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Showing posts from November, 2020

On Second Anniversary of California’s Camp Fire, a Look-Back on Lessons Learned – and Lost – in another Emergency. NorCal Fire Warning Failures Continue, so Let’s See What We Learned in 1982 during Hawaii’s Hurricane Iwa

California’s deadliest wildfire tore through the town of Paradise two years ago on November 8. The Camp Fire killed 85 people and left thousands displaced and grieving for their paradise, lost in the forests of Northern California. I’ve been campaigning here at CHORE for improved wildfire alerts since even before that fire’s well-documented failures (archived site loads slowly), and I’ve generally avoided using the “I” word in these posts. This campaign isn’t about attracting attention to myself.    But – I  do  have the kind of hands-on emergency communications experience that appears lacking in far too many California officials charged with emergency response.  My September 21 post strongly hinted at what hands-on proactivity looks like in calling for “a new way of thinking, of taking action, of shouldering personal responsibility to save lives.”  Learned Lessons Lost Hurricane Iwa struck Hawaii in November 1982 and quickly forced me and the rest of Hawaiian Electric Company’s cor