EDITORIAL — A lack of preparation

As of this writing yesterday, the wildfires in Los Angeles continue to devastate large parts of the city.

The death toll is now at 16 but that is yet expected to rise.

While a lot of news is being generated about the developments there, it has also given rise to beliefs that what is happening is divine punishment for what happened during the Golden Globe awards, where none of the winners thanked God, leading a host to describe Los Angeles as a godless town.

It has even given rise to videos, photos, and memes of apocalyptic scenes of posh neighborhoods wreathed in flames, or even of the city’s skyline in front of an angry, burning sky accompanied by “appropriate” biblical verses.

We certainly don’t subscribe to beliefs that Los Angeles is being dealt divine punishment for some statements made before the disaster. There are other cities that are dens of sin and vice more deserving of divine punishment than Los Angeles.

What we see here is the result of a lack of preparation.

What led the fires to the scale they are now? They could have been prevented at the very beginning. But the firefighters lacked the budget, so they weren’t able to clear enough brush around areas that were at high risk of fire to create fire breaks. A designated water reservoir in the area was also not filled or maintained because of the same reason.

And after the fires started, the firefighters didn’t have enough men and women to fight the fires as they approached and engulfed homes.

Then there was the lack of preparation in terms of fire hydrants being empty.

Wildfires are a common occurrence in that general area of Los Angeles, it is nothing new and part of the natural process there. What led to the blowing up of a simple wildfire was their lack of preparation for such a disaster.

We wish the Angelinos the best and hope they deal with this problem soon to prevent even more human suffering. But this should also teach all of us a lesson, that even the most advanced nations, those with the most resources can still fall victim to disasters if they are unprepared.