Last night the wind started blowing toward La Canada; I hoped it wouldn't spread the fire, but it did.

This morning the soot was in the air, and the smoke was visible. By noon that had changed. Now it just looks like hazy sunshine out there, but the flames are spreading again: the authorities aren't letting some of the evacuated Sierra Madreans back into their homes (in case the wind changes direction again), and now they're extending the evacuation into the eastern edge of Pasadena.

It looks like Altadena might be up next; what a nightmare. The evacuation/shelter map, courtesy of Foothill Cities Blog, is here.

I know, I know: I'm supposed to be grateful that homes aren't being destroyed. And I am. Really, I am. But it's still heartbreaking to lose some of Southern Cal's best hiking trails. Griffith Park last spring. And the area around Julian in last fall's massive tragedy.

(If I sound heartless, please keep in mind that in Southern California our wilderness areas and parks are the equivalent to Central Park in NYC: there are issues of identity involved that are difficult to explain.)

Please pray for us; this is one of three major things we have to worry about here. In some ways, it's worse than floods or earthquakes—wildfires move like lightning, and they kill a lot more people than the other two.

Water, around here: it's like cops and hookers. Ya know?

Posted by: Attila Girl at 04:59 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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He's running a nice little primer on disaster preparedness—including how to cope in the coming Zombie Wars; truth be told, Glenn links a lot of this stuff; so it's probably worth doing a search on disaster and survival over at his blog if you get deeper in.

The one caution I would have is that on the West Coast the biggest thing that happens to the average family is an earthquake, for which there is never any warning. (Those who tell you there is such a thing as "earthquake weather" got the idea from Elvis, who shows up for Sunday dinner around their tables now and then, and asks for a peanut butter sandwich.)

And the second/third biggest concerns are fires and floods, for which the "bugout bag" is a good idea—but so are such things as sandbags, fire-retardant landscaping, and the conventional wisdom that you don't "pre-soak" the roof (the water will just evaporate). We've gone so far as to pack up all the non-digital photos and my good jewelry, and had 'em ready to load into the car with the usual duffel bags full of change of clothes, canned food, medicines, and the like.

The point is, regional variations are important when you're making emergency-preparedness plans: the East Coast and Midwestern guides don't always suit my needs, because we just do not have storms here. Not as people in other states understand the term. (Don't get me wrong: we respect water in SoCal, but part of the reason is that this house is built on a hillside; the rest has to do with the common one-two punch of heavy rains and windstorms. We've lost a lot of trees on this property when the soil is saturated and the wind starts blowing heavy timber down at 70 mph or better. That's always fun.)

Of course, riots do fit the profile of East Coast/Midwestern storms in terms of the fact that there is generally some warning before there's a riot. But why, oh why, wouldn't you have as much canned food and water on hand as possible, along with a little camp stove to place on the balcony and cook up whatever is about to go bad in the freezer when the power goes out? It's horrible to go to the store when everyone else is doing it, unless you're making one last run for fresh produce.

And I do imagine that the guidelines for fighting zombies will be similar all around the country; that part shouldn't change from region to region.

By the way—anyone want some 55-gallon water drums? We won't be able to fit them into the new condo.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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