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| Another likely climate-driven mega-disaster. Enormous wildfires raging now in the Los Angeles area causing massive destruction. |
Three major wildfires were racing through neighborhoods, destroying an as-yet unknown number of homes and businesses, likely killing and injuring a number of people and causing chaos in the region.
It's the latest climate-related disaster. Strong Santa Ana winds, gusting in the worst instances to 100 mph, are fanning the flames, turning them into blowtorches. Santa Ana winds are usually at the worst in October, November and early December, not in January.
Although it's too soon to concretely attribute climate change to this calamity, the circumstantial evidence is there.
Climate change has seemed to turn California's winter's into something much more unpredictable. Either the winter rains are extreme, it seems, or they are nonexistent.
So far in southern California, the rains are missing. By now, in January, the hillsides around Los Angeles should have been wet and damp and drippy and green. These horrendous winds should be knocking down some trees and power lines. But the fires should be nonexistent.
Those fires are anything but.
The reports on the fire early this morning were hard to keep up with, there was so much new, tragic information coming in. Worse, since yesterday, the firefighters couldn't keep up with the flames, either completely overwhelmed by the size of the fires, the panicked evacuations, the lack of water, the extreme winds.
Given the speed of the fires, and the dense neighborhoods they invaded, I'm sadly pretty sure there have been deaths, but as of this writing, there's nothing confirmed.
The news reports are horrifying. Fox 11 in Los Angeles reported that badly burned people were found staggering along the Pacific Coast Highway overnight.
Early this morning, a Good Morning America reporter stood in a parking lot of the largest supermarket in downtown Pacific Palisades surrounded by flames. The supermarket was reduced to a wall of flame, and all the businesses surrounding the normally busy neighborhood were in flames.
The first of the fires broke out in Pacific Palisades around 10:30 a.m. local time Tuesday. I watched live news reports in horror as the disaster escalated in the blink of an eye. Panicked residents fleeing that fire clogged a road, then abandoned their cars and fled on foot.
The abandoned cars blocked emergency vehicles, so bulldozers were called in to push the Bentleys, Mercedes, Teslas and BMWs from the roads in the wealthy enclave so firetrucks could get to the scene.
Once firefighters got there, they could only watch helplessly as the flames hopscotched from home to home. Hydrants weren't working - for some reason water wasn't coming out of many of them. There wasn't nearly enough personnel to handle the calamity, and the erratic winds send embers flying for miles, starting new fires.
Buildings all along Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades - one of the most famous streets in the world - were in flames.
Overnight a new fire erupted around Altadena and Pasadena, and that one quickly invaded neighborhoods too. A little while later, a third fire appeared in Sylmar, and the same thing happened.
The L.A. Fire Department called in all off-duty firefighters to come in and help. More than 1,400 firefighters were trying, and so far failing to stop the flames. That's not a knock against these heroes. It's just that no human could stop the exceptionally erratic winds and flames in and near Los Angeles.
The bad stories keep coming: Residents of an assisted living facility, some on gurneys or in wheelchairs, were huddled in a Pasadena 7-Eleven parking lot in strong gusty winds, having fled an assisted living facility and awaiting transport to....somewhere. Nobody was quite sure.
The Pacific Palisades fire burned all the way down to the beaches. Video showed life guard stations on the beaches of Malibu up in flames. Numerous beachfront homes along the Pacific Coast Highway in and near Malibu were also reportedly in flames.
The Getty Villa Art Museum was also threatened.
Distressing moments keep popping up on news broadcasts. Like the quick interview of the panicked, tearful man saying he'd been trying for five hours to get to his house to rescue his dogs. (Thankfully, he was eventually reunited with his now-safe pups.)
The most extreme winds with this Santa Ana event were ongoing early this morning. The winds were forecast to only slowly subside between now and Thursday, so this catastrophe will continue to get worse today.
This is obviously a developing story and there will be more sad updates to come. It's going to be a long, tragic day in California as yet another likely climate fueled disaster puts us all on edge.
Videos: Scary report via Good Morning America had my nerves soaring and my heart breaking. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that.
The Today show also showed some heartrending, scary reports. Again, click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that.
So sad, and not the end I fear. Our planet is trying to talk to us, so many are not listening.
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