It’s show time for dry climes, And bedlam is dreaming of rain

A great contributor to the danger of the Southern California fires, this week, and always, is the phenomenon of Santa Ana Winds.

Commentor, friend, and former San Fernando Valley resident Valley Girl writes a guest post covering the Santa Anas from several perspectives, inc. art, poetry, and meteorology:


Bedlam is Dreaming of Rain- The Santa Ana

Once again destructive fires are raging across Southern California. It's fire season, the time of the Santa Ana. Anyone who knows SoCal knows what the Santa Ana is. It's an ugly wind, a dry wind, one that can turn the smallest ember into a raging destructive fire. The human consequences are obvious, but not so obvious the fate of animals and household pets. The following is just a sample, but it goes out with thanks to all of the animal shelters and private animal hospitals who are stepping up to help:

VCA Animal Hospitals Offers Free Boarding for Pets Affected by Southern California Fires

Horses and other large animals were being taken to a makeshift shelter in Hansen Dam Park. A mobile kennel was set up at Sylmar High School, and small pets can be taken to the Mission animal shelter

At the Brea Community Center, 230 evacuated residents signed in for help, 65 stayed overnight, said Anthony Godoy, a Brea accountant acting as shelter manager. The center also was temporarily housing small pets, including 18 dogs and two cats.

Sylmar Fire: Animal Evacuations LA CITY DEPT. OF ANIMAL SERVICES Officers will try to pick up pets from fire areas and take them to shelters for care, according to the Los Angeles City Department of Animal Services.




"This is the official theme song for southern california fires" a commenter said in response to the YouTube. People may take offense at this, but as a Valley Girl, I'd say it's apt. As are the visuals in the YouTube. Let me repeat, the Santa Ana is an ugly and destructive wind, and creates bedlam both externally and internally. It whips up the dirt and dust and pushes it right under your skin.

Bad Religion and Los Angeles is burning" Click on the link for the full lyrics.

~~GROWING up in West Hills, Brett Gurewitz learned that Los Angeles was a more unruly beast than the far-off cities he read about in schoolbooks. “The telling thing about L.A. is the fact that it has a fire season. I’m a third-generation Angeleno, and proud of it, and if you grow up here you learn that fire is a cyclical thing. To me, it meant L.A. wasn’t quite tamed. Other cities, like New York and Paris, are settled and established – they long ago became docile, tamed things. Not Los Angeles.”

Gurewitz plays guitar in Bad Religion and writes many of its songs, which long ago established it as the most high-minded band among L.A.’s pioneer punks. In the fire season of 2004, Gurewitz watched the blazes on TV and in the vacuous news chatter he heard themes that would become the song “Los Angeles Is Burning.”~~

Somewhere high in the desert near a curtain of blue
St. Anne’s skirts are billowing
But down here in the city of limelights
The fans of Santa Ana are withering
And you can’t deny the living is easy
If you never look behind the scenery
It’s show time for dry climes
And bedlam is dreaming of rain.

Joan Didion captured this in 1967 in an essay "The Santa Ana" from "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"- snips:

~~There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night[...]

~~I recall being told, when I first moved to Los Angeles and was living on an isolated beach, that the Indians would throw themselves into the sea when the bad wind blew. I could see why. The Pacific turned ominously glossy during a Santa Ana period, and one woke in the night troubled not only by the peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie absence of surf. The heat was surreal. The sky had a yellow cast, the kind of light sometimes called "earthquake weather." My only neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and there were no lights at night, and her husband roamed the place with a machete. One day he would tell me that he had heard a trespasser, the next a rattlesnake.

~~"On nights like that," Raymond Chandler once wrote about the Santa Ana, "every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen." That was the kind of wind it was.~~


And, for a more scientific take, this is from NOAA

~~What are Santa Ana winds?

~~During the fall and early winter, high pressure over the high desert of the Great Basin region causes winds on the southern side of the high to blow from the east, toward the Pacific Ocean and lower air pressure offshore. The winds push dry air from the inland deserts of California and the Southwest over the mountains between coastal California and the deserts.

~~As the air descends from mountains, it is compressed and the temperatures increase. These hot, and very dry winds(relative humidty of 10 to 20% or lower are common) dry out vegetation, increasing the fuel available to feed fires. The gusty winds and eddies of winds swirling through canyons and valleys also fan flames and spread tinders.~~








Cross-posted at teh-kitteh-antidote-anecdote

This wheel's on fire, Rolling down the road

This makes me so damned happy:

http://obamanewsmosaic.com Barack Obama in a collage of over 600 headlines from around the world on November 5th, 2008 after wining the US presidential election.

This makes me so damned sad:

SYLMAR (CBS) ― A fast-moving brush fire has burned at least three homes and is threatening dozens of others in Sylmar, near the intersection of the 210 and 118 Freeways. About 500 firefighters are battling the blaze and more are on the way.

That's about 5 miles east, 2 miles north of Casa Audio.

Map:


View Larger Map

Update 11:00 AM Sat:

The fire passed about 2 miles north of us, and is heading west/slightly south. Everything is a big mess. What a horrible time for the folks who lost homes. We're still feeling pretty lucky.

And make the forest turn to sand

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In what seems to be an oft repeated theme, the Bush Administration again put politics over policy. And that has had an effect on the forests of Southern California.

San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman has harsh words for D.C. regarding preparations for large-scale forest fires, and was told to shred his report on forest renewal during the drought in 2002:

Before the string of blazes that lay siege this week to nearly all of Southern California, even before the historic firestorms of 2003, then-San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman told his bosses in Washington about the problem before him.

The most populous national forest faced a mounting threat of catastrophic fire, and reducing it would cost a lot of money, he said.

On Wednesday, Agriculture Department Undersecretary Mark Rey, the nation's top fire official, said funds meant to restore forests to health have reached record levels in recent years -- and that the San Bernardino National Forest has received proportionately more money than any of the country's 155 national forests.

Yet Zimmerman, along with experts and lawmakers, points to a series of obstacles they believe have hampered more progress:

Funding for the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, unveiled by President Bush in 2003 with much fanfare, remain hundreds of millions of dollars beneath levels authorized in the legislation -- an assertion Rey disputes.

A boost in federal money for tree thinning in the San Bernardino National Forest after the 2003 fires dissipated as more resources were dedicated to the war in Iraq and Katrina relief efforts.

And back in 2002:

He said it would take a lot of money and a lot of time to return the forest to health -- $300 million at $30 million a year for 10 years, to adequately reduce the fire danger facing the tens of thousands of residents in Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear, Idyllwild and other forest communities.

In the months before the October 2003 fires, Zimmerman was told during a conference call to shred the document, he said during an interview this week.

Is this always going to be the story of Right-wing governance, always an agenda in search of reality? As with No Child Left Behind, and many other initiatives touted loudly by the administration as examples of leadership, the follow-through seems to be missing:

People took notice when many of those trees became giant torches during the 2003 fires. Lewis, often joined by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was able to help secure in excess of $80 million, above and beyond the regular budget amounts. It included a large portion of a $150 million pot of money for tree removal under the Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Zimmerman lauded the Forest Service's intent and competence but said the money was initially limited to cutting only dead trees, which didn't alleviate the threat in wide swaths of forest dangerously crowded with living trees. The effect, he said, was a failure to make the most of the money.

A failure that has now cost the State billions, and many residents their homes and livelihoods.
Yet GWBush parachutes in today, to give phony comfort:

After touring one partially gutted neighborhood in the path of Southern California's firestorms, President Bush noted "a lot of people are suffering," but urged those affected by the catastrophe to begin turning their attention to recovery.

Speaking at an Escondido fire command center, Bush pledged additional federal help to fight the nine blazes still burning across the region, as well as an infusion of funds to help victims and communities rebuild.

"We're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.," he said.

Right. Focus on rebuilding, instead of what his administration should have done to prevent this catastrophe. And in terms of helping people, this is how his trip helped today:

Rancho Bernardo residents began their journey back home with a surprise today.

They were stuck in traffic for two to three hours sitting in their cars at a standstill because of President Bush's visit to their community.

Police and the CHP had blocked off Interstate 15 ramps to West Bernardo Drive, which leads to the recovery center that was opened yesterday. Cars lined up for miles on the freeway.

"I'm glad he's coming but it's unfortunate to keep us all waiting," said Joy Fleming, who lives in North Oaks.

Fed up with waiting, Barbara Gandre said she needed to drive her 87-year-old mother home to pick up medication for her 89-year-old husband.

Her mother just recovered from pneumonia in September and the family did not have masks to wear over their faces. They sat in their car with the windows rolled down because they only had a quarter tank of gas left.

"I cannot run the air conditioning or I'll run out of gas," Gandre said. "I am sick of this," she said.

Phony photo-ops are a sad reality after any tragedy, but to insure that Bush could pose for his, he insults the people who hurt the most.

(h/t Jesse & tbogg)

SteveAudio.blogspot.com