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mat-ty
Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 7850
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 Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| techno900 wrote: | mac said: | Quote: | | Always willing to give the criminal the benefit of the doubt, no matter the evidence of his perfidy |
I for one take the "innocent until proven guilty" side rather than your - "guilty until proven innocent" outlook.
I also wonder why there hasn't been a peep from the liberal media about the huge number of fire deaths and why homeowners weren't given ample warning about evacuations. And you can shelve the "you don't know anything about wild fires" since I grew up in the LA area and was near to many, many fires where awareness, Santa Ana winds, news, warnings, evacuations were more than ample to prevent deaths. I wonder what went wrong in Napa? More undergrowth because of the winter rains = more volatility, so why wasn't there more preparation and awareness? 32? dead and no culpability? Interesting! |
Techno don't waste your time arguing with hateful liberals. They only listen to hateful ignoramuses like the DB mayor of San Juan. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 9:52 am Post subject: |
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| techno900 wrote: | mac said: | Quote: | | Always willing to give the criminal the benefit of the doubt, no matter the evidence of his perfidy |
I for one take the "innocent until proven guilty" side rather than your - "guilty until proven innocent" outlook.
I also wonder why there hasn't been a peep from the liberal media about the huge number of fire deaths and why homeowners weren't given ample warning about evacuations. And you can shelve the "you don't know anything about wild fires" since I grew up in the LA area and was near to many, many fires where awareness, Santa Ana winds, news, warnings, evacuations were more than ample to prevent deaths. I wonder what went wrong in Napa? More undergrowth because of the winter rains = more volatility, so why wasn't there more preparation and awareness? 32? dead and no culpability? Interesting! |
Went right past the Trump proposals to cut emergency response and emergency planning. Pat answers, no facts required. We have known for decades that local governments were approving developments in fire-prone areas, where the taxes they paid for fire protection would not cover the cost to actually try to protect them. In Southern California, that is chaparral, a drought tolerant community that has plenty of fuel. Controlling vegetation near homes and subdivisions requires clearing or modifying vegetation for about 300 feet surrounding the houses on all sides. In reality, neither government nor most homeowners have the resources to do that.
In much of the rest of California, fuel build-up and fire suppression are indeed part of the problem—as is global warming. The fire season has been extended a month at the beginning and another month at the end. Not just here—Portugal is afire again. In the Sierras, enviros deserve part of the blame for blocking logging. As a result, trees are too closely packed and stunted. Older, taller trees would generate less fuel and better survive fires.
But removing fuel in the wild lands surrounding Napa and Sonoma is impossible. The buildup has gone on for decades, and Proposition 13 has severely limited the resources of local governments. Many of the slopes are too steep for anything except hand clearing, difficult and labor intensive—and folks like Techno would oppose using Mexican seasonal workers to reduce fuel.
Even if fuel loads were lower, it is unlikely that this fire could have been prevented. 70 mile an hour winds were pushing flaming embers much further than the 300 foot clear zones, and the fire swept through a neighborhood in Santa Rosa—one without fuel loads except the houses—in minutes.
But as usual, the lack of an understanding of the underlying facts does not prevent a conservative from prescribing simplistic solutions that won’t work—and blaming liberals. Carry on. |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9120
Location: at a computer
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:16 am Post subject: |
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Coach Pop:
“I’ve been amazed and disappointed by so much of what this President had said, and his approach to running this country, which seems to be one of just a never ending divisiveness. But his comments today about those who have lost loved ones in times of war and his lies that previous presidents Obama and Bush never contacted their families, is so beyond the pale, I almost don’t have the words.
This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner–and to lie about how previous Presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers–is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House: unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this President should be ashamed because they know it better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.” |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| And for the most part, Trump has chosen unfit people--not enough of them--who will flatter him. Flattery rather than competence is the coin of the Trump realm. Along with conflicts of interest and utter theft. |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 7:55 am Post subject: |
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Boggs said: | Quote: | | WTF are you talking about? First of all there are 41 dead including the fire fighter who lost his life yesterday on the Oakville grade. |
The reason I said 32? is because I have read a wide variety numbers and I didn't know what was correct. The 32 number was from what was supposedly a current news story.
My point which was ignored by mac is that with all the known risk factors and weather forecasts, why weren't more citizens aware of the potential risks? My comment about the media when comparing the plethora of hurricane national news stories and warnings to the initial fire stories and warnings appeared to be from two different worlds. Clearly, there is plenty of warning with approaching hurricanes, but wild fires call for immediate warnings, and that seemed to be lacking.
Obviously, many died because they didn't have the chance to run, so why not?
THAT'S THE QUESTION, and if someone want's to respond to that, great. |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 8:17 am Post subject: |
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Look, I found one story in yesterday's LA times:
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Lack of emergency alerts during firestorms prompts calls for improvements
With California's wine country reeling from deadly wildfires, two U.S. senators are raising questions about deficiencies in the federal emergency alert system that kept residents out of the loop.
Widespread complaints that residents did not receive cellphone alerts before wildfires swept through California’s wine country, destroying thousands of homes and killing more than 40 people, has prompted calls to improve the system.
The so-called Wireless Emergency Alert system allows authorities to push out warnings that trigger loud alarms and vibrations to cellphones in geographic areas, unless people specifically opt out.
But neither Sonoma County nor Napa County sent them.
Now, as the North Bay reels from the devastation, California’s two U.S. senators have raised questions about deficiencies in the federal system after many wine country residents failed to get warnings that they were in the path of last week’s destructive wildfires.
Because of the system’s imprecise geo-targeting capabilities, the Democratic senators wrote, authorities have to decide whether to notify too many people — or not nearly enough — when disaster strikes.
In a letter dated Tuesday to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein said authorities instead relied on alert systems that were far less effective.
“These emergency services are caught in a bind between notifying individuals in imminent danger and risking mass panic,” the senators wrote. “As a result, these services are compelled to rely on emergency messaging systems with far less reach and far less capacity.”
The senators wrote they were disappointed that the FCC had not fully implemented a 2016 proposal to require wireless carriers to enable more precise geo-targeting for emergency alerts.
“We are also concerned that the FCC has granted a temporary waiver of the existing, imprecise geo-targeting requirements for certain carriers,” they wrote.
The senators asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to get feedback from officials in Northern California, as well as those who responded to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Jose, about how the warning system should be improved.
When the fires erupted, some residents had minutes to escape. Neighbors pounded on one another’s doors and blasted car horns. Friends called friends and urged them to get out. Some couldn’t outrun the flames.
Meanwhile, Sonoma County officials contemplated sending out a mass alert. Ultimately, they decided not to out of concern it would have pinged every cellphone connected to a cell tower in Sonoma County.
They worried about unnecessary gridlock on streets far from the fire and impeding first-responders trying to reach threatened areas.
Instead, the county sent out warnings through its SoCoAlert service and Nixle, both of which require residents to register before an emergency. The county also sent out reverse 911 calls to landlines in unincorporated areas. |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9120
Location: at a computer
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:09 am Post subject: |
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| techno900 wrote: | Boggs said: | Quote: | | WTF are you talking about? First of all there are 41 dead including the fire fighter who lost his life yesterday on the Oakville grade. |
The reason I said 32? is because I have read a wide variety numbers and I didn't know what was correct. The 32 number was from what was supposedly a current news story.
My point which was ignored by mac is that with all the known risk factors and weather forecasts, why weren't more citizens aware of the potential risks? My comment about the media when comparing the plethora of hurricane national news stories and warnings to the initial fire stories and warnings appeared to be from two different worlds. Clearly, there is plenty of warning with approaching hurricanes, but wild fires call for immediate warnings, and that seemed to be lacking.
Obviously, many died because they didn't have the chance to run, so why not?
THAT'S THE QUESTION, and if someone want's to respond to that, great. |
I don't disagree reasonable analysis, but I'm not sure why the label "liberal" media was relevant. From all the stories I've heard from friends affected, it seemed that the firestorm moved so fast, that people were caught off guard. And I think that the normal warning systems just didn't have the time to be effective.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7525440-181/the-tubbs-fire-how-its?ref=related&artslide=0 |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:13 am Post subject: |
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Techno asked:
| Quote: | My point which was ignored by mac is that with all the known risk factors and weather forecasts, why weren't more citizens aware of the potential risks? My comment about the media when comparing the plethora of hurricane national news stories and warnings to the initial fire stories and warnings appeared to be from two different worlds. Clearly, there is plenty of warning with approaching hurricanes, but wild fires call for immediate warnings, and that seemed to be lacking.
Obviously, many died because they didn't have the chance to run, so why not?
THAT'S THE QUESTION, and if someone want's to respond to that, great. |
An interesting question, but not so opaque to those who have spent time trying to improve governance. It is always a little amusing to me when conservatives, who usually ask for little to no government, invent a new task for government. Without showing any evidence of understanding of government's limitations, and the reasons for them.
Emergency evacuation is indeed a part of government's function, limited by their funding and the logistical issues. California has seen a massive increase in population in areas outside urban cities, with not much attention paid to fire, earthquake, or flood risks. But even in cities like Oakland and Berkeley, where the hills have been developed with houses on relatively small lots, the existing infrastructure is inadequate to prevent fires from spreading or people from dying. The roads are too narrow and clogged with parked cars to quickly evacuate those at risk, much less bring fire trucks to bear on multiple fires or an out of control conflagration. I would expect the hills surrounding Napa and Sonoma are similarly constrained, and in many cases are dirt and so narrow that a wildfire makes them impassable.
Techno has asked why there is not a better emergency notification system. There are a number of constraints, including funding, the number of poor who lack transportation and/or places to go, people like me who don't use cell phones, others who turn them off at night. The list of constraints, and logistical difficulties, goes on. And then there is the sniping from the right. How quickly we forget trolls like mrgybe, who irresponsibly argued that government should not have been cautious and called for evacuation of Florida as the largest hurricane on record approached.
Nonetheless, there are areas like the California delta where evacuation is the only tool to prevent deaths from the inevitable floods. The Delta Commission is developing just such a program, along with strategic improvements in flood control, that will minimize but not prevent loss of life. They are subject to unending criticism from the right, who argue for personal responsibility and against government programs--until they suffer a loss.
And to be sure, Trump and Republicans have done their best to de-fund these programs, answering Techno's question about why they are not in place. He ignored that problem repeatedly. |
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techno900
Joined: 28 Mar 2001
Posts: 4161
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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Boggs said: | Quote: | | I don't disagree reasonable analysis, but I'm not sure why the label "liberal" media was relevant. |
My guess is that if the Governor of Calif. was a Republican, the state and the liberal media would be going nuts blaming him for his negligence. But as it is, not one word about your Governor. |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002
Posts: 9120
Location: at a computer
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| Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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| techno900 wrote: | Boggs said: | Quote: | | I don't disagree reasonable analysis, but I'm not sure why the label "liberal" media was relevant. |
My guess is that if the Governor of Calif. was a Republican, the state and the liberal media would be going nuts blaming him for his negligence. But as it is, not one word about your Governor. |
In my business , that's called speculation..
here's another 2 hypothetical situations Techno...
If Barrack Obama was caught chatting up Billy Bush in a van on Access Hollywood, would he have won in 2012?
If Barrack Obama said ZERO about 4 dead Green Berets, killed by Al Qeda, would the conservative media care? |
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