Awe lots

Today I was in the LA area and was able to see the real power of the fires. All the time I have lived in California we have known about the "cycle of the chapparal" - about every five to seven years, dry winds (called Santa Ana winds - which come from the North) and the a dry year (like we had this year where LA only received 4" of rain - cause problems for Angelinos. But as I was leaving Ontario today you could really see the power of these forces. The San Gabriel mountains ring this part of LA and San Bernardino county and as I drove from Claremont you could see them very clearly - as if it were January - when you get clear air and pristine mountains. But as you can see from the picture as you looked east toward Arrowhead you the mountains were obscured by the smoke from the fires which were more than 30 miles away. The language lets us trip over ourselves. In the derivation of the word clearly awesome does not convey the scope, aw-ful - coming from the same base words does not either - so as I thought about it there was lots of awe or awelots. That is not to diminish the real tragedy that is present in the entire Southern California region. But in this case, at least IMHO, our language limits our ability to comprehend scope.

The fires in Southern California are almost pandemic. They have been big in Malibu, near Newhall and Valencia, Arrowhead and in San Diego County - the losses for these fires will be substantial. The most disturbing news this afternoon is that at least part of the problem was started by an individual. Were I to have the power, I would think seriously about dropping the perps into the middle of one of the fires.