LA wildfires vs. NC hurricane: Prejudice revealed
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
All my life I have been told the prejudice in this country is based on skin color. The events of the last few months have turned this idea on its head. I will maintain the general prejudices in this country are based on wealth or lack of it. It is not an education issue, either, as I will demonstrate before this column wraps up.
Let’s go to North Carolina and the report by the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management. This office issued a revised report (https://www.osbm.nc.gov/hurricane-helene-dna/open#:~:text=Estimates%20o….) on Dec. 13, 2024 assessing the damages from Hurricane Helene.
Highlights are $59.6 billion in damages, more than 100 deaths, and 39 counties qualifying for federal disaster assistance.
“An estimated 4.6 million people, 40% of the state’s population, live in one of the designated counties," the report says. "The region accounts for 45% of the state’s GDP.”
The report goes on to say, “Millions of North Carolinians lost access to critical services like water and sewer, electricity, telecommunications and healthcare facilities. Thousands of miles of roads and bridges were damaged, cutting communities off and limiting egress for residents and entrance by essential response and recovery teams.”
“…Unlike in coastal areas, most homeowners do not carry flood insurance. This coverage gap will dramatically reduce private financial resources for recovery…”
More than 73,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed by Helene.
Remember, this was caused by a hurricane reaching hundreds of miles inland. Important point: A hurricane is a natural disaster.
In Los Angeles, in contrast, fires have destroyed many high value mansions. In total, this was not a natural disaster. There are several reasons this should not be called a natural disaster:
• These homes were built in a forested area prone to fire in the dry season. This should never have been permitted.
• For decades, environmental groups have opposed cleaning up the underbrush, a common source of spreading forest fires.
• Reservoirs have been reported as being empty and hydrants dry.
• Fire-fighting budgets on a local and state level have been reported as being drastically cut.
This was simply incompetence at the highest level. The Santa Anna winds just exposed this incompetence.
This is not an educational prejudice, either. Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, upon returning from her junket to Ghana stated in her first news presser that impacted citizens could get information by “going to the URL.”
URL what? A first-grader could tell you that “URL” is like the word “address” and the sentence is incomplete without an exact “URL.” A level of ignorance unimaginable today.
I am tired of the non-stop coverage of the Los Angeles fires. People have died and people have lost serious money, no doubt. But by the attention it is getting, placing the conditions in Los Angeles above the conditions in North Carolina, as a society we are revealing a prejudice of the first order.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.