Fires in California

[Gav]

I was in LA a few weeks ago, Brentwood to be exact, and the only concern for Californians was the relentless traffic that plagues the city, even the elections seemed of little concern, and fires the last thing on anyone's mind.

Today we find the town of 'paradise' burnt to the ground. Over a 1000 people unaccounted for across the state with 71 confirmed dead.

Trump blamed the forestry commission for the disaster, apparently they'd failed to look after the brush, but had taken millions of $$$$ to do so, but the wise money is on climate change as the cause for this terrible disaster. 

My main point really centres around the missing 1000+ people?

How can the biggest super power in the world first of all not be able to deal with all the fires, and secondly not know how many people are dead or missing?

The US just don't seem to be able to deal with disasters, it was the same after the New Orleans hurricane, parts of the city are still inhabitable years after the disaster.

Many hold them up as the leaders of the free world, but they can't deal with domestic natural disasters?

Why?

[old darwen blue]

Because nobody is more powerful than God or Mother Nature (dependent on your beliefs), why ask?

[Gav]

God and Mother Nature aside, why is the response as poor as burnleys assault on the Europa league? 

Theyre the biggest super power on the planet FFS?

USA not the dongles....

[Vinjay]

Yeah that's an obvious link right there with Boring Name FC, deaths of 71 people and countless lifes ruined. Completely relevant. Stuart won't be calling you asinine that's for sure. ?

Edited December 5, 2024 by Vinjay

[Husky]

I do hope all those rich African countries etc. are going to have national appeals to help the poor folk of California.

[Gav]

18 hours ago, Vinjay17 said:

Yeah that's an obvious link right there with Burnley, deaths of 71 people and countless lifes ruined. Completely relevant. Stuart won't be calling you asinine that's for sure. ?

Not like you to miss the point Vinjay......

[speeeeeeedie]

On ‎17‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 18:44, Gav said:

I was in LA a few weeks ago, Brentwood to be exact, and the only concern for Californians was the relentless traffic that plagues the city, even the elections seemed of little concern, and fires the last thing on anyone's mind.

Today we find the town of 'paradise' burnt to the ground. Over a 1000 people unaccounted for across the state with 71 confirmed dead.

Trump blamed the forestry commission for the disaster, apparently they'd failed to look after the brush, but had taken millions of $$$$ to do so, but the wise money is on climate change as the cause for this terrible disaster. 

My main point really centres around the missing 1000+ people?

How can the biggest super power in the world first of all not be able to deal with all the fires, and secondly not know how many people are dead or missing?

The US just don't seem to be able to deal with disasters, it was the same after the New Orleans hurricane, parts of the city are still inhabitable years after the disaster.

Many hold them up as the leaders of the free world, but they can't deal with domestic natural disasters?

Why?

Interesting point Gav. I've had this discussion many times. As usual with complex matters there is no single answer. It's even harder to explain to English people who live in a place with no history of natural disasters.

America is massive, covering all that land is hard hard work. California has had forest fires since day 1, population moving in has made it more dangerous. It's been reported that power lines falling caused the latest ones, yet again a man made issue.

Forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, river flooding, have always occurred, great numbers of people living in their vicinity is a recent development.

Hurricane Katrina was a watershed. That was very badly managed. Since then hurricane preparation and relief has improved dramatically.

Americans are willing to take the risk of living somewhere nice so they'll put up with natural disasters. Conversely, there are also a lot of rural poor who can't live anywhere else but on cheap land in disaster prone areas so suffer through each time. I've been through a couple of hurricanes. They aren't nice, but it gets back to normal pretty quickly afterwards.

Secondary is the need for massive investment in US infrastructure. America's roads, bridges, dams, locks, airports, canals, power grid, you name it, needs billions upon billions investing in them to get them up to scratch. The only entity capable of doing it is the government, but they don't have the money without raising taxes. There's a running joke amongst US political reporters that Trump has been rolling out "infrastructure week" for over a year whereby he wants to highlight and eventually legislate to get all this done. However, due to his many antics, and the fact that Republican politicians know the cost means that it never sees the light of day.

[Gav]

Apparently not all the 1000'ish are actually missing, many have been traced through social media and were never missing in the first place.....thankfully.

It just seems so amateurish.

[Husky]

18 minutes ago, Gav said:

Apparently not all the 1000'ish are actually missing, many have been traced through social media and were never missing in the first place.....thankfully.

It just seems so amateurish.

Another one for the #fakenews media?

With the vast majority of people having phones and social media etc. these days. One can almost presume that if someone is really 'missing' that they are probably not of this world any more.

[Jimbo]

It's not fake news by the media it's abysmal reporting of the facts by the authorities that should know better. The media just pass on what they have been told.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Jimbo

[Husky]

On 21/11/2018 at 14:41, Jimbo said:

It's not fake news by the media it's abysmal reporting of the facts by the authorities that should know better. The media just pass on what they have been told.

You sound like you work for CNN.

[Mike E]

18 hours ago, Husky said:

You sound like you work for CNN.

You sound like you don’t understand the concept of news.

[Husky]

2 hours ago, Mike E said:

You sound like you don’t understand the concept of news.

If I didn't I'd be sitting next to you in the CNN studio.

[joey_big_nose]

On 17/11/2018 at 23:44, Gav said:

Many hold them up as the leaders of the free world, but they can't deal with domestic natural disasters?

Why?

Speedie gave an excellent answer above, but to add to it the state /federal dynamic hurts the US response severely to any major disaster.  A single event can have a dozen different jurisdictions responding (multople city, state and federal agencies) which makes things very confused. Information integration and sharing tends to be poor as a result.

Non federal countries like the UK  (you have devolution to Scotland, Wales and NI but services are well integrated for efficiency) have a much easier time coordinating and responding.