Tuesday, October 23, 2007

250,000 Flee California Wildfires


California wildfires destroy more than 600 homes, and more than 100 businesses. Hundreds of other homes and businesses threatened.

As if earthquakes aren't bad enough. Californians have to deal with the threat of wildfires, particularly during the Fall fire season.

It seems as though wildfires are getting worse, and in many ways they are, due to drought. But it has just as much to do with people building habitats in areas where they did not exist in such high concentrations 20 or 30 years ago, particularly near forests.

As beautiful as California may be, I am not sure I would want to live there and have to deal with the Natural disaster risks. Although other parts of the Country also have risks.... like in Missouri (Tornado, Floods, & even the low risk of Earthquakes). But if given the choice, I would rather stick with the Midwest.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

California Wildfires "Reconnecting Families and Individuals"

For Immediate Release:

Southern California USA

Monday, October 22, 2007

California County Wildfires "Reconnecting Families and Individuals"

NOKR is asking anyone that may have a missing or potentially injured family member due to the Wildfires situation in California to register this person with the Next of Kin Registry.
Register at: www.nokr.org

This contact information will be passed on to area emergency officials responding to this disaster.

The NOKR organization has initiated contact with San Diego County Office of Emergency Service to offer any assistance possible to help reunify individuals and families displaced by these tragic fires.

State of California Listed on the States Home Page
Information About (Living in California)
Next of Kin
http://ca.gov

National Next of Kin Registry
http://www.ca.gov/HomeFamily/Safety/Emergencies.html

US Governments Portal USA.gov (Under Family Services)
http://www.usa.gov/Government/State_Local/Health.shtml

Next of Kin National Registry

About NOKR:

The Next Of Kin Registry (NOKR) was established as a FREE tool for daily emergencies and national disasters. NOKR is an emergency contact system to help if you or your family member is missing, injured or deceased. NOKR provides the public a free proactive service to store emergency contacts, next of kin and vital medical information that would be critical to emergency response agencies. Stored information is only accessible via a secure area that is only accessible by emergency public trust agencies that have registered with NOKR.

NOKR encourages every township, county, municipality, city, state and nation to take ownership of the NOKR. This resource belongs to you, your citizens and to your emergency agencies. Take the NOKR registration forms and add your own identifying symbols.

NOKR is a humanitarian organization. As part of our mission to society NOKR has created a trusted safeguarding system for all personal emergency contacts worldwide. NOKR does not own the information we store, this information belongs to the registrants and is made available securely to registered emergency agencies during times of urgent need.

NOKR is a non-partisan; non-profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to bridging rapid emergency contact information. NOKR was established in January 2004, for daily emergency situations.

Office 1-800-915-5413
Fax 1-800-927-5497

rikyrah said...

AI,

I'm with you.

California's a nice place to visit, but no, I'm not going to live there.

A radio talk show host brought up another point last night -

They DO NOT have enough firefighters, so guess who they are using?

CONVICTS.

No, you did not read wrong.

CONVICTS.

Do I need to remind you that this is but another casualty of the Iraq War?

Because, if they weren't over in Iraq,

OUR NATIONAL GUARD WOULD BE HELPING THEM.

Brian said...

Now the evacuation is up to 1 million people.

And regarding the Convicts... it's actually not unusual for prisoners to be used for these purposes. I believe they actually have a program set up for it... so it wasn't a last minute rush idea that someone came up with off the top of their head.

The prisoners who are in these programs tend to be lower risk...but they are convicts nonetheless.

It is true that there is a shortage of people. A lot of the States national guard resources were tied up on that Mexican border assignment. They had to call those troops back to help with the fires.

But the time wasted trying to get resources repositioned... means that the fires may have had more time to spread than normal. But who knows if this could have made a difference. The high winds seem to be overtaking firefighting efforts....and probably would have spread the fire no matter what.

Constructive Feedback said...

[quote]
Do I need to remind you that this is but another casualty of the Iraq War?[/quote]

Hummmmm

California has 36 MILLION people.

There are a few thousand National Guardsmen.

There are MORE convicts.

QUESTION RIKYRAH - how many FREE MEN (who are NOT convicts and not National Guardsmen) DO YOU ASK TO PICK UP THE SLACK so that lives and property are saved?

Maybe the actual CASUALTY of the Iraq War are the people HIDING BEHIND IT rather than getting off of their OWN BUTTS and doing something?