California is on fire again.

[NoahsMommy]

The winds are horrific - and that is what causes the fires to spread so rapidly as flames jump from one spot to another.

At my home the winds were strong last night - but all is calm right now.

Amen to this....the winds have been HORRIBLE at our place. We live in the hills of Simi Valley - VALLEY. Valleys are NOT good places to live when windy, espeically when the place you live means - WINDY VALLEY (Simi = windy in Native American).

Luckily its died down A LOT since everything began, but wow. On Monday, my mom was so distraught - we had to give her 3 margaritas to calm her. My mom doesn't really drink - maybe wine socially. She was soooo upset to see her garden in ruins.

Her/their Gardens have been in 'Garden Tours', have won Awards many times over. Most weekends consist of at least one day in the garden and during the week after work I'd say about 2 to 3 days spent out there until it gets dark. My step-dad is retired, so he is out there additionally during the day. They spend a lot of time, money, energy, and LOVE on that garden. Its VERY important to them...my mom has been gardening since she was a little girl - taught by her mother. We have things in the garden that belonged to my grandma, from her garden, her English Garden.

Our Arbors came down - they were so top heavy with roses and flowering vines that despite being reinforced and cemented in at the bottom, the wind toppled over first. All the trees are so wind blown, are naked (leaves have been blown off), snapped off in the weaker areas, leaning or have snapped off because the 80 mph wind was too strong for our 2-year-old and younger trees (2 years is the very oldest...). Poor, poor trees and bushes. Even the tree stakes snapped - these are wooden poles thicker than the trees they support!!

I'll be back to write more, work is calling...

[Cinder & Smoke]

Do we really PAY these idiots????


Can I get a refund?

FEMA workers masquerade as reporters
Employees asked questions at last minute California wildfire briefing ...

WASHINGTON - One way to get decent coverage in this rough-and-tumble city is to arrange to have your own employees interrogate you at your news conference...

FEMA scheduled an early afternoon news briefing on only 15 minutes notice to reporters here Tuesday to talk about its handling of assistance to victims of wildfires that were ravaging much of Southern California.

At the news conference itself, some FEMA employees played the role of reporter, asking questions of Johnson - queries described as soft and gratuitous.
"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from a person who was an agency employee, not an independent journalist.

Asked about this, Mike Widomski, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, said, "We had been getting mobbed with phone calls from reporters, and this was thrown together at the last minute."

Johnson issued a statement Friday saying that FEMA's goal was "to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment."
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Your Tax Dollars at Work ...



There Otta be a LAW!

[lizbud]

I just heard about this on tonights news. Who the heck
is in charge of FEMA? This really was a lame brained stunt. It's no
wonder the majority of people don't believe a word this administration's
officials have to say on any subject.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3782176&page=1

[lizbud]

I saw one story/video of a happy re-union of a Golden Retriever with
his family after their house was distroyed by the fires. It's a great story.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...dog.found.kusi

[Taz_Zoee]

I saw one story/video of a happy re-union of a Golden Retriever with
his family after their house was distroyed by the fires. It's a great story.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...dog.found.kusi

That was awesome. Major happy LES here.

[sasvermont]

Great story. It made my day!

[lizbud]

I'm glad you got to see it.That was one happy dog & happy family.