xtramelanin

December 6th, 2017 at 6:08 PM ^

have been in a number of them when i lived in socal, evacuated, on the move, helicopters dropping water on my house, etc.  

and remember when we had that talk about how great it was living in socal, and i said, 'not so fast, my friends'.  well, this is one of the reasons.  socal can be great, but it comes with a big price, too. 

stephenrjking

December 6th, 2017 at 6:18 PM ^

It was jarring for me, growing up in Michigan, to greet coworkers at the hospital I worked at in the Valley and hear them casually explain that they had evacuated their house because one shift in the wind and the fire would consume their neighborhood.

These weren't rich & famous types, either. Working nurses. 

 

ST3

December 6th, 2017 at 6:27 PM ^

There's a great book a friend of my dad's wrote about Michigan's environmental past, called Ruin and Recovery. I got an autographed copy for Christmas one year. Seriously. From Amazon's book review:

Michigan has faced two turning points in its conservation history. One came at the end of the nineteenth century when its logging era ended, only to be followed by raging forest fires that left millions of acres of land denuded.

LA is looking at a couple hundred thousand acres of denuded land from this set of fires. Denuded land happens. If people live near a hillside and fail to clear the brush near their house, that's on them. BTW, it's 36 and partly cloudy in Michigan today. Meanwhile, it's hot as hell in SoCal and the sun is hidden by voluminous clouds of billowing smoke.

P.S. I want people to believe you and move out of LA or not move here in the first place. Fewer people in LA is a good thing for me. Just tell everybody to turn their TVs off during the Rose Bowl when Michigan is covered in snow and Pasadena is sunny and 70 degrees.

https://www.amazon.com/Ruin-Recovery-Michigans-Conservation-Leader/dp/0…

xtramelanin

December 6th, 2017 at 8:18 PM ^

its floods, mudslides, earthquakes, riots, and every day is traffic day.  

44 died in cal just in the last fires they had up in napa a month and a half ago, along with 9,000 homes destroyed.   how many tornado deaths and destroyed houses have we had in, say, the last quarter century?   anything like just one fire in napa? 

socal can be fun, can be pretty, glad for my time there.  even more glad to be home.  

darkstar

December 7th, 2017 at 10:06 AM ^

When my buddy was at UM he wrote a research paper on why more people die in tornados in the South.  Turns out that when they hear/see a tornado coming a lot of them get on top of their trailers for a better look and can't get back down when it comes toward them.  

Roll Tide?!?

NittanyFan

December 6th, 2017 at 6:29 PM ^

cars are moving above 10 MPH on the 405?

Definitely hope things get better out there.  Wildfires are scary as can be.  I've only seen the flames from one ever (Heyman Fire in 2002 in Colorado) - incredibly intense.

 

LSAClassOf2000

December 6th, 2017 at 7:26 PM ^

That's unreal. They were posting satellite imagery of the affected areas this afternoon and that was equally unreal, as was the picture of ash falling out of the sky in Ventura County because there was so much of it.

 

MGoFunkadelic

December 6th, 2017 at 9:40 PM ^

I live just a few miles NE of the 405 at Skirball.  It is very strange to have the fire basically in the city instead of out further into the hils.  with the Santa Ana winds the majority of the smoke is pushing westward but we still have the campfire smell everywhere.

Sopwith

December 6th, 2017 at 6:38 PM ^

is the Getty Museum, which if you've never been, is up in the hills with a view of what feels like all of LA and the Pacific. I visited 3 times (for Michigan's 2003, 2004, and 2006 season Rose Bowls) and think it might be the coolest building/complex in the country. Not a huge art gallery person ordinarily, but that place, holy schmoly what an incredible bit of architecture.

 

SpikeFan2016

December 6th, 2017 at 6:51 PM ^

The good news is they reopened the 405 (Northbound had been closed for about 7-8 hours, southbound was closed for an hour or two as well during the morning commute). 

 

For those of you who don't know LA, the 405 is literally the busiest freeway in the entirety of the United States (it's actually a beautiful drive too up over the Sepulveda pass through the Santa Monica Mountains between West LA and The Valley). So sad for the families effected. 

Andystubs

December 6th, 2017 at 10:34 PM ^

I live in L.A. one of the fires is only 2-3 miles from Pauley.
Air quality bad — even for L.A.

Will be issues with fans making it to the game.

No one should come here for a few weeks.

Stauskasforthree63

December 7th, 2017 at 12:07 AM ^

Was going to spend 3 days in Anaheim and 3 days near Hollywood. Heard most everyone in Anaheim was ordered to evacuate in the next 48 hours, now were in the process of canceling everything a month and a half away from the big day.