The Blame Game
Jan. 12th, 2025 03:36 pmTo those playing the blame game: blaming Bass, blaming Newsom, blaming “liberals”: SHUT UP. There is little any of these folks could have done to prevent the disaster. Additional fire fighting resources and additional water water pressure might — at best — have reduced the loss by some single digit percentage — and when you are talking 5000+ homes, that is insignificant in the long run (although significant on the individual level).
The reality is that this fire happened because of winds more intense than the LA basin has ever seen, incredible brush growth in areas where normal brush management is not viable due to ownership, topology, or environmental aspects, and incredibly dry conditions (1/10″ of rain since May, combined with an extremely hot and dry summer).
The political cause was over many years, and from administrations across the political spectrum. It wasn’t what you would expect. It was zoning that allowed construction in the canyons, but that was only a small part. It was lack of attention/belief to/about climate change, which intensified both the winds and the dryness. Many factors contribute to this, but remember that these areas have destructive brush fires, and have had destructive brushfires before, and will have such fires again. The LA basin was named the valley of smokes for a reason. Brush fires are part of life here, just not normally in January.
So please, right now, SHUT UP. There will be post-mortems to figure out what we can do better, but this couldn’t be prevented. It doesn’t help the victims today to play this blame game. You want to do something: clear the brush around your house. Make donations to groups that are helping. Connect people with people. Care about others first instead of playing politics.
[This originally was a FB post. I wanted to post it on other socials, but they have a character limit. That’s a different rant, but one reason why I’m still using FB.]
This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as The Blame Game by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.