Some news outlets are reporting that the Chimperator is trying to avoid another Katrina like fiasco in the wake of the devastating fires in Southern California that have forced nearly 1 million residents to evacuate. From news coverage last night, this is the largest displacement of residents in this country since the Civil War. Personally, I don't trust the Chimperator to manage anything well, based on his track record. Moreover, many stories hinted that the lack of National Guard personnel who are in Iraq was hampering the fire fighting efforts. California's lieutenant Governor reportedly asked the Chimperator to NOT visit. GOP Governor Schwarzenegger will also likely get some blame. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times ( http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire24oct24,0,5795853.story?coll=la-home-center):
Exhausted and sometimes discouraged, firefighters struggled for a third day Tuesday to wrest control of more than a dozen wildfires in Southern California that threatened such familiar landmarks as the Mt. Palomar Observatory and the resort communities around Lake Arrowhead.Fire crews threw everything they had at the fires, but though there were notable successes, the toll of acreage, homes and lives lost continued to rise -- as did the volume of criticism from those who said the region was woefully unprepared for the cataclysm.
"If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," said a frustrated Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather. "Instead we've been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where we hopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things."Prather spoke at a news briefing Tuesday morning less than a mile from what had been an idyllic residential enclave at Modjeska Canyon, near El Toro in eastern Orange County. As he spoke, the canyon was erupting in an inferno that forced firefighters to retreat and destroyed an undetermined number of homes.
In a story that was repeated in many places throughout the region, there simply were not enough firetrucks to chase down the fire that swept from Running Springs into the steep, winding roads of Fredalba on Tuesday morning, said Brian Savage, a division supervisor with the Culver City Fire Department who was among the first to begin battling back the flames.
The White House, eager not to repeat its experience in Hurricane Katrina, announced that President Bush would travel to Southern California on Thursday to tour damaged areas and monitor the federal government's response. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and R. David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arrived in California on Tuesday."The world is watching how much of . . . the southern part of the state is on fire," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "The federal government is very concerned, [and] the president is concerned himself. The Bush administration was harshly criticized for reacting too slowly to the threat from Hurricane Katrina and botching the jobs of evacuation and reconstruction once the storm had devastated New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities.
Of course, New Orleans was/is majority black, while Southern California is not and includes some GOP strongholds (e.g. Orange County). Just a coincidence that Bush is more concerned? Also, I wonder how much fire equipment could have been purchased with the billions squandered in Iraq and not even accounted for ($1.2 billion in the case of one contractor)?
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