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Sunday, October 28. 2007
Who to Blame
Saturday afternoon I was out riding the Trek and got some sprinkles of rain. Normally, I would piss and moan about it, how unfair it is to be raining when I wanna do something like ride my Trek, but under the circumstances a little rain — a lot of rain — is a welcome change in the weather. The day began with a few clouds rolling in and by 3 p.m. rain was falling on San Diego. Not much really, it’s stopped and the weather service said they didn’t even get a measurable amount cllected. Peeking out the window late Saturday Afternoon I could see the sidewalk was already bone dry. Regardless, everyone was happy to see the rain.
A week before the fires we had a couple days of rain. Apparently not enough to stave off wild fires, but I was pissing and moaning about it at the time, all the while glad we were getting it, considering just how dry the season has been.
The rain, especially if it gets heavier and continues for a few days, will be a big story in California and will undoubtedly get some national play on CNN and the other cable news networks. If the areas still burning get a nice dose of rain that will definitely do much to quell the fires.
If I were a firefighter, I’d piss and moan about having to fight wild fires knee deep in mud. That’s my nature: find something to whine about and commence whining.
Rain, though, won’t be the big story. The “big” story will be, who to blame. It’s already started. With disasters, natural disasters especially, we always look for a human to blame. We don’t blame the human(s) for the disaster, we blame the human(s) for not doing something about it fast enough, big enough or properly enough. In some cases, the blame is warranted. Michael Chertoff, in an interview with the San Diego Union Tribune, about said as much about the Bush Administration and Hurricane Katrina.
When asked about the similarities and differences between the federal response to the wild fires and the response to Hurricane Katrina, the Homeland Security Secretary said, “I’d say a couple things. Obviously everybody learned a lot from New Orleans in 2005 – federal, state and local officials. One of the things we learned was that a successful managing of an event begins well before the event, with planning, preparation and training and exercising together. If the first time you meet each other is the day of the event, or the day before the event, you’re going to have a big problem improvising.”So … in 2005 you, Mr. Secretary — the federal government — were not prepared for hurricanes, and specifically Hurricane Katrina? The irony is that before FEMA got sucked into the Department of Homeland Security it was a robust and extremely effective federal agency. The failures of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina are well documented, the administration’s inability — in fact it’s reluctance — to respond have been well documented.
For the wild fires, the question of preparedness falls squarely on the issue of deploying the airborne assets to fight the fire in the earliest moments of the Witch and Harris fires when the fires were small. Besides a no fly rule when dusk begins to settle in, the man in charge of CalFire, formerly the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, made the decision that it was too windy for aircrews to fly and therefore the firefighters on the ground had to fight the fires themselves. The man in charge of CalFire is Ruben Grijalva, a name we haven’t really seen in the news during this crisis. Gotta wonder why. He’s the last word on when and how to deploy assets to any fire situation.
Also at issue was the fact that for the first 72 hours of the fires the only assets on the ground were state, and mostly local firefighters. There were no firefighters from other states. Much of that can be explained by the number of fires burning in other parts of the country, and in particular, the Malibu Fire which had started a couple days before the Witch and Harris Fires in San Diego. There are only so many firefighters available and the managers in CalFire are reluctant to pull assets from one fire to fight another. Therefore, the question is, where was the federal response?
Fighting other fires elsewhere. It wasn’t until Wednesday that firefighters deployed by the Department of Homeland Security were fighting the Witch and Harris Fires in significant numbers.The real debate though twirls around the air assets. Duncan Hunter, congressman and presidential candidate, said there were Marine Corps aircrews ready and waiting at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
Duncan Hunter of course is looking to score points with the voters so he’s made a case against state authorities and one can assume the congressman will be using his spin on what state authorities did “wrong” as he stumps around the country and stands at the podium during debates.
It’s doubtful he’ll make much hay with the federal protocols for bringing in military assets to fight fires.
Although I read this in the Union Tribune, fire fighting protocol isn’t really talked about on the television or radio news. There is an agreement between CalFire and the Navy Reserves that allows CalFire to call in air assets from that agency, but no such agreement with the Marine Corps so for CalFire to call in the Marines, they need to first contact the U.S. Forestry service in Boise, Idaho and then the Pentagon. Ruben Grijalva can’t get on the phone and call the Commanding General of MCAS Miramar and say, “We need your airborne firefighting assets.”
Going through channels takes time and CalFire didn’t want to take that time, so they called for U.S. Forestry Department assets only.One of the sticking points with the Marine Corps assets was this issue of having a CalFire spotter in each aircraft. That person would actually direct where and when each aircraft drops its load of water or flame retardant. That would be a good thing, but the deal that was finally agreed required only one spotter for every three aircraft. Maybe that works just as well and if it does, let’s do it.
This was all leading up to my main point of our “Governator” Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He’s been California’s governor for … three years? … and I still have to look up his name to spell it correctly.
No secret, I was against the recall that put the Terminator in office, that’s a completely different issue and oh, how this idiocy known as the California Ballot Initiative needs some dialogue (at the very least), but in this latest crisis, the Governator has been a pretty cool and effective leader. Yes, a Republican … (sigh) … give kudos where kudos are due. Unlike the president, Schwarzenegger was on the ground in the fire areas quickly, talking to the firefighters, local officials and the people affected by the fires. And, he was quite candid about what he could actually do as the top dog in state government.
His assessment of his role: to keep the firefighters pumped up about their jobs, give the citizenry moral and emotional support and make sure the state firefighting agencies were doing all they could to battle the blazes. He said he wouldn’t order aircrews to fly, that decision was left to the professionals in CalFire. In fact Schwarzenegger lets CalFire run the operation without interference. There is a lot of chatter going on between the governor and the people managing the firefighting that we don’t hear about, but one thing I like about Arnold, he doesn’t duck tough questions nor has he made excuses for what some might say are failures on the part of the state response.
My guess is that when this is all over, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was receiving many accolades from all quarters just a week ago, will come under fire — and I’m betting the most ferocious attacks will come from his own party. Arnold isn’t a Republican’s Republican. He married a Kennedy for gods sake!He was criticized on Wednesday for not ordering CalFire to get the air assets flying early enough. He said, emphatically, that was a decision best left to the experts. This “point” was making the local radio talk show rounds: the commanders at MCAS Miramar—and the California National Guard — could have gone over the head of CalFire and spoke directly to Governor Schwarzenegger to get their assistance, but as Michael Chertoff said in his U-T interview, “… the purpose of unified command is to let professional firefighters — not Cabinet secretaries and not newspaper editors — make the judgment about whether it is efficacious to put air assets up,” the secretary.
He used the word “efficacious.” Gotta love that! The definition: Producing or capable of producing a desired effect.
There will be hell to pay for writing this I’m sure, but as firefighting goes, I have to agree with Schwarzenegger and Chertoff: let the professionals in CalFire make the decisions on how to fight the fires. If you were here in San Diego on Sunday and Monday, you know how hard the Santa Ana winds were blowing and it was for that reason the air assets were grounded. The radio talk show crowd seems to think a simple phone call from the military assets — or Duncan Hunter’s office — could have supplanted CalFire’s order not to fly, and all the military assets had to do was state they had the confidence to not only fly safely — at extremely low altitudes — but drop their loads of water and flame retardant efficaciously.
If I’m Ruben Grijalva I’m thinking, “fuck me,” at that suggestion. We’re basically telling the firefighting community, the ones charged with making the decisions in particular, they don’t know their jobs and radio talk show hosts, stumping presidential hopefuls and others know how to do it better.
What could be improved on? Maybe revising the protocol for getting military assets in the air, but the fact remains, it was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly. We were getting wind gusts of 100 mph for a couple days and on Sunday and Monday visibility was too low.
This particular rant has gone on now for nearly 1,800 words and yet the surface of this issue has barely been scratched. Eh, maybe I need an editor, one that doesn’t mind reading the “F” word. I remember a while ago my Dear Brother suggested I write shorter pieces. “Fuck!” Me, restrain my fingers? Not in this lifetime … but he’s got a point.
Bottom line, the Governator was and is an excellent leader in this crisis, but in the coming weeks we will see everyone and his brother blaming the governor for letting the fires get out of hand. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for all his faults (and I could write another 1,800 words just on those alone) handled himself and the state’s role in firefighting pretty well, considering the conditions. Regardless, I’ll probably vote for the Democratic nominee for governor in 2008.
Or not.
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As the blame game jumps into high gear, everyone who blogs is blaming CalFire for the slow response from military aircraft, in partcular Marine helicopters from MCAS Miramar. Beaurocratic red tape is the problem according to Duncan Hunter, and I might actually agree with that.Someone has on their blog a CalFire official blaming the Marines and the U.S. Department of Forestry. Haven’t been able to find that quote in a second location and the blogger didn’t reference where he found it, so until such time that I can find it reported on a couple of news sites, I won’t repeat it here.
CalFire is ultimately responsible, but just from my personal experience Sunday through Tuesday, the extremely high winds kept the aircraft grounded.
The San Diego Chargers won their game against the Houston ... Texans ... Damn! Forgot the name of the team! It was a blow-out. Monday I was wondering if and where the game would be played. Thankfully, it was played in Qualcomm Stadium in front of a hometown crowd that honored the first responders who have been fighting these blazes all week. A ceremony kicked off the game and afterwards several of the Chargers expressed their joy in providing not only a win, but an emotional diversion from the fires for the fans. It was a good game.
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