Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

Fires in Santa Barbara have destroyed at least 1,300 acres and countless homes.  As of today, over 30,00 residents have been ordered to evacuate.  But what about those who stayed behind to defend their homes from impending fire? The LA Times reports that George Quinn fought off the flames with garden hoses, and had some strong words for the 1,400 firefighters helping to put out the blaze: “The damn firefighters were no help.”

Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Tom Franklin would probably disagree with Quinn. According to USA Today, ten firefighters suffered smoke inhalation, burns and other smoke-related injuries.

Now the Senator from Louisiana is in an old-fashioned brawl with the White House over his hold on the nomination of Craig Fugate at FEMA, with the respective spokespeople sending hate messages back and forth across the playground, via reporters.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs called Vitter’s maneuver “political posturing”. Then Vitter’s office fired back that it had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with reforming FEMA…

Here’s Mike Allen’s take on the feud in Politico:

“I can assure you that this isn’t about politics,” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) writes in an e-mail complaining about the Obama administration’s handling of his inquires about FEMA.

But click on a “PUTTING LOUISIANA FIRST” logo embedded right next to that quote in the mail, and you’re whisked away to the David Vitter for U.S. Senate website, which says: “We need your help in order to win this campaign.”

An update on Sen. Vitter’s hold on FEMA nominee Craig Fugate. On Monday, Vitter, Fugate and the acting director of FEMA met to try to talk it out, but it seems Vitter is not done making his point.

Why does Vitter care so much about Grand Isle? That is the mystery. Grand Isle is a small fishing and recreational community located on a barrier island. A lovely but dangerous place. The kind of place that has been battered by hundreds of storms. The kind of place that will flood again.

Vitter seems to want the federal government to fund a gym, library and firehouse in this area regardless of the risks. That seems irresponsible and reckless. The kind of pork-barrel entitlement thinking that a Republican like Vitter should abhor.

Now I realize that for the residents of Grand Isle and places like it, the equation is not so simple. These are people who have lived there for generations. But the question is, should we expect federal taxpayers to sponsor the rebuilding of a place that is not safe to live in? Does that not doom us to repeat our failures over and over again?

Why not let the locals pay for this kind of development, if it must be done? The state seems to be on its way to doing just that. So it’s unclear why this is the battle Vitter wants to fight… Meanwhile, hurricane season begins in 26 days. And FEMA still has no leader.

By the way, I called Vitter’s press secretary on Monday to learn more about this, but I haven’t heard back yet. In the meantime, his office did release this not-very-helpful statement.

Just did my first webinar of all time. I am still not sure how to explain what a webinar actually is, but I have to say, it was surprisingly pleasant. Basically, myself and two emergency managers California and Florida chatted with about 250 people about how to craft warnings (from hurricanes to wildfires to swine flu) that people will actually listen to.

Thanks to Governing Magazine for inviting me and to Visa Public Sector for sponsoring the show. I learned a lot from the listeners and my fellow panelists—Ron Lane, Emergency Services Director in San Diego County, CA, and Pete McNally, Emergency Management Director, Polk County, FL.

To hear the audio of the webinar, go here. (It’s possible I called Joe Biden a “yahoo,” but I said it with affection.)

CQ reports that Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana has blocked Craig Fugate’s nomination to run FEMA. Quite a surprise, since he sailed through the Senate Homeland Security earlier this week.

Check out the alleged reason for Vitter’s hold, as reported by the Miami Herald

“Vitter’s concerns…apparently relate to FEMA’s maps of controversial ‘high-velocity flood zones,’ a designation related to coastal areas that are at high risk in a hurricane or an area that faces significant risk in the event of a flood. Federal regulations currently prohibit FEMA from funding new construction in such zones, and Louisiana officials want more flexibility.”

Wow. So if this is right, he’s blocking the confirmation of a seasoned emergency manager (during a national emergency, no less) because he wants FEMA to fund new construction in high-risk flood zones?

Irony: Thick and swampy, like a Louisiana summer.

TSA workers are going to be searching bags on the subway in New York City, according to this unsettling report by MyFoxNY.com. Here’s the deal: NYPD is short on cops, so the TSA guys would free up some officers to go above ground, the story says.

Let’s think about this. What was the point of having cops search bags on the subway to begin with? Oh yeah, deterrence. Because after all, there’s no chance there will ever be enough cops (or TSA workers or squeegee guys) to actually find a ticking needle in a haystack.

So the upside was deterrence. And the downside? Well, that was freedom, of course—freedom from being stopped and having your personal property groped by lawmen on your way to work. I actually thought that was a reasonable trade, given the high risk of a subway bombing.

But that’s because I had faith that the guys doing the groping were trained police who understood the complicated ecosystem that is New York City. NYPD understands terrorism better than most law enforcement types, and that includes much of the FBI.

Now, I’m not saying the best detectives were down there searching bags on the F train (at least I hope they weren’t). But whoever was searching bags belonged to an organization that, while flawed in important ways, I basically sort of almost trust.

Not so with TSA. Nothing against TSA employees—who are generally hard-working, polite and underpaid. But they are not nearly as well trained as police officers. At airports, they search everyone, more or less. They aren’t expected to use their discretion to find the narrow line between reasonable searching and profiling.

And what about the upside? Well, since TSA employees don’t carry weapons, can’t arrest anyone and aren’t particularly well-respected, they won’t act as much of a deterrent, either.

So what are we left with? Carry the 2 and add the 3… Let’s see: Less deterrence, less freedom. Lose-Lose.

(Thanks to a loyal reader for the heads up on this.)

According to CNN, swine flu was mentioned in some capacity in about 2 percent of all Twitter posts Monday. Everyone has something to say, from the serious CDC twitter account to the not-so serious musings of the average American. 

It may be a little early to tell how effective—or diabolical—Twitter will be in disseminating chatter about the flu, but there’s no debating the power of the web to monitor the muses of the masses.  In fact, Seattle-based company, Veratect, claims to have alerted the CDC to the flu situation in Mexico by observing social media trends.

Five months after 9/11, two military jets shrieked across the scarred island of Manhattan at 4:30 am. I remember it well. My eyes jerked open, as the windows, the dishes, and my heart shook in place in my tiny Upper West Side apartment. Then I did what we always did those days whenever weird things happened: I went into the other room and turned on CNN. I waited for my editor to call and send me downtown, just as he had on 9/11. But nothing happened. I waited and waited, watching the ladies sell shiny earrings on the shopping network until sunrise.

It turned out that it was all a mistake—whoops!—two F-16s returning from a routine patrol, the newspapers said the next day. I was pissed. To this day, I would love to get those air jockeys in a room and explain the implications of ripping several million people from sleep back into the daylight of our collective trauma. Bravo Zulu.

Actually, that room I’ve got reserved for this fantasy rant has been filling up ever since. Yesterday’s idiotic flyover by the backup Air Force One jet was possibly the most boneheaded maneuver, but the competition is fierce (see short list below).

What is it about the FAA or the military or the Gods that allows this to keep happening? How can people repeatedly fail to understand what it does to a population to replay the very sounds and sights that accompanied a slaughter of thousands in the not so distant past? What is hard about this?

Perhaps the most alarming thing about the Air Force One fiasco was that it was planned and announced in advance to several agencies—with an order to keep it SECRET. This, to me, stinks to holy hell. I have talked a lot in the past about people in charge not trusting the public—and the devastation that follows. This is a classic bureaucratic move.

But I’d still love to hear the justification. What? Were they worried someone would shoot down a backup Air Force One jet—that wasn’t carrying the president? That seems like a risk worth taking, friends. Instead, what could have been a lovely publicity moment—carefully announced in advance via NYC’s high-saturation media outlets and email alert system—turned into an honest-to-God trauma for many, many people. People whose brains are wired to respond to every flyover as if it is an act of war, because that’s just how the brain works.

Let’s hope we don’t have to add to this hall of shame for a long while:

1. April 27, 2009: Backup Air Force One jet buzzes the Statue of Libery’s left ear and loops around a couple more times as photographers aboard an accompanying F-16 take snapshots. “Defies imagination,” says Mayor Bloomberg.

2. October 3, 2004: Two massive Marine Corps C-130 transport planes buzz the Statue of Libery and Ground Zero around 2:30 pm, with clearance from local air-traffic controllers.

3. May 14, 2003: A Continental Airlines jumbo jet carrying troops home from Iraq buzzes the Statue of Liberty before veering into the center of midtown Manhattan at 8:30 in the morning. Says Bloomberg, who had been given only a two-minute warning from the FAA, “One would expect a little more concern, sensitivity and notice.”

4. Feb. 18, 2002: Two Air Force F-16s buzz Manhattan at 4:30 am. Shortly afterward, both pilots are shipped back to their home base in Texas.