Tuesday, 10/23/2007 Print Version |
Governor Visits Santa Clarita Incident Command Center, Discusses Relief Efforts
GOVERNOR: Good evening, everybody, and thank you for coming out here. I want to thank also the press for being here today. First of all, I want to say thank you very much to Speaker Núñez for being here today, and traveling around the state with me, and visiting all the different fires. Thank you very much. I want to thank also Mayor McLean for being here today. Supervisor Yaroslavsky, and Supervisor Antonovich, I want to thank both of them for coming out here and working very hard to help with those fires. Then Assemblyman Smyth, I want to thank him, and Sheriff Baca, Chief Freeman of the LA County Fire Department.
And of course we just got some great briefings just a minute ago from Chief Massey of LA County, and then Chief Thompson of the California Fire, and also Chief Opliger of the US Forest Service. We want to thank them very much for the great briefing.
We have been traveling around today to all the different fires all over the state, and it's very tragic when you see what has happened these last few days in California, those terrible fires, which of course the circumstances have created. You know, the perfect storm for fires, which is it's very dry, it's very hot, and we have a lot of wind all over the state of California. So there was a lot of damage that was created. But we have over 10,000 firefighters that are fighting all over the state of California, and I want to just say again thank you very much to those firefighters for their courage. We have, without any doubt, the most courageous, brave and talented, and best trained firefighters in the world fighting our fires in California, so I'm very proud of them, and I think we should give them a big hand for the great work that they are doing. (Applause)
As you probably already know from the media, but we have lost almost 800 homes in California, and there is a lot of damage, and the fire is still out of control down in San Diego. Here, of course, I've gotten the briefings; there are 4,000 firefighters that have fought those three fires around here, and I want to thank them for the great effort that they have made with the Buckweed Fire, the Magic Fire, and the Ranch Fire. They all have started out just a few days ago, and some of them are 100 percent contained, others are 80 percent, and another one is 10 percent contained. But the firefighters are working around the clock, 24 hours a day, so again, this is extraordinary work.
So I just want to thank all of you for the great effort. One of the things that has happened in these fires is that everyone came together very quickly. The efficiency factor was extremely high; the locals, the state, and the federal government have worked together from Day 1. And I have declared a state of emergency in the seven counties. All seven counties where we have the fires we have asked the federal government and the President to declare a state of emergency, which he did within one day. Secretary Chertoff came out here today and we traveled with him through our various different fires, and also where people were relocated and evacuated down in the San Diego area. We were promised that we will get probably a state of, not only emergency, but a disaster declaration, which means that we'd have more money available then.
The key thing with all of this is that we help people rebuild their homes as quickly as possible, because it's very saddening when you know that people have worked their whole lives, saving money, to create their own home, and then in one hour their home is gone. So we all have to work together -- it's all one family -- and make sure that the locals, the state and the federal government works together and puts money together so that the people can rebuild those homes as quickly as possible.
So again, I want to say thank you very much to everyone for their extraordinary help, and I'm very proud to be governor of the great State of California knowing that we have such extraordinary and spectacular firefighters. So thank you very much. And now I would like to give the microphone over the Speaker Núñez to say a few words.
SPEAKER NÚÑEZ: Thank you very much, Governor. And we were saying earlier to a group of firefighters that we had an opportunity to talk to, that there's no question that we have the best firefighters in the country and in the world, here in California. And the level of cooperation between the local, the county, and the state agencies, has just been remarkable. But more remarkable than that really is the sacrifice that firefighters and peace officers are making to protect the rest of us. And I've got to tell you, we can't forget the hard work -- and I know there are people working late shifts to put out the fires. Risking your own lives to protect the rest of the folks is just the type of sacrifice that we cannot forget.
At the same time, I do think that when you look around and look at the devastation that these fires are causing, the loss of someone's personal property and home, the piece of the American dream that you have, that's a huge loss. But the fact of the matter is that we're going to work together to make sure that we can help everybody rebuild that dream back up.
For those folks that are moving back to their own homes -- sometimes I know that we were having a hard time, at least some of the firefighters were telling us, in getting people to evacuate. Some folks wanted to stay in their homes. Eventually, I think most participated and did what they were told -- can now go back. But the Forestry Office, I just learned, burned down. And so, you know -- and these are folks who obviously fought to hard to protect the rest of us. But I listened very carefully when you explained that to us in the briefing, and we've got to figure out how to rebuild that as well, along with everything else that went down here.
But the remarkable unity that's been demonstrated by everybody, the hard work of the Mayor, the Supervisors that are here, Mr. Antonovich as well, and Mr. Yaroslavsky and everyone else, is just great. To see Sheriff Baca here aggressively tackling this issue, demonstrates that there's leadership that really cares about the people of this area and all of southern California. And some will say help is on the way. I think that's in the past. The help is here, it has been here, and it will continue to be here until every person is restored back to where they were before these fires began.
Thank you very much. And Governor, you've been doing a great job. I'll just tell you this quick story. Yesterday, it turns out the Governor in San Diego realized there were a lot of people who didn't have the services that they needed; noticed a lot of senior citizens weren't getting the medical care that they needed. So he himself got on the phone and started calling different people to make sure that doctors got out there, that there were cots out there in San Diego at the stadium down there, Qualcomm Stadium, so the people had a place to sleep. It's that type of engagement that I think demonstrates that we're all working together, that we're going to get this behind us, and that we're going to rebuild southern California to where it was before these fires started. Thank you very much, Governor. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: We would like to have Chief Michael Freeman come out and say a few words, please. (Applause)
CHIEF FREEMAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, on behalf of all the firefighters who continue the battle across our state, and certainly the firefighters here with us tonight, we want to extend our condolences to those who have lost property, who have been injured, and certainly the life that's been lost. Many of our firefighters have had homes damaged and lost during this firestorm across our state. But the firefighters have worked very hard, and they will continue to work hard, to provide the protection and to do all that they can.
But it is a cooperative effort, as the Governor has indicated. At this location there are actually three major fires, and numerous other smaller fires that have been handled repeatedly for the last 36 hours. And on this particular largest fire in the area is the Buckweed Fire, which exceeds 37,000 acres, almost 26,000 of those acres are in the US Forest Service responsibility. We have a unified command here between the Los Angeles County Fire Department, between California Fire supporting our efforts, and of course, the US Forest Service. I'd like to bring up for some specific comments on this fire, and the tremendous progress that was made today through the hard work of the firefighters, our Lead Incident Commander, Rocky Opliger, from the US Forest Service. (Applause)
COMMANDER OPLIGER: Good evening. Again, I'm Rocky Opliger, one of the unified command incident commanders on the Buckweed Fire. We've also assumed command of the neighboring fire. And I want to introduce my fellow ICs, if they're out there -- Glen Massey, Chief Glen Massey from LA County Fire. (Applause) Roger Thompson from CalFire.
I want to emphasize the unity that we have here. Decisions made on these fires are not made in a vacuum. And with the cooperation of these folks, while we're managing the fires, we're able to take the resources that we have -- last night, when we had two new fires, we were taking our resources that were working in the night shift to go and suppress the new fires. So it's been a collaborative effort.
And I also want to put in a plug for our law enforcement agencies. We had 15,000 people that were evacuated. The cooperation with the LA County Sheriff's Department, Highway Patrol, we couldn’t' have done it without their efforts.
And then our support agencies. We have two evacuation centers. I want to put in a real plug for the incredible work that Red Cross has done for us; Public Health, for the folks that were basically inconvenienced by what the fire has done.
With that, the fire -- we made incredible progress today. The Buckweed Fire is at 80 percent contained. We were only at 27 percent this morning. We still had the severe weather today, but again the incredible efforts of all the firefighters, all the cooperative agencies, our law enforcement agencies, allowed us to get to the level that we are today.
And we're looking at all the other fires we certainly have in southern California. Our emphasis now is to get those critical resources, make those available so we can help support our neighboring forests, neighboring local governments, neighboring cities and communities on the fires that we certainly have. Again, on behalf of California Interagency Incident Management Team 4, my unified command ICs, Chief Massey, Chief Thompson, again, we want to thank all the support that the community has certainly given all of us in managing this incident. Thank you. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: And talking about great law enforcement officers and great work that's being done on the law enforcement side, here is one man that is really extraordinary and a great, great leader -- Sheriff Baca. (Applause)
SHERIFF BACA: Well, today all of us -- and Governor Schwarzenegger, it means a lot to have you here in this great part of the State of California. Quite frankly, yesterday Mother Nature was in charge. Today, the Los Angeles County Fire Department and local law enforcement, and all the agencies you've heard, are now in charge, and that's a good thing. So many people here locally have been affected by this tragic fire circumstance. And thank God the weather is giving us a little more advantage. The Fire Chief indicated earlier in the briefing that 80 percent of this is somewhat under control and containment, and that is good news as well. All tragedies and emergencies start locally, and then they grow on the proportionality of a statewide problem. The local city of Santa Clarita is the starting point of effective coordination. The city council has been working diligently with the sheriff's department and the fire department, and we are both the contract agencies for this great community, and the 1,200 square miles that work up north from here to the high desert in Antelope Valley, are all a part of what we plan for. And as we commend the firefighters who came here and worked efficiently and effectively, it was the pairing up of firefighters with local law enforcement, sheriff's deputies, the Highway Patrol, members of the Los Angeles Police Department were here, LA County Police were here, in addition to the LA Unified School District Police, and all of this combined leads to what we call a unified command. California, since 1950, has been a mutual aid state; this is Region 1. Chief Freeman will coordinate fire services, I'll coordinate law enforcement services. Were it not for the men and women in radio cars who know those fingers of streets and places up in that canyon that was affected by this great fire, we would not have been able to get ahead of the evacuation process that had to occur. And because of their pre-planned knowledge, they were able to do this as effectively as possible.
This is a good news story. Our hearts go out to San Diego residents here in Los Angeles. Our hearts go out to the over 15,000 to 20,000 residents that had to leave their homes here in Santa Clarita and Malibu. But the reality is that we were spared significantly as well, in comparison to what's going on there. I'm very proud of the fact that, as you've witnessed here, that we have a great governor, a man of action. This is action. We have a great form of cooperation with our state partners, the Office of Emergency Services. It's a great story here in California. We believe that we're the model state for cooperation and mutual aid, and mutual governance. Mutual governance is critical to what we've had to do. The resources the Fire Department have, the best aircraft that can be found -- and I think the Chief will speak to that probably if you give him a little question or two later -- is that without that air support, with the ground support, we wouldn't have been able to accomplish what we're talking about here today.
But let me finally say that the challenges in California -- and by golly, we've had good relationships with FEMA in the entire time we've been doing disaster management in this state, and FEMA was a partner right from the very beginning in our emergency Operations center. Los Angeles County -- we've got the President of the County Board of Supervisors, Mike Antonovich -- excuse me, Zev Yaroslavsky, and we have Supervisor Mike Antonovich here. Both of them -- I’m going to promote you both to President after this -- but the whole thing about this is that our county Emergency Operations Center does all the planning with fire and law enforcement together so that when the day comes, we know what we're supposed to do. And this is what our governor expects of us, this is what our legislators expect of us, this is what our local officials expect of us, and this is what we expect of ourselves, that no matter how big the problem, we're ready to deal with it. But our responsibility starts from that very first spark, or that very first indication of an earthquake, or that very first thing that's small but will grow big quickly.
So it's a real honor and pleasure to serve this great county. But the men and women in firefighting services and the men and women in law enforcement services, with the great governance that we have in this state, is why we were able to do what we did in Los Angeles County. Thank you so very much. God bless you, Governor. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: And talking about great leaders, here's a great leader that's coming out to talk a little bit here, and it's Assemblyman Smyth, who has been extraordinary. Please say a few words. (Applause)
ASSEMBLYMAN SMYTH: Thank you, Governor. Governor, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you guys for coming out here this evening, especially to you, Governor. This is the second time in about 10 days that we've had to work with your office to declare a state of emergency for this area. As you all recall, just about 10 days ago the I-5 tunnel fire occurred, and the Governor's Office and the Office of Emergency Management was right on top of it, to declare the state of emergency to free up the funds to help that commerce move through and traffic to move through on I-5. And then today, the Governor again stepping in, recognizing the importance and the need for freeing up funds to clear up this issue is here in Santa Clarita.
Not only is this my district, but this is my hometown, and it puts it in perspective when your friends and family are in danger of losing their homes. And earlier today we were talking to some of the firefighters, and many of the firefighters that are fighting this fire live in the community, or live in communities that are being affected. Yesterday we were at the IOC, and the liaison officer lives down in Orange County, and he was watching on the TV the fire in his neighborhood, reading about the street that he lives on being shut down and being mandatorily evacuated. And yet he stayed here. He stayed here to protect our community at the risk of his own. And that speaks to the level of service that the firefighters and law enforcement are willing to do to protect our homes and our communities.
And so while this has been a tragedy, it's also very encouraging, because seeing the agencies working together, the city, the county, the state, federal government, everybody coming together for the good of this state, is very encouraging, and we should be encouraged by that. And I personally, again, am very appreciative and very thankful that the Speaker and the Governor are willing to take my calls, working with our office, to come here and recognize the need. So Governor, thank you again. Mr. Speaker, thank you. And to the firefighters, thank you all so very, very much. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: Here is another great public servant, and I'm talking about Supervisor Antonovich. (Applause)
SUPERVISOR ANTONOVICH: Thank you, Governor. On behalf of the county and the residents, we want to thank you for signing that state of emergency, and we also thank the President, George Bush, for signing it at the federal level. We're pleased he'll be here on Thursday as well to give additional assistance. As Cameron mentioned, our firefighters, our public safety officers, many of those individuals live right here in the Santa Clarita Valley, and they were here putting out the fire even though their neighborhoods were under attack. And that's the professionalism, and why you cannot shortchange public safety. We need competent law enforcement, fire officials, who can respond at a moment's notice when there is an emergency, and be dedicated to carry the job out to completion. And we thank those individuals for their sacrifice to their community and their county and their state.
We mentioned about the communities working together. You had high school students in our gyms where we had evacuation centers, preparing the food, building up the cots for those who were being evacuated, and helping with the assistance with the faculty and the principal and the staff of those schools, assisting the Red Cross; the community working together. We had a city council out here, and we had our town council members being engaged in helping their neighbors; neighbor helping neighbor, which makes our country so unique.
At the county level, we appreciate Supervisor Yaroslavsky for being here, and my other members. And today we had an action taken asking our tax assessor to do special considerations for those who have had their homes impacted, who have lost their homes and had damage, about adjusting their property taxes, and those procedures that will be in place. We are sending a letter to the financial institutions asking them to withhold mortgage payments for a few months to help these individuals get back on their feet, and again, working together to help those who have suffered from this tragedy. We've asked the Department of Public Works and Regional Planning to set up one-stop permit processing centers, and be here to assist those who have to rebuild and repair their homes which have been damaged from this.
And we also want to thank the Department of Animal Control, who helped save the lives of the many horses and other animals, livestock, that were threatened by this fire. This was a community effort; we helped the humans and the animals to safety, and those individuals were also risking their lives, going into dangerous areas to rescue those animals as well. So this was a team effort. Unlike Louisiana, city and city and county and county worked with the state to face and deal with emergencies. We thank our Sheriff's Department, with our Highway Patrol, who assisted our fire personnel to put out the fire, and the fire personnel coming from other locations, working with our state and federal officials. This was a team effort, and working together we're going to get our people back on their feet so this great community can remain great.
We just had Jackie Chan coming here Friday night. This is where we're going to have a new studio, working with Jackie Chan Productions. We had a great opportunity with that great -- raising those funds for the Samuel Dickson Medical Center on Saturday at Castaic Lake, community helping community, and then we had the tragedy of the fire. But the community came back, helping one another, so that today we have the fire being contained and looking forward to a future which looked very dismal yesterday. And as my colleague Zev said, "What a difference a day makes." Thank you. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: Please welcome the great Supervisor Yaroslavsky. (Applause)
SUPERVISOR YAROSLAVSKY: Thank you, Governor. As Churchill once said, "Everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone has said it." I will be very brief. I echo all the remarks of Chief Freeman and all of the firefighters and Sheriff Baca and all the law enforcement personnel. This does not happen by accident. It happens because people plan for these kinds of events, and the resources, the overwhelming resources that are brought in at the first instance make all the difference in the world.
I do want to make one practical announcement. I'm an immigrant from Malibu here today. I appreciate you allowing me to come here. We do have some news in Malibu. Topanga Canyon Boulevard is now open, and Kanan Dume Road is now open. Malibu Canyon Road is not, and PCH is still closed, and wait for further notice on those. But Kanan and Topanga Canyon are now open to the general public, and all evacuation orders in the Malibu area in that fire have been lifted. That fire is 80 percent contained. And I did say, and I'll say it again: What a difference a day makes. We could not have imagined at this hour yesterday that we'd be in this situation today, and we are all very grateful to Mother Nature and to our firefighters and first responders for that. Thank you. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: And last but not least, our wonderful Mayor, Mayor McLean. Please. (Applause)
MAYOR McLEAN: Good evening. And on behalf of my entire city council here, I want to thank you, Governor, for coming, and I want to thank you very much for declaring the disaster area so quickly so that we could make use of the resources that are available. When something like this happens in a local community, I think the most important thing that we can do is to get the information out to our citizens and our residents about what's going on, because not knowing can put you in a panic state.
In the past month we have had to implement our emergency operations center twice, and at that point our City Manager, Assistant City Manager, Ken Striplin, and our staff, came to City Hall practically in the middle of the night to set up that emergency center so that come daylight we could get the information out to our residents. And for that I want to thank city staff. The heroics of our fire department, of our law enforcement, of our Forest Service, has made this fire far less of an impact than it could have been if they hadn't been so coordinated and so well coordinated, and so heroic. And so, therefore, I just want to thank all of you. I wanted to let you know that we have set up two emergency centers at two local high schools, and we will keep those open as long as it is needed. We are in the process of setting up an information center in one location where people can come to find relief for their insurance, for their FEMA, and such, and we're working with the county and all the agencies in order to make that happen.
Once again, I want to thank you, Governor, for coming. We appreciate it very, very much. And thank you to all of our fire and law enforcement personnel and the Forest Service, and to our city staff. Thank you so much. (Applause)
GOVERNOR: If you have any questions, please?
Q: Governor (Inaudible) with all these fires going on, did everything go by the book? Was it just standard operating procedure, or did you face challenges (Inaudible)
GOVERNOR: Well, I think Chief Freeman can answer that. Please.
CHIEF FREEMAN: Many things went by the book, but given the tremendous challenges, the multiple fires, simultaneous fires, many things had to go outside of the book. There were a lot of very innovative strategies put into effect to bring out the best outcome. Good planning, good coordination, practice and communication -- but this has challenged us to go outside the book.
Q: Would you do anything differently?
CHIEF FREEMAN: I think where we stand right now, everything that we did and the way we did it here, has been exactly as needed to fit the bill. I think the success we see here -- and again, we want to be appreciative of the weather change -- but I think at this point there's not much that we would change.
Q: What is your advice to the people who have lost their homes? (Inaudible)
MAYOR McLEAN: Actually, what we're hoping is that people do not allow themselves to become victims of this type of sort. We are going to be setting up a center very, very soon in which you will be able to come and get all the appropriate and proper information that you need. So all we can ask is that you are patient, and allow us to get those agencies working for you all in one place so that you can get the help that you need.
GOVERNOR: Also I just want to add that the Insurance Commissioner Poizner has been going to the various different fire sites to let people know, and warn them, that there will be people out there trying to take advantage of them, and trying to take advantage of that situation. So if anyone has any questions about that, get in touch with Insurance Commissioner Poizner, and he can really give you all the information that you need so you don’t get taken advantage of. Yes?
Q: Can you respond to remarks made by Assemblyman Spitzer saying had the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Committee been implemented (Inaudible) resources.
GOVERNOR: Well, I respect Assemblyman Spitzer very much, but I happen to disagree with him on that, because I have gone to all the various different big fires that have gone on here, and that have been dealt with, and I can tell you that the kind of coordination that has gone on from the local level to the state level and federal level, everyone, wherever I went, has said that we have never seen this kind of a quick action and response from all the different agencies, if it is law enforcement, if it is fire, no matter where you look there is just tremendous coordination, including, for instance, with the evacuation procedures and all this, the way law enforcement has worked with the fire officials and with the local officials and all this. So I have heard, for instance, stories today that they have more 90 aircraft that are available, but not all of them can fly because of the wind conditions. So for someone to complain about aircraft not being available, I think is ridiculous, because aircraft are available, but we have to wait for the right weather conditions so they can fly. And those that can fly are flying, and are putting out fires. Yes, please.
Q: (Inaudible)
GOVERNOR: Well, like I said, for me the interesting always is to go not only to get a briefing about the fire situation, and about the evacuation plans and all this, but to actually see the burned out homes and to talk to the people. And like I said earlier, it is very saddening to me, and I think to all of us here, because we know what is behind that house; there is someone that has saved for years and years and years, someone that has struggled and worked and made sacrifices, and finally they have their home -- or like the Speaker says, finally they are part of the American dream -- and then it's gone in one hour. So that is heartbreaking when you see something like that, and when you meet those people. And this is why I think it is so important that we all work together, and not just do it now for the first few days, but for months to come. Follow through on everything. Follow through is important in sports. You know, when you play golf they talk about the follow through, when you play tennis they talk about the follow through. Well, the same is with this. When there is a fire, the follow through is the most important thing, and we're going to follow through. Thank you. (Applause)
Q: The chief of the Orange County Fire Authority expressed the opinion earlier today that Orange County got shortchanged, and implied that it was at the expense of LA County. Your comments?
GOVERNOR: I don't think this is the case, but I'm going to go down there tomorrow, because it's one of the fires that I'm going to visit, and I'm going to get the firsthand information there, and the briefing. But I can tell you that everyone is getting equal attention, and everyone is getting the same kind of cooperation. As a matter of fact, we declared a state of emergency in all seven counties immediately when we saw the fires flaring up, and when we saw that this is something here to stay. So we're all working together on this. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause)
