Perfect for a Sunday…
All of us here on the West Coast have watched miracles and tragedies during these epic fires.
Here is a story of pure goodness:
HORSE AND MAN is a blog in growth... if you like this, please pass it around!
A HERO in Washington state.
Tweet
Horrible horrible fires and so much is lost. What I do not get is when people leave behind their animals. Whether companion animals or livestock. Except in Oregon’s Holiday Farm fire where first responders were literally breaking into people’s homes in the wee small hours and yanking them out barefoot and in PJ’s and transporting in emergency vehicles because the fire went from zero to Level 3 Go Now in less than an hour, people had warnings. In some cases a LOT of warnings.
Just as bad is the irresponsibility of the Red Cross toward many evacuees in western Oregon. yes. The Red Cross. The Red Cross handed out hotel vouchers to traumatized evacuees often who had no other resources than the clothes on their back. The Red Cross did not determine whether those hotel vouchers could actually be used or used for more than 72 hours – so many who were in those voucher-paid hotel rooms were provided a notice under their room doors – again, in the middle of the night – that they had til noon to get out because the rooms had already been “spoken for” by rich college kids and their rich parents arriving for UO “move-in” day. It was not until US Senators got directly involved that these evacuees were afforded an actual place to go TO with few hours between the notice discovered upon awakening and GTH time. And OMG you should hear the whining and sniveling from the various hotel operators about how they were SO INCONVENIENCED by having these traumatized evacuees in their precious hotels for even less than three days. And of COURSE the resulting press release written in corporate-lawyer-speak basically saying nothing except the drivel about “we are taking this seriously” issued by the Red Cross.
We were packed and ready to go with all arrangements made for livestock within 12 hours of the Level One we found on the website of an adjoining county – because our county was not adequately informing people of updates to evacuation notices.
A really, really good reason to leave Oregon – horrible people, horrible services, horrible government. There is NO EXCUSE for any of this. NONE.