California Burning

From a MySpace bulletin this morning:




Here is the view from space...


..dubbed "California's Worst Firestorm"

Pictures speak a thousand words
>


































REPOST THIS;
take a few minutes to.
Hit REPLY and repost the code.


& PRAY PEOPLE;



From: Claudette...
Date: Oct 23, 2007 10:41 AM


From: Nick

It is Day 3 of the worst fire in California History. At this point in San Diego County, where I live, almost 300,000 acres have been scorched. For scale, that's roughly equivalent to all of New York City. More than 1,200 homes have burned to the ground and close to 500,000 additional homes have been evacuated. Sports stadiums, churches and schools have been converted to refugee centers.

The entire region is blanketed by a redish gray smoke. My home is covered with a layer of fine ash. Here is what things look like from a satellite:



Here is sample of what it looks like from the ground level:







The statistics above don't even begin to convey the magnitude and shocking reality of the destruction. Here are some visual samples to emphasize the point:





















There are surreal scenes from the suburbs, where normally tranquile neighborhoods and quiet culdesacs have become galleries of horror. Here are a few more images to drive that horror home:















The driving force behind the countless wildfires at this point are dry, gusting Santa Ana winds., which fuel the ever-spreading flames while grounding many of the aerial assets so desparately needed to bring this disaster under control.







In addition to the victims of these fires, many of whom have lost everything that they have, my thoughts and prayers go out to the men and women who are out there on the front lines in harms way battling the blazes up close. Thank you to all who have expressed your concern and shared your empathy. Stay tuned for more updates.

it has been an amazing thing to watch Spring but I 've seen people lose it here too...back in the riots of ninty one or ninty two people did lose it sometimes especially when they think they have been abandoned!!! Which in the case of Katrina those people were!!! They had every right to feel angry and at a loss...and the rest of the country should feel ashamed for haveing allowed it to continue for as long as it did.
I'm sorry Spring...I don't mean to get on a soap box here but if you been watching the news here it's been the affluient neighborhoods thet have recieved the attention first and if it had been south Central L.A. that was burning they would probably have let it burn!!!
But because it was "Malibu" where it all started, they were there lickidysplit.
There is a small community of mostly Hispanics that lived in the path of the Castaic fire ...and area called Fillmore ...if the fire had reached that far I seriously dought you would have seen much coverage or effort there to put it out...California is a hugh tax base for this country and don't think for a moment that it doesn't have something to do with how well everybody responds to us here
Frankly speaking if we were as pour as most of New Orleans we would probably never have seen one plane drop a load of water...

As they say ...Money talks and Bs walks...and it's the money that talked here in California

Two I agree with what you have said about the agencies showing up in the affluent areas. The affluent are always the ones the government, fire agencies, rescue crews, or whatever come to aid of first. However because I lived through Katrina I know for a fact that the middle class were the ones left to their own devices after that catastrophe. Not the poor, and certainly not the affluent.

Initially the poor that were in the New Orleans area were in very bad shape after the storm, but a lot of that was because of their stubbornness to use common sense and help themselves and evacuate. There were ways to evacuate too. Many had cars that were left to rot after the storm. There were church and school buses that sat empty. I watched all news reports and I head the mayor plead with them to leave. Then again after the storm and the flooding there would have been plenty of food and water in the stores for the elderly, mothers and children but the looting and the rioting going on was atrocious. They would steal all the water, food and whatever, and then want to charge for it. It was obscene. The innocent people were also in fear for their lives. I don't care what the news states about the scene after the hurricane, there were murders, rapes, and indescribable crimes going on.

I know the Coast Guard was sent initially in to rescue people and some people actually shot at the helicopters and thus they were pulled back. It was a dire situation there. The were actually scared to go in because it was out of control and could have become a guerrilla type war zone.

I know that FEMA finally stepped up and gave each poor family or individual money after the storm. The first thing they received was $2,000 apiece while at the Astrodome. Then they received checks from at the very least $20,000 to over $100,000 to start over. Most spent it foolishly. They are still receiving free rent over here in the Houston area, and won't work. Now it is going on three years after Katrina. They sent in six buses to the luxury apartments - they had set them up in for free - for them to get on and be taken to sign up for work, education, public assistance and whatever. One lone man got on a bus.ONE!

The middle class was left to fight the insurance companies themselves, after supposedly doing the right thing and paying their insurance all those years, and then everybody turned their back on them. None of the middle class was eligible for FEMA assistance, Red Cross assistance or any other assistance. We were all told we had insurance so we were ineligible. We did not get free rent, or free hotel rooms, free apartments, or free food. So if any of the middle class in California expects government assistance they better think again. It will not happen. The uninsured, and the affluent will get all the entitlements. The middle class was left to find shelter while still paying mortgages on homes that were inhabitable, or totally destroyed. It was a terrific financial burden.

My step-daughter is a respiratory therapist, and she stayed at the hospital in New Orleans during the hurricane. My son-in-law took the children and evacuated with them. Well after the storm they were besieged by gangs of people in the hospital. They stole all the drugs, food, and whatever they could get their hands on. The staff in the hospital had to move patients up the stairs to the top floors because they were being shot at. At one point she hid under a bed to keep from being seen. They had to barricade the stairwells, and all the doors to keep the degenerates out. They were actually shooting through the doors. She stayed there like that for 12 days. The generators went out because they could not get fuel in for them. It was the most horrific situation you can imagine. They had to ration what little water they had, which was minimal, and the patients were given ensure or whatever they had managed to salvage. It was an incredibly trying time. They all did their best. My son-in-law eventually got a boat and got her and several others out with the boat, but he said they were stopped several times by roving gangs. He believes that because they had some black patients on the boat they may have been spared. I hate to say that, but that is the truth of the matter. The police could do nothing. All the police stations had been looted of guns and ammo.

I have to say that it is not a crime to be poor or needy, but it is a crime to act as a lot of those people did after the hurricane. It seemed not one person was interested in helping another. They were all about themselves. Even the children were left without food and water so the greedy could hoard it.

My youngest son stayed in the area during the hurricane - on the north shore of New Orleans - supposedly a safe zone. He refused to leave with me no matter how hard I tried to convince him (a stubborn Cappy). He was living in a house with 4 other young men and leading the single life to the hilt. Well the water came up on him and eventually it was at five feet and they all to swim for their life. He lost his shoes, and ended up with severely cut feet, and very ill from the experience, but they managed to get to some boats and rescue some elderly people, and others that had not heeded the warnings, and take them to higher ground. He told me that was one of the most terrifying experiences of his life. He said the wind was like something out of a horror movie and trying to control the small boat was actually life threatening. I couldn't find him for almost three weeks after the storm, and we could not get in touch with my step-daughter for over two weeks. We could not get back into the area because of the escalating violence, and the condition of standing water. He ended up in a neighboring town where some people took him in and gave them all food, water, and shelter. This was far away from New Orleans.

When we did get back in everybody was armed to the teeth because of the looting and the crime. I left an ice chest on my contaminated front porch while I was in the house with a mask, gloves and boots on, and somebody stole it. I would have certainly shared, and I actually did when we managed to get back in. We brought several ice chests and water with us and gave them away. We were left with no water for two days over that incident. I was so disheartened. Most of anything of value that I had was stolen out of my house, and it had been under 7 feet of water, so it was pretty nasty in there.

What I am trying to say Two is that this situation in California looks orderly to me compared to what I experienced after the storm. In New Orleans it was the worst (and the best) of human nature I have ever seen. Immediately after though it was mostly the worst. It was disgusting, demoralizing, inhumane, and whatever else you can think of. Most of those people were all about themselves and what they could steal or get for free, even if it meant harming others.

When they showed one of the stadiums in San Diego where a lot have evacuated I saw what appeared to be many poor people there. They were not shoving, shouting or assaulting others.

Once in Houston at the Astrodome the Katrina evacuees were fed, clothed, given money, and free shelter and food was arranged for them. I know when they asked them to form crews and clean they refused. Several women from one of the churches here were asked to come in with cleaning supplies, gloves, toilet brushes and whatever to clean behind them. They would do nothing to help themselves. It was completely demoralizing to the women that had worked for days cooking, bringing in clothes, giving gift certificates, and offering their assistance.

I suppose I was too close to the happenings of Katrina to be total unbiased about this. I admit that, but what I saw there I sincerely hope never happens again. My grandmother always told me it is not a sin or crime to be poor, but it is a total travesty to lose your dignity, and it is the worst of crimes to think that you are more important than any other human being. That is what happened after Katrina. One is never so poor that they cannot help another suffering soul.

I wasn't offended Spring and you never have to apoligize...Your a very dear person and are always intitaled to your opinion here. I truely appreciacte it!!! Like I said Iwas just getting on a soap box
and ranting about things