Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
It’s easy to blame California’s Democrats for the devastating fires that killed at least 16 people and destroyed more than 10,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles last week.
It’s the Democrats in charge of the state of California who have been tearing down dams to protect fish and please environmentalists instead of making sure Los Angeles is sent enough water from the northern part of the state.
It’s the Democrats running Los Angeles who have not been clearing the volatile grass and brush that has built up on the mountainsides east of the city and who have canceled the controlled burns that can prevent wildfires from spreading out of control.
And then there’s the super-inept mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, who had to rush back to her burning city from a junket to Ghana, where she was attending the inauguration of its new president. Bass recently cut $17 million from the city’s fire department budget.
And just last month she ignored a warning from her fire chief Kristin Crowley that turned out to be tragically prophetic – Crowley said her department had “severely limited capacity to prepare for, train for and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires.”
But let’s be honest.
We can blame Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democratically controlled state Legislature in Sacramento and Mayor Bass all day long for being unable and unprepared to protect the city from a natural disaster many people knew was bound to come someday.
But the prime villain is Mother Nature.
Even if all the Democrats in charge of California suddenly became smart and competent, and even if all the storage tanks and fire hydrants in Los Angeles had been filled to the top with water, Mother Nature’s destructive rampage was not going to be stopped.
The Santa Ana winds were historic – sometimes hitting 90 to 100 mph. The flying embers that were cast high into the air from burning homes and businesses couldn’t be contained by all the fire trucks in the world.
Plus, the first two days of the hurricane-force winds prevented helicopters and planes from dropping water on the fires.
Air support helped to put out the flames Wednesday night in the Hollywood Hills by using Lake Hollywood, a five-minute flight from the fires. but it came two nights too late for the people of Pacific Palisades.
The total cost of the burning of Los Angeles is already pegged at over $50 billion. But the damage to the hearts and souls of those whose lives have been turned upside down forever has no price tag.
The catastrophe in Los Angeles was the result of a perfect storm – historic Santa Ana winds on top of decades of the Democrats’ radical environmental policies, wasteful spending and incompetent leadership.
Mother Nature can’t be sent the bill. In a just world, however, the Democrats in charge of California at every level should have to pay a steep political price for their continuing mismanagement of the most beautiful state in the Union.
Unfortunately, they won’t. Democrats have had near total control of state government in California for almost 40 years.
California needs to start electing people who are going to make a radical change. But the Republican Party barely exists, and I can’t think of any conservative out here who can save my once-great state from the foolish ineptitude of the “progressive” Democrats.
It looks like Californians need our own Trump to “Make California Golden Again.”
Michael Reagan is the president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Contact him at: