California's on fire again

It's really bad. The winds are due to hit 100mph, and at 50mph they are already having to bulldoze abandoned cars off of Sunset Blvd to get enough room to get the fire-fighting apparatus in.

https://abc7.com/live-updates/socal-braces-possibly-destructive-windstorm-amid-dangerous-fire-weather/15771235/entry/15773016/

I'm so glad I got the Daughter out of there. 

Our daughter lived in Mid-City LA until she moved here in 2022. I’m sure she will be worried about her friends and colleagues. (She still works online for the same company in LA). Even though her house was never directly threatened by previous wildfires she used to be badly affected by smoke and smog from them and had to wear a mask indoors, along with her air purifiers.

I feel for all the folk affected.

Yeah, it's horrible. We've both got a little PTSD kicking in from our own experiences with fires like that.  The orange sky... ew. I can "smell" what that looks like, the memory is so indelible. As I was trying to get to sleep last night the officials in LA were putting out calls via the TV news for anyone with any firefighting experience to call into a central number - it was "all hands on deck" - and that was early-on in all this.  The last I saw out of KCAL in LA a few hours ago (as if I could sleep?) was that it's up to four different fires now.  They haven't had any rain there in over eight months.

God help them all. 

This link will take you to current status reports, in case you have anyone there or an interest otherwise.  The wind is due to calm a bit, but then another set of Santa Anas are due next week is what the weather guy is saying. God, it's awful and getting worse.   

Right now there's a new one (the Kenneth fire) that is probably going to have a run  towards Pepperdine.  Thank goodness the library building there is fire-hardened, and they have the students moving into it as needed.

https://app.watchduty.org/i/40498

This link will take you to current status reports, in case you have anyone there or an interest otherwise.  The wind is due to calm a bit, but then another set of Santa Anas are due next week is what the weather guy is saying. God, it's awful and getting worse.   

Right now there's a new one (the Kenneth fire) that is probably going to have a run  towards Pepperdine.  Thank goodness the library building there is fire-hardened, and they have the students moving into it as needed.

https://app.watchduty.org/i/40498

It's terrifying. And some of the deaths so far are disabled people who couldn't evacuate independently and were told help was coming, their families also denied entry to help get them out. Heartbreaking. Disabled people are always ignored in disaster planning.

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Our daughter moved back from LA a couple of years ago. She lived in Santa Monica and then Mid City for 9 years and still works for the same company but from home. Their campus is midway between Santa Monica and Culver City. We spent the evening with her tonight and asked how her friends and colleagues are doing. The campus has been closed all week and will be all next week. She said that none of her friends and colleagues had suffered physical damage but are all very stressed, and several of them are off work due to migraines and respiratory problems brought on by the smoke and smog.

Yeah it is horrific.     Some of the casualties are elderly. There's one case where a double-amputee father in a wheelchair was found next to the bed of his son who had cerebral palsy. What a hell of a way to die.

It's going to be worse before it gets better. What they're going to find won't be pretty. It came so quickly that even able-bodied folks with good transportation options were scrambling for their lives.  There's someone I used to work with who retired and was living in a guest house in Topanga Canyon with her very elderly mother who I can't find out about. I pray they are safe, but fear the worst for them. Lovely people. What a nightmare.

They've evac'd to the 405 freeway. Hopefully the Getty will be spared. And it's getting close to UCLA. There are about 50,000 students at UCLA. First years can't have cars on campus, I believe. And a lot of others don't have cars. They need to be getting those kids out of there now, not later. If the Daughter was anywhere near that, I've have flown out to Vegas or SD, rented a car, and brought her home.

More info if you are more of an audio person - https://www.broadcastify.com/lafire/

Yeah, it's horrible. We've both got a little PTSD kicking in from our own experiences with fires like that.  The orange sky... ew. I can "smell" what that looks like, the memory is so indelible. As I was trying to get to sleep last night the officials in LA were putting out calls via the TV news for anyone with any firefighting experience to call into a central number - it was "all hands on deck" - and that was early-on in all this.  The last I saw out of KCAL in LA a few hours ago (as if I could sleep?) was that it's up to four different fires now.  They haven't had any rain there in over eight months.

God help them all. 

So now the official governor's "misinformation correction" page is saying no such call went out. Well, someone (possibly the private, for-hire companies?) definitely had the news station put a crawler with their phone number on it and asking for volunteers up on their screen for quite some time during a broadcast. And had the news reporters announce it.  It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Santa Anna winds are now to be kicking up again, and farther south (as usually happens - LA gets it first, then SD). Thankfully they had a few relatively calm days to try to get ahead of it.  The worst case would be the two biggest fires combine.

Annnnd, here we go again. Castaic. Winds at 40mph, supposed to strengthen up to 70mph later today. God help 'em. Those Firefighters have got to be exhausted.

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/hughes-fire-castaic-los-angeles-county-updates/

https://protect.genasys.com/fullscreenMap?z=8.891814585900338&latlon=34.367632843870055%2C-118.56710019754343