Idiots Who Want YouTube Clicks Are Interfering With CA Wildfire Fight With Drones

Don't fly a drone over a wildfire or any other disaster unless you are intent
on hurting people are making property damage worse. Idiots are flying
drones over California fires, grounding firefighter aerial effotrts.

Apparently, to some people a greater number of getting themselves more clicks on YouTube and other social media is more important than firefighters' efforts to save life and property.

That's the only conclusion I can draw from an article on the Weather Channel site that reports of people flying drones above wildfires in California.  

Drones have interfered with firefighting operations in California at least 19 times so far this year, says The Weather Channel, citing other media soures like the Los Angeles Times. 

The Weather Channel offers this illustration during the Maria fire in southern California on Friday.

"A Ventura County Fire Department helicopter pilot radioed in at 3:19 a.m. local time to report that a drone was flying above the flames, presumably to capture photos or video of the dramatic scene below, the Los Angeles Times reported. The aerial fight against the wildfire was immediately stopped and aircraft remained grounded for at least 45 minutes."

I'm not inherently against flying drones to capture images of disasters or other weather drama.  If you can do it with permission from authorities, in a way in which  you know it won't interfere with operations, then it's fine.

Drones are actually helpful in disasters, if they're run by authorized people, such as emergency personnel, police, firefighters and rescue services. The trick is, they coordinate things so there's no trouble.

Drones can help emergency managers assess structural damage, where relief supplies are most needed, and the location of people that need help. Here in Vermont, State Police will be using drones for things like crime scene investigations, car crash reconstructions and search and rescue, including during weather disasters, reports VTDigger.  Drones will make these activities much more efficient.

Many legitimate news organizations also use drones, and there's nothing wrong with that, because they check with authorities first to make sure they're not screwing things up.

Firefighters themselves use drones to track the path of wildfires and assess damage. The difference is that everything's coordinated.  The helicopter and water dropping aircraft know where those firefighter drones are, and the firefighter drone operators know where the aircraft are. So it works.

Firefighters just don't know where the drones are that people send up to get cool shots of the disaster.

This type of thing keeps happening. Drones interfered with relief operations during the aftermath of Category 5 Hurricane Michael in the Florida panhandle last year. The same thing happened with drones in the Carolinas after Hurricane Florence. 

I would like to think the amateurs whose drones interfere with emergency operations just are clueless and don't know the terrible effects they're having.  But I'm afraid some of them do know and just don't care.  After all, it's not the drone operator's grandparents stuck in their hilltop home as the flames approach.  It's not their own home burning down. So the logic is, who cares, it's not affecting me.

The solution, of course, is to make it affect these drone operators. I hope these drone operators amid the California wildfires are caught and made a very public example of through aggressive criminal prosecution.

That might make the wannabe YouTube storm chasing stars think twice before sending their drones up.

If You Have Cabin Fever, Check This Out. It Could Be Worse

If winter is too much for you, consider the people who were trapped
for a few days by up to seven feet of snow in a California mountain
lodge. Photo by Joel Keeler via AP. 

It's going to snow again this week in Vermont.  I noticed the winter storm watch that was in effect this morning has been upgraded to a winter storm warning. 

Another 5 to 15 inches of snow and sleet is forecast Tuesday and Wednesday. Which doesn't necessarily thrill me.

Today, Sunday, the snow around my St. Albans, Vermont yard had become thin enough an hard-packed enough so that I could do a few things outdoors, like cut back a bit of brush.

Any further outdoor projects by the middle of the week will be put on hold by more snow, it seems.

By February, I've usually come down with a bit of cabin fever. I'm tired of not easily walking anywhere I want. When the snow is deeper, I'm hemmed into to walking on shoveled paths and driveways and such.

I'm also really over the fact that I always seem to have to walk gingerly, for fear of falling on the ice. When the snow and ice finally disappear, if feels like I've gotten out of prison.

I shouldn't complain, though. Especially compared to what people go through in some mountain areas where several feet of snow can fall in a single storm.

A great example came last week at the Montecito Sequoia Lodge in Kings Canyon National Park in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, as CBS News reports.

There was already plenty of snow on the ground, and a storm last week dumped another seven feet of snow on the resort. It was so much that 120 guests there were stranded for several days.

Luckily, the place had heat, power and plenty of food, so nobody suffered physically. But the cabin fever must have been extreme.

Finally, on Thursday, during a brief break between that storm and another one that blew in the next day, crews carved a path up the road to the resort. The crews had to fight their way through eight miles of deep snow, not to mention a couple dozen fallen trees.

In th end, the road out wasn't wide or totally clear, but enough for everybody to drive out.

As you can see in the video below, the snowbanks on either side of the road were huge. But the "prisoners" in the Sierra were free to head downhill, where there was little or no snow

Here's the video:

Rescue The Animals! Videos Of Animals Being Rescued From Wildfires, Floods

Image from a police bodycam as the officer wearing it
rushes into a California animal shelter to grab dogs and cast
and take them to safety as a wildfire bore down. 

Two recent videos made me happy that people do remember animals in disasters.  As wildfires and flash floods struck, people sprung into action.

Not only are people driven to save each other from harm, thank goodness there are people who remember our dog and cat and other animal companions.


The first video is bodycam footage of police rushing into an animal shelter as the Carr Fire near Redding, California bears down on the building.

By the way, the Carr fire was likely started by a camper on a highway that got a flat tire. The rim made contact with the asphalt, sparks flew into the brush and the fire started. The owners of the camper, an older couple are distraught that they accidentally started the fire and feel responsible.

Victims of the fire, many of whom lost their homes, are sending letters to the elderly couple assuring them it was not their fault and they should not feel bad.

Back to the animal rescues, Big rush to get them out, but it worked. All were saved. Watch:



Next, we go to New Jersey, where a flash flood threatened the lives of 80 dogs trapped in a doggie day care center as water began to pour in. Personnel at the place tried to get the dogs to safety, but there were too many of them.

The dogs began barking and howling so loudly in panic that people inside a nearby gun range (!!) heard them. The guys dropped their guns, went to the dog day care center and got all the dogs to safety.

Seventeen of the dogs spent the night safely at the higher and drier gun range overnight until their human companions could retrieve them. (No gunfire to scare the dogs, the place was closed while the dogs sheltered there.)

The dogs weren't the only good boys in this scenario, that's for sure. Watch the news clip:

Nominee For Dumbest Person To Ever Ignore A Weather Warning

I'll admit it.


Some idiot drove his pickup truck onto a California coastal jetty
amid huge, crashing storm waves. It ended poorly.

If I were near a coastline and there was a big storm kicking up humongous waves and surf, I'd go down and watch it - provided I was well away from the waves and far above them, and had an easy, safe escape route if flooding started.  

Not so for a dumb guy in northern California. There's a video of him and his exploits at the bottom of this post.

On Thursday, there was a high surf advisory in northern California, including Humboldt Bay.

Photographers flocked down there to enjoy the view of the picturesque, but dangerous large waves crashing into the rocks - from a safe, dry distance. Ah, the beauty of long lenses.

Suddenly, one of the photographer had an astonishing sight: As turbulent, scary waves crashed against and over a jetty, some idiot drove his Nissan pickup truck with Arkansas plates out onto it,   apparently to get a better view of the stormy seas.

As you might have guessed, this didn't end well at all.

One of the photographers who was safely on shore, H. Phil Hanes said he and his wife watched the whole scene. And photographed and filmed it, of course.

Soon, waves overwhelmed the truck and battered it around. The video appears as if the truck would be swept off the jetty, but somehow it wasn't. But the guy driving the Nissan was stuck.

"It was just stopped on the part you shouldn't even be driving on.....The waves were so big" Hanes told the Eureka, California Times-Standard.

Somebody called the Coast Guard, which sent a helicopter to the scene. Because of the dangerous waves, a rescue swimmer was lowered via rope to the stranded Nissan driver. He was plucked from the jetty and brought up to the helicopter.

Nobody was hurt, but this idiot sure put other peoples' lives in danger. We don't know who this moron is. The Coast Guard said the guy didn't have any identifying information with him.

At last report, the battered pickup truck was still out on the jetty. The Coast Guard said it is the driver's responsibility to remove it, when there's no storm waves.

Could get expensive to do, but oh well, his fault, right?

Heed those weather warnings folks, no matter what the hazard is.

Here's the video. You can see what an idiot this guy was. Waves are pretty, though:

Guy Swept Away In Texas Flood And Stuck In A Tree Gives Calm TV Interview

News anchors at television station KVUE are stunned
when they realize the person they're interviewing
is stranded 20 feet up a tree by floodwaters on Friday.  

At the end of yesterday's post I wrote about the Texas flood, I included a YouTube clip taken by a motorist inside a car being swept rapidly down a badly flooding creek. Scary stuff.

The guy, Kerry Packer, had emailed the video to his wife, who shared it with Austin, Texas television station KVUE.

Now we have an interview with this guy. It's one of the most incredible, strangest interviews I've heard.

The clip you'll see below starts with the anchors at KVUE, who were providing live coverage of the flood emergency, interviewing Packer.

Early in the interview, you can tell the reporters assumed, like all of us, that Packer had been rescued. After all, why would he be talking to the television station?  He seemed so calm as he talked.

It turns out Packer called KVUE to describe his experience.

One of the anchors asked Packer where he was now.

He said he was still 20 feet up a tree he'd climbed up in the flood waters. He'd grabbed the tree as his car floated by.

You'll see how stunned the reporters are: "Wait, wait, you're still up in the TREE?!?!?" one of them asks.

Kerry Packer looks pretty good, considering this photo
was taken a few minutes after he was rescued from a tree
after spending four hours there trapped by floodwaters.  

Packer remains totally calm, as if he's sitting at a desk in his high and dry office.

"Oh, no, I'm fine... Thankfully this is the nicest tree here. It's a little cold, but I did Boy Scouts for 20 years, so I know how to keep my energy up and keep warm, so I'm doing fine."

The news anchors don't look like they're doing fine. They're ashen with concern. They pump him politely but aggressively for information on precisely where he is, so that rescuers can find him.

All the while, Packer is chatting amiably with the two KVUE anchors.  He tells them he can't see any un-submerged land, and he's in large tree he believes is in the northeast corner of a country club.

Emergency responders later confirmed to KVUE that they'd rescued Packer after he'd been in the tree for four hours and he's fine.

The takeaway: If you need someone who would be totally, totally calm in an emergency, find Kerry Packer in the Austin, Texas area.

Another takeaway: This flood interview is even better than the one in which a South Carolina woman said in a recent flash flood at her house she took her dog and two Totinos pizzas as she fled.

Here's the amazing news clip of this Texss flood interview: