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In The
News
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1. Apocalypse soon?
SoCal overdue for big quake to
hit the San Andreas Fault
Andrew Silva and Andrew Edwards, SB Sun Staff
Writers
08/11/2007 12:19:22 AM PDT
It'll be bad. Hurricane Katrina bad. Likely worse.
Thousands dead. Buildings collapsed. Freeways severed.
Scientists for the first time are figuring out in great detail just how bad
it will be when the southern section of the San Andreas Fault, roughly between
Palmdale and the Salton Sea, cuts loose.
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2. Insurance companies can affect policies in fire zones, official
says
Thursday, August 9, 2007
By BEN GOAD, KIMBERLY TRONE and LORA HINES
The Press-Enterprise
Homeowner Mel Goldfarb is expecting a visit any day from an Allstate
Insurance representative to inspect his property in the fire-prone community of
Idyllwild.
Goldfarb, who turned to Allstate three years ago after another carrier
dropped him over concerns about fire dangers, is worried the inspector will find
some way to exclude him from future coverage with Allstate.
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3. Almost 96,000 California Applicants For Disaster Assistance Are
Affected By Court Ruling On Release Of Personal Information
August
8, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is
launching an effort to contact 95,840 applicants for federal disaster assistance
in California to inform them that a federal court has directed it to release
certain personally identifiable information on them. The order covers people who
applied for assistance following the 2003 fires in Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties, and in connection with the 1998
storms and flooding that affected 41 counties across the state. Personally
identifiable information normally is protected under the Privacy Act and the
exemption for personal privacy under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
[Editor's Note: This was brought to my attention by the CFRRG online group.
Several of their members received these phone calls. They found these news
stories that cover the above press release]
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4. Feds charge man in Old Fire
Secondary blaze
linked to suspect
Mike Cruz and Stacia Glenn, SB Sun Staff
Writers
08/08/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT
A Riverside man suspected of starting a wildfire while trying to get a
front-seat view of the deadly Old Fire as it raged in October 2003 now faces
federal charges.
Jeremiah D. Hope had been evacuated from his Crestline mountain
retreat, but instead of leaving, he navigated a dirt road near Crestline in a
1995 Subaru and turned off into an area of dry grasses, authorities say.
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5. Tribes, firefighters cooperate to save sacred
sites
Lack of communication is blamed for the loss of important
burial grounds. Working together has helped both the tribes and
agencies.
By Jonathan Abrams, LA Times Staff Writer
August 2, 2007
They were bleary-eyed from lack of sleep as they converged high in the
San Bernardino Mountains at twilight.
While two lightning-ignited fires barreled toward Big Bear Lake last
summer, the fire marshal and the Indian tribe member discussed their options on
how to preserve ancient artifacts and still protect the community.
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6. Idyllwild fire planning not idyllic
Driven by
politics and a lack of communication, the mountain town and its surrounding
summer camps lack a unified evacuation procedure.
By Louis Sahagun, LA
Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2007
Regarding evacuation plans for a catastrophic fire, residents of the
isolated, mile-high community of Idyllwild have always offered a confident
answer: We're prepared.
But only weeks away from the peak of fire season, local factions are
struggling to resolve what many describe as a communication breakdown over how
best to coordinate disparate evacuation plans that have been drafted by at least
12 mountain camps that cater to thousands of youths, several town organizations
and fire authorities.
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7. Old Fire victims (San Bernardino 2003) want to
help
Wednesday, June 27
It has been very hard to watch the news of your fire; our hearts go out to
you. We lost our homes in the Oct. 25, 2003, Old Fire in San Bernardino. A total
of 500 homes were destroyed. We completely understand the shock, grief and the
unbelievable distress in trying to put back your lives. Luckily, a nonprofit
volunteer group of former fire and earthquake survivors helped us in our
recovery.
This group is Community Assisting Recovery — CARe Inc.,
www.carehelp.org. Another helpful nonprofit
organization that helped fund our recovery group is
www.communitypartners.org. We
formed the Old Fire Recovery Group and now have turned it into the Disaster
Survivor Network to help others:
www.disastersurvivornetwork.com.
All advice you receive should be free. Here are some tips we have learned from
our experiences and others.
(scroll to search for article)
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8. Homeowners left to face major repairs
By Lori
Consalvo and Wes Woods II, SB Sun Staff Writers
06/05/2007
UPLAND - Betty Lacey has an 8-foot, rectangular hole in the roof of her
house.
She arrived home Monday to find that a twin-engine Piper Seneca plane had
used three houses on her street as a landing strip.
Lacey's house, at 1407 Blossom Circle, was the first hit in the sequence.
"In my particular situation, there was major structural damage on my roof,"
Lacey, 69, said. "We took the brunt of it coming down."
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9. Wildfire Brings Policy Questions
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer
RIVERSIDE, Calif. May 28, 2007 (AP)
A blaze that killed five federal firefighters last year has emboldened
those who question the cost of saving the ever expanding number of homes on the
fringe of wilderness.
The five perished last fall while protecting an empty mountain vacation
home from the Southern California fire, which authorities say was started by a
36-year-old auto mechanic now charged with murder.
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10. USA: Many unprepared for disaster
By Brad Heath,
USA TODAY
05/10/07
Many Americans haven't taken basic steps to prepare for a natural
disaster and have little confidence the federal government is ready to help them
if one strikes.
The findings come as the nation braces for a summer that government
forecasts predict could bring a worse-than-normal onslaught of hurricanes,
tornadoes and wildfires. The first named storm of the year formed Wednesday off
the Atlantic coast as fires burned from Florida to Los Angeles and President
Bush toured a Kansas town flattened by a tornado.
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11. Wynn Vs. Insurers Over Punctured Picasso
Tuesday,
January 16, 2007
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK — A day after filing a lawsuit, casino mogul Steve Wynn said
Friday that Lloyd's of London has made an offer to settle his $54 million claim
of lost value for a Picasso after Wynn accidentally poked a hole in the canvas
with his elbow.
"They've started to negotiate," he said before quickly adding that the
talks aren't going the way he'd like.
"Their offer is ridiculous," he said, though he declined to give
specifics.
He attacked the insurance industry as a whole, saying they play "dirty
tricks" and it was standard practice for insurance companies to delay responding
to claims in the hopes of wearing down those making claims and getting them to
settle for much less than what they are owed.