Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. - Cyril Connolly
Friday, January 04, 2008
Live and Learn (hopefully)
After being displaced from their homes due to massive wildfires this fall (many of them permanently), Californians are now being asked to evacuate in the face of a huge winter storm.
With the fires having cleared all the vegetation from the hillsides, and rains predicted to be in excess of 5 inches in Southern CA, I hope they learned something from the earlier evacuations - cause it's too late now. Massive mudslides are pretty much certain.
Ten FEET of snow?? Ski resorts are closed in Northern CA and Lake Tahoe due to blizzard conditions. Six inches of snow an hour are predicted during the height of the storm. Since one inch of rain generally equals about ten inches of snow, that's 12 inches of rain......a flood by any other name - especially in the mountains.
The ski resorts may be closed now, but when they reopen? Kowabunga dude!
Question: If Pacific tropical storms are called Typhoons, and Atlantic storms are called Hurricanes, why is this storm not classified as a Typhoon? It should have a name. It is predicted to have Category 4 strength winds in some areas. That alone should have triggered coastal and regional evacuations. I mean 145 mph winds are deadly no matter what causes them.
PS: I have been trying to plan a trip to LA to visit an old friend/mentor but between the October fires, the Holidays, and now this storm, it's not looking likely anytime soon.
PSS: And don't get me started on the resiliency of Californians and their money to weather repeated disasters like this compared to Mississippi and New Orleans. The richest of the rich live on the CA coast, and the poorest of the poor live on the Mississippi Delta. Options: hotels, transportation, access to information, and most of all - $$$, make all the difference during a crisis.
They don't call them "typhoons" in CA anymore. I heard that the Gubenator had the classifications of all major disasters changed to "tumor" so that the Gubenator can loudly proclaim "IT'S NOT A TUMOR!" and thus calm the ensuing hysteria. This storm is definitely not a tumor.
i live in california, only 12 mi from the ocean. hard as it may be to believe, we're barely scraping by on $90k/yr. i don't think you have any idea how expensive it is to live here.
that's not to say the people in the delta are better off though. i think our government's response to their suffering has been a travesty. however, if we were to get truly fucked by this storm, i don't know that the gov't response would be quite what you imagine. bushco. has done pretty much everything it can to assrape us.
and our resilience? until you've lived through a 7.0, watch what you say.
joolz: I meant no disrespect - quite the contrary. I know it's tragically expensive to live in CA, let alone LA. But I bet you have a car, no matter how old, a good education, access to the internet and perhaps cable too. Access to information and transportation. I also think LA's emergency response system is far more sophisticated than NOLA.
This is by no means excusing the negligence of the US gov't. gross mishandling of Katrina or the outright corruption of Louisiana gov't.
And yes - I would never want to live through the fires OR a Cat 7 quake. Hope you are OK.
jon: So the only reason this wasn't a named storm is that it wasn't "tropical" in origin? Seems kinda short sighted. This storm will be a killer, and without giving it "category #" status - I think a lot of people are underestimating it.
They don't call them "typhoons" in CA anymore. I heard that the Gubenator had the classifications of all major disasters changed to "tumor" so that the Gubenator can loudly proclaim "IT'S NOT A TUMOR!" and thus calm the ensuing hysteria. This storm is definitely not a tumor.