The response, all across the board, has been wonderful, and now that the fires seem to be being brought under control, we can all feel great pride in our state and our country’s (and it will continue I am certain) response.
A very good thing.
Daniel Weintraub: Mindful of Katrina, governor leads fire relief effort
By Daniel Weintraub -
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, October 25, 2007
For politicians, one big lesson from the Hurricane Katrina disaster is this: worry about the bathrooms.
With 500,000 people in San Diego County ordered from their homes this week as wildfires raced through suburban neighborhoods and rural enclaves – the largest evacuation in state history – thousands were given shelter at Qualcomm Stadium, the home of the NFL's San Diego Chargers.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, recalling the sense of abandonment that fell upon victims of the 2005 hurricane who made their way to the Louisiana Superdome, visited the San Diego stadium, took a very public walk through the crowd, and made a point of inquiring about the basics of life that every evacuee would need.
"We were concerned, do we have enough cots down here, do we have the enough blankets, do we have enough food, do we have water, do we have the baby formulas, do we have the diapers, do we have enough toilet paper, do we have enough toilets?" Schwarzenegger said at a press conference after his tour. "Do we have everything we need for the people here so they can stay overnight?"
Toilets might seem beneath the pay grade of the governor of the nation's most populous state. But if the toilets are overflowing, even if they're not his responsibility, nothing else a chief executive does is going to have much credibility.
And Schwarzenegger was doing a lot. Almost from the moment Monday morning when it became clear that the fires might grow into a serious crisis, the governor cleared his schedule, headed for the action and stayed there for days. Using his personal private jet, he shuttled between Los Angeles and San Diego all week, touring command posts, getting briefed by emergency operations managers and fire chiefs, and convening meetings of his own staff to deal with problems.
