SHE'S A POWERFUL FORCE -- NATURAL DISASTERS

[HairOfTheDog]

:(

The death toll following deadly Hurricane Michael in the US has risen to 18, as rescuers uncovered another body in the rubble of the Florida town of Mexico Beach. The town had been almost obliterated by the storm. 

Rescue teams, hampered by power and telephone outages, have used cadaver dogs, drones and heavy equipment to search for hundreds of people unaccounted for in devastated communities across the Florida Panhandle.  

The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers go house-to-house and comb through the rubble in Mexico Beach and other Florida coastal communities, such as Port St. Joe and Panama City.  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...cally.html

[Duchess]

I'm seeing people asking where FEMA is. I hope it's the case that FEMA just haven't reached where they are and not that FEMA isn't even there.

[Duchess]

Funny, not funny. When white people go into the destroyed businesses they are "salvaging supplies", when black people do it, they are looting.

[BigMark]

trump told fema not to bother.

[Carsman]

I'm seeing people asking where FEMA is. I hope it's the case that FEMA just haven't reached where they are and not that FEMA isn't even there.

trump told fema not to bother.

What is happening with those thousands of people who have had their lives turned upside down from Michael ?

Can't begin to comprehend what they are going through! No homes, no jobs, no cars, no schools, no money, or credit cards, no food, no water, no real hope!

Don't see much about the Texas flood victims from several week ago, as well as flooding again the last few days. 

Porto Rico is still recovering from Maria.

The weather can certainly screw up so many people's lives and worlds time and time again!

[Tammy75]

I live ouside Charlotte NC and am an insurance agent in NC but thankfully the only damage my customers had was secondary high value homes so none of my customers are desperate. We sure didn't need the rain we still have our homes and our jobs. God Bless those that don't.

Next week when we go to Florida on vacation, we are hoping to drive through PCB but we are staying in Destin. I would love to help the economy in PCB but we are not even sure if the hotel is still standing or if the restaurants are still open. So many people are one paycheck away from homelessness and I am so sad for those in this position.

Nobody cares.

[HairOfTheDog]

It's good to hear that you and your customers weren't too badly impacted Tammy.

I think a lot of people care (though a lot don't give a shit, that's for sure).

But, aside from donating to disaster relief, there's not much that can be done unfortunately.

One thing I'll never do is vote for a President or state representative who doesn't believe in or understand the signifigance of climate change, nor one who isn't willing to prioritize infrastructure budgeting (for which it's actually easy to get bi-partisan approval, but nonetheless rarely gets done on the national level).

I won't vote for local representatives who don't have a firm plan and high priority on disaster recovery either.

[HairOfTheDog]

California Wildfires



The Camp Fire to the north of me is the worst in the state's history.  The whole 26,000-population town of Paradise is history and  11 people are dead. Rest in peace.

In Southern California, all of Malibu has been evacuated as portions of Los Angeles and Ventura counties remain engulfed in fire and smoke. 

Both fires started on Thursday and are being fueled by dry weather and Santa Ana winds.

The residents of Thousand Oaks suffered a terrible mass shooting on Wednesday night and now they're dealing with flames approaching.

Meanwhile, since California isn't one of Trump's core support states and he doesn't agree with Governor Brown when it comes to the reality of climate change exacerbating natural disasters..........the President of the United States isn't even pretending to give a shit about the loss of life and rampant hardship going down in the union's most populous state.

(continued)

[HairOfTheDog]

Instead, President Trump is blaming forest mismanagement (as Duchess and Rootilda noted in other threads), chastising Californians, and threatening the state with a cut-off of federal funding. Seriously fucked up and disgraceful bullshit.  

Earlier this year, Trump blamed deadly California wildfires on 'water mismanagement' and claimed California was dumping clean water into the sea and didn't have enough to put out fires.  Both those claims are ridiculous and easily proven false.  

This time, Trump is blaming dead trees in the forests for creating a fire hazard.  That may be partially true, but California forest management is continually cutting them down and the state's forest management has no control/authority to do so on the 50% of forest land here which is controlled and managed by the very Federal government Trump oversees.

(continued)

[HairOfTheDog]

Governor Jerry Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, said in a statement, “Our focus is on the Californians impacted by these fires and the first responders and firefighters working around the clock to save lives and property — not on the president’s inane, uninformed tweets.”

Governor-elect Gavin Newsom responded by tweet that “lives have been lost” and “entire towns have burned to the ground,” something Trump didn’t mention, and added, “This is not a time for partisanship. This is a time for coordinating relief and response and lifting those in need up.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-w...380388.php

[Love Child]

This is a terrible devastation

[HairOfTheDog]

25 people have died so far in the California fires and the winds are kicking up today. :(

[Duchess]

I saw a video of a dad driving his little girl through the fire. There were flames on both sides of the road, it was dark and scary and he was singing to his daughter so she wouldn't be afraid. Man.

[Midwest Spy]

I saw a video of a dad driving his little girl through the fire. There were flames on both sides of the road, it was dark and scary and he was singing to his daughter so she wouldn't be afraid. Man.

Being trapped in a fire has got to be the worst way to go and I feel so sorry for those people.

I mean, the folks in the Twin Towers chose to jump out of the windows 1200 feet up to avoid the flames.

Absolutely horrible.

[HairOfTheDog]

It really is horrible and keeps raging. :(

So far, 42 people have died in the fires.

40 of them in Pardise, north of Sacramento. Paradise is literally lost now.

2 of them in Southern California near Malibu.

I'm so thankful for the great firefighters in the state, but it's worrisome that they're working non-stop, especially under such difficult circumstances.

It's dry and windy here. We haven't had rain in forever and the temp is two degrees higher than it used to be this time of year, according to the reports.

At least President Trump isn't sending threatening idiotic tweets anymore. The Federal Emergency funding has been transferred.

[Duchess]

I listened to a nurse on the news tell her story and it was fuckin' horrifying. My heart was racing listening to her. She called her husband, she thought she was going to die. He told her to get out of the car and run, if she was going to die, to die fighting and that's what she did. It was an incredible story.

[HairOfTheDog]

I saw that interview with the female nurse as well.  Very traumatic.

Another heroic nurse, Darrell Wilkens, described his and his patients’ harrowing near-death escape from the Camp Fire that nearly destroyed the town of Paradise. 

Wilkens and other workers at the Feather River Hospital loaded patients (some in critical condition) into their personal vehicles and drove them to safety while thousands of buildings burned.

This was the view out Darrell Wilken’s car window as he and his patients fled the raging flames in Paradise:



Wilkens said he was concerned that they wouldn't make it to safety; he and the patients called their family members to say goodbye from the car.   

Fortunately, all of the fleeing workers and their patients got out alive.

Unfortunately, four of their hospital co-workers are among the 200 people who remain missing.

Story:  https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/1...ng-escape/

[Love Child]

I was looking at the inciweb site today.

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/6250/

From there you can find a link to
"Structure Status"
http://calfire-forestry.maps.arcgis.com/...7%2C102100

Most of the structures show "red" for destroyed and some show black for no visible damage, with a few other colors in between. Most of the map is red.

[Maggot]

Prayers for the victims of these wildfires. Hopefully they get them under control soon,

[Love Child]

I saw a video of a dad driving his little girl through the fire. There were flames on both sides of the road, it was dark and scary and he was singing to his daughter so she wouldn't be afraid. Man.

I just started bawling.
That is so terrifying.