tagryn's musings

The Malibu fires have been receiving the publicity, but the true devastation looks like its is going to be in Santa Clarita, specifically up in Canyon Country. I'm watching the live stream from Fox 11 in L.A., the fire has jumped the main highway with strong winds and there's numerous hot spots all across the ridges of Canyon Country. 10,000 acres and 10 homes have burned so far, and there's lots of housing developments right up against the hills in there, so its going to get even worse very quickly, I think. And its dark now, so the tanker aircraft won't be able to operate until the sun comes up again (too dangerous to fly them at night).

I taught many, many times at Canyon High School when we were living in Santa Clarita, and I'm very familiar with that area. If we were still living there, we'd have packed up the cats and valuables and been on our way into the San Fernando Valley by now. Fires in SoCal are like hurricanes: if you fool around and wait to see how things go, by the time you realize its serious, many times its too late to get away. The traffic trying to get out of Canyon Country is bumper-to-bumper with no movement.

I stumbled on these accidentally: the best live streaming video feeds of Los Angeles that I've seen. The LAX and Catalina ones are very good, and I'm enjoying watching the "Live Feed #1" shots for their helicopter traffic reports, both for the traffic shots and to hear the reporter's commentaries when the mike to the studio is off.