Sure, there must've been someone who was helped by FEMA, but the ones needing chainsaws (for downed trees, etc. on property) or generators (for help with power outages that stretched days or weeks) didn't get any reimbursements or such.

Most of the people I know were on their own for home rebuilding, etc.

Although the topics could not be more different, nonetheless your post here made me think of
this post on Shapely Prose some time back, which addresses the difference between specifics and contexts very well.

I hope this story takes hold, but I'm not holding my breath for the scandal. Admitted wrongs tend not to lead to scandal.

The affluent San Diego suburbanites are eating catered meals courtesy of the government while the poor urban New Orleans residents were in squalid conditions.

I'm not saying that this is competence by FEMA, but it certainly makes for a better photo op for the Governator and GW.

New Orleans in Katrina was triply-screwed; a poor, badly run city government, backed up by a poor, badly run state government, backed up by an incompetent federal government. If the city or state had been competent, the FEMA problems would have looked like the ones from Florida--some mishandled reimbursement checks and corruption.

Their arrogance is mind-boggling.

I wouldn't believe this without independent confirmation from people actually in San Diego. Sounds very Potemkin to me.

1. FEMA? Who's that? So far as I could tell the lead agencies
for fighting the fires were all the fire crews, with a lot of support from the state. The lead for information was the county. Relief
was the Red Cross (at schools) and the city (at Qualcomm). So yes, local competence counts. We will see how FEMA does at the reconstruction phase.

2. This was a LOT easier than Katrina. Outside the fire everything was normal--if someone from the unaffected part of the city wanted to bring food to Qualcomm, they could. And, since everyone (nearly) has a car, evacuation was pretty easy. Finally, 5/6 ofthose evacuated stayed with friends--again, the fire effects are local.

Pretty much everything was organized locally. FEMA didn't really show up until near the end -- more than midway thru the week. High schoolers were the volunteers. Local restaurants provided food. I don't know what it was like in the latter half of the week at Qualcomm, but I can tell you that early on, when it mattered, it was the people here who pulled together.

By the way, plenty of lower-income areas, rural areas, and apartment buildings were hit by the fires, right along with the affluent ones. One of the victims was a schoolteacher. Rancho Bernardo is probably half retirement community. It is dangerous to generalize.

Can anyone here opine?

What #10 DCA says is true. This was an extremely different beast from Katrina, not least of which because all the pertinent services got to practice the exact same drill at more or less the exact same scale 4 years ago when fires pillaged the state to much the same tune as they did this time. We were told then that it was the kind of fire you only get once in a hundred years. Random numbers at that scale can look a lot less random to us short-lived meat-critters.

My wife and I were lucky in that we didn't need to evacuate, so I can't really speak about the quality in the shelters. However, the news that FEMA was coming came at least two days in and my response was "oh hell, now we're screwed."

And then I saw that Bush was coming to tour and I knew we were really screwed. From what news I've heard of his visit, they had to ground the planes and helicopters that were busy fighting the fires while he flew over, and then one whole community was blocked from returning home so he could have his photo op.

I saw that story. Worse, they were blocked from getting to the recovery centers, where they could talk to the various people and agencies about what to do now. For three hours, while George did his 'I'm wonderful: look at all the help I'm promising' bit, on the highway, in their cars, in 80-degree-plus weather. They're lucky they didn't lose people right there, because a lot of the evacuees are elderly.

When returning, I did in fact hit that same traffic jam caused by the presidential visit. I do have to note, just for reality's sake, that it was pretty trivial to go down I15 to another exit, and bypass it. It was pretty dumb that it blocked easy returnee access to the assistance center, though.

There was a plane flying around right overhead while he was in RB, though; we speculated that it was probably from the govt. :)

To me, if there's a big story in terms of how the fires were handled, it is the way in which blogs, Google Maps, and Twitter became the best info channel, while standard websites were inadequate (and even then, better than phone and TV). Special kudos here to KPBS, who did a stellar job, and SignOnSanDiego, which had not only a great newsblog but also offered forums broken up by neighborhood.

KPBS Twitter: http://twitter.com/kpbsnews

KPBS fire map (constantly updated): http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114250687465160386813.00043d08ac31fe3357571&om=1&ll=32.949911

SignOnSanDiego fire blog: http://sosdfireblog.blogspot.com/

SignOnSanDiego fire forums: http://forum.signonsandiego.com/forumdisplay.php?f=156

A silver lining: the way the moon looks in the rippled smoke and clouds in the sky tonight.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/10/26/the-smoke-does-help-some-things/

I think that's a pretty standard PR/propoganda tactic; I recall reading about this at least ten years ago in (I think) _Brill's Content_, and I think it wasn't new even then. Apparently, it's common to provide footage and scripts to make it easy to customize the story for various lengths, and to airbrush your own person into the role of interviewer.

A couple tricks similar to what you're describing I've read about are "push polling" (I call you up pretending to be a pollster and ask how you feel about McCain's black love child) and a different style of pretend interview where the interviewers are shills doing the same trick as the push-pollers. Another variant is the "viral marketing" guys who pay shills to wander around public places making impromptu "I'm so happy with the SUX-9000" comments to passers by.

I think the whole industry of convincing people of stuff (PR, marketing, advertising, propoganda, "public-service" announcements) is broadly pretty unconcerned with truth or honesty or what I'd consider to be ethical behavior. If lying, smearing people, inciting violence, confusing the issues, making up data, or some similar thing helps convince the mark, they just do it.

I was hitting the North County Times and The Village News, which had good coverage of the Rice fire (and many complaints about the lack of coverage from outside that area).

The San Diego county fire maps were really good. I think I know what program they were using to make them; it makes it more impressive, because (although it's the major piece of software in the field) it can be a real pain to use, especially if you're working at some level smaller than a census tract, or trying to actually draw a map. [mutter, curse, mutter, mutter]

Not that teachers here haven't slid very badly backward over the last 30 or 40 years in pay, and perhaps respect, compared to many other equally skilled and important areas here in Oz. The highest-paid ones are only a moderate amount above the 'average' wage.

The twitter blogs were so much better than any of the other media sources that I only ever saw major media coverage when I was going through Google's news portal on my way elsewhere. During the worst of things I had signonsandiego.com, twitter/kpbs, twitter/nateritter and the kpbs google map all open and constantly refreshed them.

As a direct result, I felt much more connected to what was happening than I did during the Cedar fire, when we just kind of closed all the windows and watched useless cable news show the same three stories repeatedly.

Just something to think about.

Maia's folks' neighborhood is running to about $750k per 3/4 acre parcel (the place across the street is being sold, property value, with a 1.2M listing; with a condition that the present house be knocked down, and a new house; already planned, be built. I don't think it will sell, and more's the pity, because, as is, it's a nice place, but I digress).

So if they sold their place, they could probably (in the present market) get $750k.

If they wanted to move to Visalia, we were looking at a place there, $292k, 2.3 acres, two buildings (one purpose built for breeding snakes/keeping mice) with a well.

But they'd be in Visalia.

I wasn't so much giving the example "schoolteacher = lower income" as I was attempting to illustrate that the affected are not just the stereotypical "affluent SoCal people." I just get irritated at blanket generalizations that ignore the human dimension.

Me, I'm affluent. :P A former co-worker (who is way more affluent than I) actually fought the fire from his multimillion-dollar mansion with a hose and saved the structure from burning (stupid, but brave, I suppose). His kids and wife got out of the area with literally minutes to spare. Had they not made it, it would still be a tragedy.

Four bodies were found in a canyon -- probably extremely poor illegal immigrants who were hiding out there. Still a tragedy.

P J @ #18,

I actually found the SD County maps very frustrating in terms of planning our return (we ran clear to Anaheim), because they showed our immediate area, as well as south of it along the 15 through Carmel Mtn Ranch, as under mandatory evac for two full days after people were back... apparently, they only went by zip code. Same for the 211 line. The street by street and neighborhood openings were only available on the blog and Twitter.

...the failure of empathy and imagination...

(For non-Californians: the Thomas guides are the most-commonly-used road maps in the area, leading to them being referred to as 'the gospel according to the brothers Thomas'. You can find them everywhere, including the supermarket.)

Spherical Time #5: I've lived in suburban San Diego. I don't think I'd have qualified as an 'affluent suburbanite' at the time.

The Chancellor of UC San Diego sent out a mass e-mail today saying that the campus had been spared.

"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government." (Oh, really...?)

"I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again[....]"

Anyone wanna volunteer to reconstruct his admonishment past the initial "Hwaet!"?

As a person involved in "The English Industry" in East Asia, even without the incorrectness (which is of course relevant) of the Anglo-Saxon comment, it's really nearsighted to think of (or refer to) English as especially Anglo Saxon. So, even if he were to admit that the language he used was... you know... Modern English... he'd still be wrong.

I mean... official language of the EU and all that. Not to mention the unofficial language of international shipping and trade in the Pacific (possibly the world, but I don't have any point of reference outside of the pacific...)

It was a bad pun, sorry.

Foolin' Everybody Management Agency

The sign-language translators comments/actions are the icing on the cake.

So, basically, he was telling us that he was cross enough, in a manly and uncompromising way, about the whole debacle to use the AS expletive, only he was too much of a wuss to actually, you know, use it?

Wow. Harsh language. I suspect FEMA is shaking in its boots. Wonder what it would take to get him to actually fire someone?

(Julie - I liked your Hwaet the Helle ... )

Now, if serious terrorist attacks are not a threat, then we shouldn't worry about this ability. But then, we ought to be able to save a ton of money by getting rid of 95% of the money we're spending on homeland security (most of which appears to me to be either boondoggles or money that was formerly being spent under another label).

It's kind of striking to me that our response to 9/11 was to invade two countries, threaten several others, wiretap and spy on everyone inside the US, start abducting and torturing suspected terrorists, but not to prepare to recover from another attack. It's almost like we don't really think there will be another attack, but want to use the fear of it to do a bunch of police-state stuff at home, and build an empire abroad.

What? First of all, FEMA's not doing crap in CA - California is handling it. And gee, isn't it remarkable how CA, which would have the 7th highest GDP in the world if it were considered a country, has such wonderful resources?

Not even to mention how the two situations are utterly different from each other. Don't get me wrong, I've lived through wildfire season in CA myself and it's hardly happy fun time for anyone involved, but in terms of disaster relief logistics it doesn't even remotely compare to the clusterfuck that Katrina created on the Gulf Coast. It's like congratulating someone for playing "Chopsticks" after mangling Rachmaninoff.

But that's actually neither here nor there; the fact is, CA is important, and rich, and governed by a Republican, and Louisiana was (and is) not any of these things, apparently.

The proof, as they say, is in the catered pudding.

Add to that, that Orange and San Diego counties are fairly reliably GOP in their leanings (especially SD: look at their congreescritters!) and you see why Shrub showed up fairly quickly and FEMA is being very noisy. (San Bernardino and Riverside counties also have serious GOP tendencies.)

* * *

FEMA Spokesman Loses Spy Job Offer
By PAMELA HESS Associated Press Writer

Oct 29th, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- The man who staged a fake Federal Emergency Management Agency news conference has lost a chance to be National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell's top public information officer.

John P. "Pat" Philbin, FEMA's external affairs director, who had been scheduled to move into the new job on Monday, will not be getting it after last week's phony news conference. The staged question-and-answer session was harshly criticized by both the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose department oversees FEMA.

"We do not normally comment on personnel matters," DNI spokesman Ross Feinstein said Monday. "However, we can confirm that Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."

* * *

Personal matters?

Ya think?

Interestingly, your example of a nuke in Portland (I assume you meant OR?) points out why it matters where you live, and not what the Federal Gummint has promised you. A CBR attack, such as a dirty nuke, on Portland would meet with a fairly well planned (if inadequately provisioned) response. One of the things we do have in Portland is supercomputers and people who like to use them to model physical problems. So we have a sheaf of simulations for different times of the year and weather conditions that show where the fallout/gas/spores are going to be blown by the wind from a given source point, and how long it will take to get to a given other point in the metro area. Even if we don't have the requisite protective gear and decontamination facilities, we can at least tell the people most at risk where to run.

I'm not aware of any program by the Feds to take these techniques and duplicate the results in any other city. I wonder why?

Does anyone else get the nasty suspicion that the Republicans know they can count on Oklahoma to vote red, but are wooing California?

My sister worked on some simulations of this (I think it really was a 50 lb bag of anthrax spores dropped off the Arch) in grad school, and I know there is some kind of widespread computer/human monitoring of emergency room data to look for bioterrorism, though I think it's more likely to catch unintentional outbreaks of nastiness.

It may be that all kinds of work has been done on this stuff. It's not widely discussed, probably because you can't win many voters over with discussions of supercomputer simulations of fallout patterns. The PR aspect of the war on terror is really odd, though--sometimes, people seem to be downplaying threats, other times playing them up for political effect or to justify more funding, still other times trying to reassure us in ways that scare the hell out of me, and sometimes doing perfectly sensible stuff and calmly telling people about it if they ask. I guess this tracks with the high variance of competence and objectivity both between and within government agencies.

I think this is spam. Maybe. If so, it's a giant of its kind, a true masterwork of the spam genre.

Or, it's a truly massive cry for help. Wow.

It is certainly a koan, one way or 'tother.

Huh?

But nobody in charge is really concerned about terrorism; it's their stock in trade. The more terrorism there is, goes their calculus, the more Republican votes there will be. Never mind that it's stupid -- they're not the sharpest tools in the shed.

At our local library, there's a loud nutter who regularly comes through; I'm not sure whether he uses the internet computers, but the librarians seem to be calling the cops when he shows up.

Maybe the world mind is just trying to communicate. About Scandinavian penises, Italians, and Jewish clone hosts.

Just Who Was At That Fake FEMA Briefing?