Comments by bahr
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Posted on July 5 at 2:08 p.m.
Indy Staff,
Forgot. Google "update Gap Fire Goleta California". You might want to update headline to keep your site as a top destination.
Posted on July 5 at 1:47 p.m.
Map with active fire areas is great and what I need to know. Your reporting is the best info I'm getting in San Francisco. At night when winds enhance the fire danger is when it's good to get updated. And thanks bloggers for specific info. Remember to give location when you write so you add to the reporting.
Posted on July 5 at 1:07 a.m.
Hi Randy, staff
I appreciate you reading the blogs & giving me the weather site to learn about wind conditions. If the wind is strong and faning flames towards S.B., there's a great possibility this fire will spead to the La Cumbra foothills and..... Agricultural land rather shields Goleta, but there're vulnerable breakthru areas. Having lived thru S.B. fires, I'm worried. Only specific info helps.
Hello Azores,
You reported your daughter got a call to evacuate tonight about 11:00 p.m. but didn't name the street so that we could get a location where the fire is active tonight. With bits of reports we could piece together & update a map of endangered neighborhoods. Otherwise we can't assess our friends' well-being. Luckily last night I called friends living off C.O Blvd. between P. & Old S.M. Rd. & was shocked to learn they were expecting a 9/11 call & evacuating.
Posted on July 4 at 10:31 p.m.
I'm in San Francisco trying to keep informed what's happening in Goleta from the internet sites, from calling friends & from reading your blogs. Independent is the best site and its blogs give me specific useful facts -such as what direction wind is blowing -so I can judge where the danger is inbetween news updates. Observers, keep the news coming! Thanks.
Posted on July 4 at 1:06 a.m.
GOLETA RESIDENTS, please keep up SPECIFIC COVERAGE of the Gap Fire so that OUTSIDE PEOPLE can get CURRENT UPDATES to ASSESS DANGER to their family, friends and beloved community.
Luckily I called my elderly mother who told me she was without power & asked if I 'd heard about the fire above Goleta. S.F. news reported nothing. So, Wed. nite I went on the internet & again Thurs. to get info & was disturbed at the meager facts available. It would've been helpful to see a map of the fire, it's progress, updated wind direction and speed, more specific info on endangered neighborhoods, etc to assess danger.
At 7:30 pm I called friends who live on a private lane north of Cathedral Oaks between Patterson and Old San Marcos Pass Rd. for an update and was shocked & horrified to learn they were frantically packing & leaving in anticipation of soon getting a call to evacuate. From the orange grove behind their house, they could see flames a ridge away. I was told that in the afternoon the fire had quickly moved east & that winds were picking up. Yet from internet news sources I thought the fire was still burning above the Los Caneros Rd. area. They could hardly breath because of the smoke. Thurs. I'll call all my Goleta friends. I'll check this blog in hopes of getting useful specific neighborhood information.
I lived through the Eagle Fire and the Painted Cave Fire and know how quickly foothill fires can spread & endanger homes. I had no idea how advanced the fire was & how bad the situation was from conventional news sources!
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Posted on September 24 at 12:59 a.m.
YOU BET THERE IS MORE TO THIS STORY!!!! The reader's comments are so much more insightful than your reporter's story. The BIG ISSUES in this story deserve attention. I'll list some in conclusion.
Jim Wheeler is a respected man in Carpinteria among his family, friends, neighbors and bridge group, which he oversees every Tuesday. I ask his friends to come forth with his biography or a reporter to recover a past newspaper article about his accomplishments.
My 96 year old mother, his friend for 30 years, called me in San Francisco to tell me that Jim didn't show up for Tuesday bridge, where the group had a birthday card (filled with appreciation for his service to the group,) to give him. The SHOCKING UNBELIEVABLE news was that he had been jailed for trying to kill himself and Becky, his dear wife whom he took such devoted care of even as she visibly declined from dementia. I purport that his desperate action was totally out of character and the act of an exhausted, depressed caregiver.
Tonight after bridge Mom called me to report that, through the grapevine, she'd learned that this respectable, intelligent presentable 84 year old man was SLEEPING ON THE JAIL HOUSE FLOOR!!! The jailer even refused to let his daughter give him a sweater to keep warm or a deck of cards ( probably to play solitare to keep a fragment of his identity) I WAS HORRIFIED!
Tomorrow I'll get on the phone and try to remedy this jail abuse. Ironic that news organizations spread the story nationally that this "old man" (falsely pictured looking like a wicked 103 year old homeless street person) was arrested on elder abuse. Get this, then he suffers elder abuse in jail AND IN SANTA BARBARA!
Some of the issues a thoughtful person would look at are:
1. Shallow news reporting that distorts the people and story, often making the people and true story unreconizable.
2. Role of prosecutors making the accused look evil. (As my mother said that's their job, but does the press join them in demonizing a person?)
3. Impossibility of an elder to care for an infirm dear one over long periods.
4. The health threatening and financial burden of a younger family member (usually female) to care for elderly relatives. (I've had to care for my mother when she had lymphoma at age 87, my S.F. bipolar uncle (87), my aunt (94), my uncle (88) in Oklahoma. At 65 I'm a sick and broke caregiver, and who's going to take of me?)
5.The lack of care for our aging population even in a civilized city like Santa Barbara which has more services than most cities.
6. Disrespectful public description and treatment of older people.
7. Abuse of incarcerated people.
On Carpinteria Man Arrested for Attempted Murder-Suicide