Residents of Northern California communities razed by a devastating wildfire are blaming belated warnings from public officials, including the town's newly-elected mayor, for the chaotic evacuation and rising death toll currently at 48.
Survivors of the Camp Fire inferno have been left wondering why more was not done to facilitate evacuations in Paradise and neighboring towns after the fire ignited Thursday morning and ripped through the Sierra Nevada foothills at an alarming speed.
News of the fire broke on Twitter a full 80 minutes before any official warnings were sent to people living in the area.
In a matter of 24 hours, entire neighborhoods were devoured by towering flames, reducing some 7,600 homes, businesses, churches and schools to ash.
Forty-eight people have been confirmed dead and dozens are still missing in what has become the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Emotions ran high as Paradise residents held a town hall meeting in neighboring Chico on Tuesday night.
Resident Michael Orr stood up to call for the resignation of Mayor Jody Jones, who had just been re-elected last week, two days before the town of 27,000 was decimated.
Jones has said she has no plans to step down.
Victims of the Camp Fire are criticizing local public officials for not providing adequate warnings before the inferno tore through towns in Northern California last week. Residents Chris and Nancy Brown are pictured here standing in the remains of their home on Monday
Some residents of Paradise and neighboring towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills are wondering if better evacuation protocols could have prevented the still-rising death toll of 48. Sheriff's deputies are pictured removing remains of one victim on Saturday
The Camp Fire ignited Thursday morning and ripped through Butte County at an alarming speed, destroying an estimated 7,600 homes in a matter of 24 hours
One Paradise resident demanded that Mayor Jody Jones' resign during a town hall meeting on Tuesday night. Jones (pictured) has said she has no intention of stepping down
'They definitely didn't do enough,' Christina Taft, whose 67-year-old mother has been missing since the fire, said of local officials.
Taft told NBC that her mother hadn't expected the fire to be as bad as it was because there was hardly any communication.
'She expected someone would be calling, or something, if it got bad. But they didn't,' she said.
'They were negligent. They just let them go. There is a reason all these people are dead.'
On Monday a resident of Magalia, located about eight miles west of where the fire began, confronted Butte County Sheriff Kory L Honea, asking why he and his neighbors were unable to find any information about the approaching fire three hours firefighters responded to it.
'We use the emergency broadcast system for a tornado warning. But this is a deadly fire,' the unidentified man said during the meeting in Oroville.
'I don't remember any alert coming over my radio…. People in the community are freaking out, you need to get some information up here.'
Coroner and rescue teams are surveying the fire damage in Paradise, a town of 27,000 people
Paradise resident Jim Clark visits what is left of his home on Tuesday. 'When the disaster's over it's about saving the life that's left,' Clark told AP
Rescue workers sift through the rubble at a home to identify human and animal remains
Krystin Harvey, left, comforts her daughter Araya Cipollini at the remains of their home in Paradise
Paradise residents held an emotional town hall meeting in Chico on Tuesday night (above)
News of the fire was first announced on Twitter at 6.51am, when officials were reportedly working to access a 10-acre blaze in the Feather River canyon near Highway 70, 20 minutes after flames had been spotted.
The first evacuation alert, also posted on Twitter, was announced about 80 minutes later at 8.03am, for Pentz Road area along Paradise’s eastern flank, closest to the fire.
Six miles away Zachary Byrd was sound asleep in his home. He was registered for the city's CodeRed alert system but hadn't received a message.
Then at 8.20am his girlfriend rushed hom from work yelling: 'The city's on fire! The city's on fire!'
'I ran outside and the sky was blood red. There was crashing all around,' Byrd told the Mercury News.
'Nobody knew. There was nothing — no notification. A lot of elderly folks, maybe deaf or wheelchair-bound, maybe just sitting on their couch watching TV, they had no idea.'
Byrd quickly packed a bag with essentials and got on the road, but the streets of Paradise had already erupted in chaosas there are only three main exits from the town.
'We were dead stopped in traffic and you couldn’t see,' Byrd said. 'Everything was raging. Power poles were falling. It was raining ash. It sounded like a war.
'We drove straight through flames, but it was the only way to get out of town. It was the only way you knew.'
A satellite image shows Camp Fire from above as it overtook Paradise and neighboring towns
Firefighters work to corral the flames as Camp Fire quadrupled in size over 24 hours last week
During a news conference Tuesday evening, Butte County Sheriff Kory L Honea (center) said Camp Fire's speed made it difficult for officials to issue timely notifications to area residents
Butte County officials say they delivered more than 35,000 emergency notifications about the fire: 5,227 by email, 25,643 over the phone and 5,445 via text message.
'I wish we had the opportunity to get more alerts out, more of a warning out, but unfortunately we didn't,' Sheriff Honea said at Monday's public meeting.
During a news conference Tuesday evening, Honea reiterated that the fire's speed made it difficult for officials to issue timely notifications.
'You have to keep in mind that this was an extraordinarily chaotic and rapidly moving situation,' he said.
'The fire started in a remote area. It takes awhile for our fire resources to get there and from that point, trying to determine the path of travel and whether or not that's going to effect populated areas, that takes time.'
Honea also mentioned that some people who did receive warning chose not to evacuate the area immediately, putting themselves in danger.
'We were trying to move tens of thousands of people out of an area very rapidly with the fire coming very rapidly,' he said.
'And no matter what your plan is to do that, no plan will ever work 100 percent when you are dealing with that much chaos.'
Link hienalouca.comhttps://hienalouca.com/2018/11/15/paradise-residents-blame-officials-and-mayor-for-chaotic-wildfire-evacuation-and-rising-death-toll/
Main photo article Residents of Northern California communities razed by a devastating wildfire are blaming belated warnings from public officials, including the town’s newly-elected mayor, for the chaotic evacuation and rising death toll currently at 48.
Survivors of the Camp Fire inferno have been left ...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves US News HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/11/14/17/6183638-6389617-image-a-20_1542216406468.jpg
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