Fake News And Distrustful Government Leadership During Disasters
Why doesn’t anyone ever check the news on non-political topics? It seems there has been a big smoke screen lately when it comes to Natural Disasters. We are constantly being told such events are the “Worst” ever in history. Just recently, we saw Hurricane Harvey flood out Houston TX area, they told us it was the worst Hurricane damage ever. Not true. They told us such a flood in that region was unprecedented, also not true, Houston has big flood events at least twice per decade, yes, this was the worst in years, but hardly the worst in history – just more people there now to be flooded out.The very next week there was a big brush fire (dubbed: The La Tuna Fire) in Southern California, in LA County near Burbank and Glendale CA. It burned around 7,000 plus acres. He told us it was the biggest fire in LA County history – he looked straight into the TV cameras with a straight face and told a bold-face lie. It wasn’t anywhere near the worst wildfire, brush fire, or the most property damage or costly for that matter. Not even close.For instance from September 28 to October 6, 2005 the Topanga Fire burned 24,175 acres; or the Station Fire from August 26 2009 to October 16 2009 which burned 160,577 acres and we lost 209 structures and there were 2 fatalities. The Springs Fire which started in Ventura County which stated on May 2, 2013 burned 24,000 acres of which about 8,000-plus acres were in LA County.And, mind you these are fires aren’t that long ago, in fact, there are still brush burn scares on the trails – you can see when you go hiking, burned-out brush will still smear charcoal on your legs when you run against it, trust me, I am an avid trail runner and come back often with black stripes on my legs from fires nearly a decade ago. Indeed, in the La Tuna Fire, the Firefighters actually got a rain storm that significantly knocked the fire down and it was put out completely rather quickly in short order.Why all the fake news? I believe it is so politicians can claim “devastation” to drive more Federal and State monies to the area from Emergency Disaster Relief Funds. So they can trigger more support from the Federal Government to pay for aerial fire tanker support, and to aggrandize themselves as they run for Governor, or attempt to be re-elected Mayor. Regardless of why, they know they aren’t telling the truth and think “we” the citizens are so stupid and have such short memories that we don’t know the difference or that we might be fooled because the media keeps repeating the lie.”Where are the Fact Checkers?” I dare to ask? Why do Fire Chiefs, Police Chiefs, Public Work Administrators stand side-by-side with these politicians and stay silent, they know the truth, it’s taken decades for them to become department heads – could it be that they became department heads by going with the flow and living the lie in trade for high paid jobs, pensions, and benefits? Scary thought, especially considering this trend.