Even as residents remain trapped in the mountains after monster storms dropped over 17 feet of snow in some areas, and thousands remain without power, California Governor Gavin Newsom slipped out of the state for “personal travel” Friday. [Full disclosure: my SoCal household was without power for much of Thursday. It only takes a few hours of not having electricity to realize how completely dependent we are on it for so many facets of modern life.]
The Golden State’s chief executive declared a state of emergency on Wednesday for 13 counties including Los Angeles, but evidently, said emergency is not enough for him to stick around.
He is expected to return Sunday, according to his press office. Maybe even he needed a break from the state’s woes: MORE
Ingnore the Democrat for the moment. There is ample evidence that he and his are evil and have helped cause and revel in this sorrow. There will be a reckoning, but first we must address those in harm’s way.
Bear in mind that there is the immediate threat to life and limb of not only the blackouts, but the inaccessibility. Food and medicines cannot be replenished, fuel is whatever can be cut for houses most likely not designed to burn it, and while you can melt snow for water and preserve some items in the snow, the energy used to do this is caloric energy that needs to be replaced by rapidly diminishing food supplies. Also the likelyhood of injury is MUCH higher, from exposure injuries from inadequate heating, diseases from inadequate sanitation, people being forced to do physical activity they may not be physically equipped for with tools that may not be designed for the task are at huge risk of injuring themselves or others, fires from heating with unfamiliar methods that may engulf houses or even neighborhoods with no hope of response, carbon monoxide poisoning from desperate people attempting to heat with everything from burning cardboard to cars, lack of communications so an injured person may not even be able to communicate it to anyone else…the list goes on and on.
And for most people, particuarly the medically compromised such as insulin-dependent diabetics, heart patients in need of their panoplay of cardioactive drugs, children with medically controlled behavior problems, and the myriad of pills the elderly need for daily life are simply not there. It is not fair in many of these cases to say these people should have stocked up ahead as most prescription will not be writtten for and most health plans will not allow for that. Also, with the lack of ability to travel comes the consequences of not being able to travel for cancer treatments, dialisys, and the like, things that may result in deaths over and above what the weather itself will claim.
And people will not stop having all the more ordinary crisis like cuts and broken bones and such, which may change from a minor nusiance to a crippling or even deadly threat without the ability to treat with antibiotics or set a bone in a reasonable time frame.
Responders may try to reach them, behind snow plows, by snowmobile, by helicopter, but this cannot replace more than a fraction of what’s needed, and at great cost and greatly incresed personal risk to the responders as well, who will find their share of injury in the snow. A downed helicopter or a flipped snowmobile will quickly divert more responses from those in incresingly desperate need.
Also, even if a sufferer reaches them, facilities for feeding and treatment may be understaffed, overwhelmed, themselves without power, or simply closed, which would be a bitter pill for one who risked all to reach them. With no comms you have no way to find out.
And with no ability to go to jobs you have no money to pay for anything.
And this does not even touch on the secondary disaster of the floods and the mudslides that will be the inevitable result of what happens when this snowpack finally melts.
Send aid if you can, be aid if you can, but all of us should at least pray for those who suffer and those who strive to assist them.
Dear Lord, we come before You today on behalf of those in this desperate plight, who need Your strenght and Your mercy to be able to overcome it. Lord, strenghten them to the emergency, warm their bodies, fill their bellies, allow them the grace to safely keep warm, shelter them from hurt, harm, and danger until You free them from their confinement and restore them the ability to serve each other as You would have them do. Touch all of those who suffer today and all of those who work tirelessly to help them, provide all that is needed and make Your sign in this disaster by sparing them as You reverse it, to Your everlasting glory and as a sign of Your compassion for Your creations.
Please Lord, turn aside Your wrath at those who have stolen the rule of these lands and show those they abuse, ignore, and neglect who the TRUE Ruler of ALL the lands and the seas and the heavens REALLY is. Even as You turned aside Your wrath and Ninevah in the time of Jonah when those in that land turned to You, so let it be now that You show mercy to those as a sign of Your compassion to them that they may have yet another repreive to seek Your face in a land whose rulers actively discourage that. It is much to ask but you are a mighty and merciful Lord, and it is for Your mercy and to Your Glory by the blood of Your Son Jesus Christ we pray,
Amen
God Bless,
SNS
Newsom is channelling his inner Pedo Pete Butthead.
Didn’t Ted Cruz catch hell just a year or two ago for pretty much the same thing? Gruesome gets a pass.
I got a first class ticket for him for a luxury train ride in Greece.