San Diego fires

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Cloud

As an aside, I'm always flabbergasted by the number of people who don't have disaster plans or supplies on hand. In California, surely, where people deal with earthquakes all the time, shouldn't most of these people have emergency supplies on hand? I guess it's just one of those things that people know they should do, but somehow never get around to it. Like me!

Japan is the most earthquake prone country in on Earth (according to some) and gets regular tsunamis, typhoons, flood, volcanoes, blizzards (in the north and mountains) ... about the only thing it doesn't get are huge fires and droughts, although droughts are starting to happen.
The government urges everyone to have 3 days worth of water, food and other supplies per person in disaster packs ready to go ... yet barely 15 or 20 % of the people I have spoken to have them. Usually it is older people too. I guess they've seen it before. It's hard to convince people by telling them.
And even those with packs often seem to forget toilet paper. Du-u-uh!

I too have noted the difference between this and Katrina, and I'm wondering why. Got no answer though.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

I too have noted the difference between this and Katrina, and I'm wondering why. Got no answer though.

I think the main difference is that a hurricane wipes out all the power in the region and causes widespread destruction everywhere in the area. These fires are widespread, but they don't cause the same overwhelming destruction everywhere. Some places burn, some don't. The systems (electricity, plumbing, etc.) still work, for the most part, even though so many individual buildings were lost.

Also, in Katrina, everybody had to evacuate. In San Diego, only some people did. Those who didn't are able to help the victims.