can't invest my feelings in a Camaro that isn't even mine. Sorry."

[lottery.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can agree with the whole "faster effort" thing. It's just that we get awful fires the state over during every summer, particularly up in Southern Cali and up in the Lake Tahoe area. So we have tons of people ready to go in case some fire breaks out somewhere, 'cause we know it's gonna happen.

[oiseaurobyn.livejournal.com]

I was evacuated at the crack o' Monday morning and we've just now gotten back into the neighborhood (Weds evening). It's ashy and smoky but our whole development is safe. We were very lucky and had very kind people who hosted us. My co-worker evacuated from Ramona and is still waiting to get back in. I know of two or three other people at my work who have lost their homes. It's going to take a long time to recover.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yikes! I'm glad you made it out unscathed!

[jwdmeow.livejournal.com]

Additionally helping the orderly evacuation is the fact that people from SoCal are used to this. There are wildfires every late summer/early fall. Just which counties are affected changes. Last year they had to evacuate animals from the LA Zoo if I remember correctly, and when I went to College (in Claremont, about 35 min East of LA), we had fires near the school two or three times, including one inferno in 2003 where the ashes reached all the way to Catalina island where I was camping that weekend.
Major floods just don't happen as often. It's like how people in California (by and large) know how to prepare for and deal with an earthquake or people in Kansas know how to deal with Tornados.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

I'm a Pomona '05 grad as well, and I remember the 2003 fires like they were yesterday. It looked like the end of the world - it was lit like twilight all the time, the sun was blood red, and ash was falling from the sky like Pompeii. And just to make it worse, the college administrators stuck their heads in the sand. We kept getting emails saying "Pomona has no evacuation plan; Pomona NEEDS no evacuation plan!" although we could see giant flames from the wall at Harvey Mudd and could follow news reports about how the fire was 5 miles away and getting closer. My thoughts are with everyone in SoCal.

[girlalmighty]

The idea that anyone would deliberately set a fire in California, especially at this time for year, is just... I can't understand that possibility. It's upsetting enough that it took me a half hour to calm down enough to write this - and I'm at work. God, I wish my shift was over. I need to check on my parents.

[halona.livejournal.com]

On Monday, the schools in San Ysidro (that's very close to the border and east of where the Harris fire was burning) were let out early due to air quality concerns. A couple of kids decided that it would be fun to set a fire to add to the chaos that was already going on in the county. Thankfully, the fire was extinguished quickly, but it amazed me that they could be so stupid.

Another big differance...

[cleojones.livejournal.com]

At least according to my San Diegan friend is that the streets there are literally over-flowing with goods people have donated, that he says, are going to waste.

He says, donation efforts would be better spent toward American Red Cross.

Re: Another big differance...

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I'll definitely note that.

[elendiari22.livejournal.com]

My brother and his family were evacuated yesterday. They're at our sister's house near Temecula, and as of right now we don't know if their house is still there. I'm really worried; most of my family and a lot of my friends are right in the fire area.

I'm not sure what good it would do, but just in case they have lost their house, would you mind posting a link in your next linkspam? My brother runs an indie publishing press for gothic novels, Zittaw Press (http://zittaw.com/), and the only way I know of helping them out is for people to buy their books.

And really, people saying that California deserves this because we're "unAmerican"? That's just ridiculous.

[at-the-stars.livejournal.com]

Because I'm a lip gloss whore I bought some of that Maybelline stuff you mentioned the other night. In Spiced Potion. And it ROCKS. I think we're lip twins...and I mean that in the least creepy way possible. Keep those product recs coming. :D

[halona.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for a good map of the fire boundaries for San Diego County, then go here (http://regal.sdsu.edu/~serge/fires07/uploads/Main/10242007_1600hrs_Evac_FirePerem.pdf). It was created by some of the people in the Geography department at SDSU. (I love my department.)

[laurel-tx.livejournal.com]

"I also heard on MSNBC this afternoon that an area twice the size of NYC has burned"

The comparisons fascinate me, because here we're being told "an area ALMOST the size of Houston." (They're meaning all of what is technically Houston, though, I'm sure--not just downtown.)

[artemis-lizzie.livejournal.com]

The other thing about relief efforts in California is that we have these gigantic wildfires every few years. We all know that in the fall, with the Santa Ana winds, there's a good chance that a nontrivial portion of the state will be on fire, so everybody has at least a little bit of warning, and we have a system in place for dealing with all of it. New Orleans hadn't flooded in something like 70 years, and the makeup of the city had changed quite a bit in that time. The flood was a complete surprise and nobody was prepared for it and nobody knew how to deal with it. This is not to say that people here don't need help and assistance, it's more that we know what we need, we know what needs to be done, and how to do it.

[artemis-lizzie.livejournal.com]

That'll teach me to comment without reading all of the comments first. And today's Redundancy Award goes to...me!