I can’t even begin to convey the anger by the residents of Yorba Linda whose houses burned because of the fire and that the Firemen could not save their house because there was no water.
The top complaints:
No Water!
Not everyone received evacuation notices (reverse 911 didn’t work)!
City had no information available on website or by phone!
Looky Loos clogging up the streets for residents to leave!
Why wasn’t cable TV used to broadcast a message, we always get the emergency
broadcast tests but it wasn’t used.
People complained that our city officials were not on TV. In there defense its not
like channels 2,4,7,9 and 11 care that much about Orange County except when they
want to Televise the devastation so to Hell with the News Channels because they don’t
Give a Damn about OC. Even after the 5.4 earthquake in Yorba Linda they were doing stories
about the damage in LA County cities until OC residents yelled enough to get people down here.
What was interesting is that residents of Hidden Hills have been reporting of water pressure problems for YEARS at least 15-18 years of problems. And also there was supposed to be a water tank built (or a second) at the top of Hidden Hills and never has. The other HUGE problem with Hidden Hills is that there is only 1 road in and the same road to get out with 1 lane in each direction is most parts.
During the fire did you know there was a train car filled with hazardous chemicals at the bottom of Hidden Hills? The train car was moved but that was only after the fire had started to move west of Hidden Hills.
If you haven’t seen the up close footage here is a great video showing how insane this fire was. This was not just a wild fire it was a FIRE STORM! The fire department didn’t have a chance containing it and not having water in some areas made the problem even worse.
A great idea brought up by a resident is to have fire equipment located in hard to reach areas and train residents on hooking up the equipment so when fire department cannot help them because there aren’t enough firemen to go around they can try to save their own houses. I know city officials will say this is a bad idea and it can endanger residents lives, but residents are going to do the best they can to save their house anyways, so we might as well give them some equipment to help them.
Now that the fire is gone, what is the city going to do about planning for possible flooding come rain season? Basically every piece of vegetation is GONE in the hills of Yorba Linda and this can spell another disaster with any sort of descent rain.
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I did find it interesting that news reports claimed reverse 911 was used, but neither I nor my in-law’s received a call to evacuate (and we don’t live in the same neighborhood).