San Diego Humane Society is taking in pets from its Pasadena counterpart.
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More good news. As of 4pm PST the mandatory evacuation for my neighborhood was lifted. It’s under evacuation warning–meaning people need to be ready to eave on short notice, but at least people can go home. The power is on in the neighborhood and on NextDoor people are already complaining because their internet isn’t working.
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“Her skills are building coalitions and working with people,” Grose said of the new mayor. “This moment demands a true executive who will stand up and say, ‘this is what we’re going to do.’”
One of my cousins used to live in Pacific Palisades and I’m almost certain her old house has burned down. It’s been years since she’s lived there, but that’s the house she raised her kids in and her husband lived there after their divorce.
My stepfather’s sister lives in LA and has evacuated. She is at her son’s house. Glad she is safe. She lives up a canyon with only one way out, and you could get stuck back there…
I’m also impressed by the kindness and charity I’m seeing online. D has a friend who lives in the LA area (safe from all the fires) and they did a big Costco shop and dropped everything off at a donation center. And lots of info on how to help those who are affected.
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If you are able to, there are a number of organizations which could use donations right now. I chose World Central Kitchen because they have already been feeding first responders and residents.
There are a few posts here about the elected officials I believe belong in the politics forum.
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Thanks FallGirl for pointing this out. I just donated to an animal disaster relief fund in Marina del Rey that I read about in the LA Times. First this veterinarian took in her brother's pets during the Palisades fire. Then she took in 40 more.
This vet (Annie Harvilicz) has opened her vet hospital to the pets of evacuees who can’t bring their pets with them. I figure not only does this help the animal, it helps those people who need emergency housing.
I have read up on this vet’s charitable organization (Animal Wellness Foundation) and I am going to forward volunteering info to my DD to see if she can go volunteer at the facility in Marina del Rey. DD is a huge animal lover and is great with dogs and cats.
DD and I have been dog and cat fosters for my very overcrowded animal shelter here in my state. She can’t foster in Pasadena because she is in university housing, so this volunteer opportunity would be great for her. We started fostering after our very much loved dog died very tragically of cancer. It has helped with our grief for sure. I know that DD has been cooped up in her apartment and feeling such sadness for all impacted by the fires, so this will be a great way for her to pitch in and help.
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Which leads to one of my big bones of contention. How the heck could they have water tanks (those big bulbous structures you always see in movies with the town name on them) and not have backup generators to run the pumps? I live near wells for the county water supply here, and all the pumping stations have full backup generators that can operate for a long time in case there is power outages. I heard a day or so ago they were bringing in backup generators, but wow. The other thing is not having generators, why didn’t they request from the state national guard to send portable generator units they have, that are on trucks.
It is complex, and to be honest, even if all the things they are criticizing were done right, this still would have been an epic disaster, the winds guaranteed that, but more might have been saved. Most disasters tend to bring about change, after Andrew hit Florida in the 90’s the state was kind of forced to realize their building codes in regards to hurricanes were way too lax, same with building codes in earthquake zones.
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They will. With the wind down and progress on the major fires ( as slow as it is), they have resources to control smaller fires just after they started. One of the problems with the pacific palisades fire is thanks to the winds, how far it spread, it started like at 1030 am and by mid afternoon it already had like 3000 acres burning or burned.
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My brother lives/lived there, their house was across the street from an elementary school there. We saw a news piece a couple of days ago where they showed the debris that was the school, and we figured it was gone. Basically the entire neighborhood he lived in is gone, literally not one house was left in the area around there.
Yesterday my sister sent a video of someone viewing his street and in front of what had been his house…it literally is all ashes with the chimney sticking up. The only things that oddly survived were some garbage cans sitting in the driveway.
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One thing I want to do a shoutout to, and that is the fireman and first responders. One thing I can tell you having been around firefighters, both volunteer and professional, is that it affects them when they are in a situation like this and see this kind of destruction from a fire. Many of them take it personally, like we should have been able to do more and they care, and I can tell you they are hurting. I can tell you from experience what being in the face of massive fire like that is like (and my experience, as a volunteer at a drill designed to similuate an airline crash, using massive propane generated fires, was nothing compared to what they faced), it is a living hell and unlike the controlled drill I was part of, there is no containment, and literally every minute they are in the fire zone they are in danger.
You may see some of them say things that you may not like, may think they are blaming things they shouldn’t, but understand that they have been in hell for several days, still are, and they are tired and frustrated and angry, often at themselves, because they see what happened as a failure on their part, even though they know logically it isn’t.
People since 9/11 and Covid often say “thank you to first line responders”, but it can be perfunctory, but with something like this, all I can say is I am in awe of the men and women who are on the front lines with this.
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I was reading/watching this morning about the real estate price gouging going on. Rents jumping as much as 40% overnight. And the real real estate crisis this is going to bring on. Not a ton of real estate options to begin with and now thousands needing a place to stay.
Love him or hate him Jason Oppenheim is speaking out against the gouging and is frantically leading an effort to find people a place to live. (He is behind the “Selling” real estate shows Selling Sunset, Selling The OC, Selling the City)
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One other thing to remember is that unlike the federal government, states and municipalities are required by law to balance their budgets. This is the law in every state except Vermont.
So to increase spending, you must find a source of revenue. Rely on increasing revenue or enact new taxes.
I don’t want this to turn into a debate, I’m stating that state governments can not run a deficit.
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or reduce expenses elsewhere. (See today’s WSJ editorial page. Not linking cite as that might be considered political.)
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That is true, and obvious financing is limited. And yes, tough choices have to be made, and there are impacts behind any budget cuts or in budget decisions. There also has to be triage, about what is critical and what is less critical. I can only state my opinion on this, but on a triage basis public safety should be the last thing they cut IMO. I obviously am no expert on the California state budget or the LA budget, but often what happens to states and cities is they are hit with unexpected expenses , often due to policy decisions at the state and federal level, that you end up with unfunded mandates, and then they have to figure out how to pay for them (I am deliberately not mentioning specific examples that could be at play in California, because it is political and also I really can only speculate,since I don’t live there).
I will say that given the recent history of drought there, of the history of wildfires in the last 10 years, looking as an outsider slashing the fire budget should be one of those things that is done only if they don’t have any other options IMO.
One thing I am pretty sure of, given the changes in weather we are seeing, the increase in major storm activity, tornadoes, flooding, coastal flooding, and fires, I think a lot of localities and states are going to face similar dilemmas, and you will see similar problems,cutting budgets for handling natural disasters and the like due to other priorities (that can range from added expenses with other programs or with wanting to cut budgets to lower taxes, it isn’t exclusive to ‘any particular side’) and then the big one hits and the holes show up in the protective net that you would hope is there isn’t up to it.
I just donated to support the Watch Duty App which is a nonprofit effort to provide trusted real time information to people about wildfires.
https://wapo.st/3Web5Aw
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Natural disasters bring out the best and worst in people. Just saw a press conference where they are commenting on the high fees go fund me is charging people when they donate to the families who lost everything. She said go fund me took $95 of her $500 donation. She is in the process of reaching out to their CEO to get the fees lowered.
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