Everyone's an Expert When it Comes to California Wildfires

Since when did it become the thing to do to spout off hurtful and spiteful comments during times of natural disasters? This trend occurred during Hurricane Katrina and again when wildfires raged throughout Southern California in late October.

Not only were people talking about how "dumb" the homeowners were to live in areas full of brush and other fire fuel, but people couldn't get enough of politics into the whole fire conversation. First, came criticism at the state level about how some fire areas were not getting enough planes dropping water over their fires. Then there was the federal comments from those saying that Bush responded faster to the fires than he did the Katrina fiasco.

One need only look at the chain of comments attached to a NewYorkTimes.com story on the fire to see just how full of opinions people were on the subject of the fires.

For all of the talking that was done in the weeks following the disaster, it became unbelievably clear how highly individuals think of themselves. All of a sudden every person - and not just those in California - was suddenly an expert at creating policy in times of a natural disaster.

One writer for the Red State web site decided that the proper response came for the fires because California was a red state and that somehow California was better at evacuating people because it wasn't full of Democrats - as was the case in Katrina - according to this writer. Others had to bring their hatred for Bush into the mix. Isn't amazing how some people so desperate for the final political laugh, will use a catastrophe in which people's lives are at stake, to bring politics into the discussion. We can't just agree all around that the fires were bad. No. We have to have some political cause attached.

Then there was the ridiculousness of some homeowners and others who had to complain that Schwarzenegger wasn't doing enough. There were complaints from some in Orange County (in the case of the Santiago fire) that they were being ignored and had there been more planes dropping water, the fire wouldn't have gotten out of control. Did everyone just forget about Mother Nature and the fact that had the Santa Ana winds not been blowing that weekend, that none of the fires in the region would have gotten out of control? No. That would have been too logical.

Instead, people have to place blame on someone else. If Schwarzenegger had sent more planes to Orange County at the start of the fire and then those planes ended up crashing because it was so windy, then the blame would have been for the deaths of the pilots. It's almost as if the public sets up policymakers to the point where they just can't do anything right, and that the blame will always be attached to them.

Everyone's a critic, but if they were in leadership positions, would anything have been done differently. While the wildfires, may have sparked more questions and debate about insurance policies, development in areas with a lot of brush and other safety concerns, they also sparked a light on how so many individuals will use a catastrophe for a laugh or to get their own agendas across. And for as much physical destruction the fires did, the wave of opinions and criticisms over the fires and policymakers' decisions did so much more damage.