Report from Los Angeles 9/23/20
Well, it has been eventful times here between fires, smoke, earthquakes, shootings, protests and Covid 19.
We had a 4.5 earthquake in LA; no one died, and we did not even feel it although most of our friends did. Chalk that one up to insensitivity.
The Bobcat fire has been trying to burn down Mount Wilson, the site of the observatory and most TV and radio transmitters and what used to be a great place to hike. It is also threatening to burn down neighborhoods all over the San Gabriel Valley. So far it is only 17% contained and has burned over 100,000 acres.
The smoke from the Northern California fires has dissipated as the fires in and around the Bay Area are better contained, and the heat waves have receded. There is huge fire still burning up in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties; it is close to a million acres and only about 1/3rd contained.
Next week is going to heat up, and we could have some bad high desert winds feeding the fire spread.
Covid 19 in LA is slowing down for now. There were 800 new cases yesterday as compared to over 2000 a day in July and August. The positivity rate is down below 3% as compared to over 10% in July. Hospitalizations are below 800 as compared to 2100 in July. On the bad side, infection rates are now 4 times higher in low-income communities and three times greater for Hispanics than Whites.
A young black man riding his bike was shot 20 times in the back by sheriff’s deputies who tried to pull him over for riding his bike on the wrong side of the street. He resisted their efforts to detain him. Two LA sheriff’s deputies were ambushed and shot but not killed in Compton; the police are still trying to find the shooter. Needless to say, police community relations are tense at the moment. The sheriff’s deputies tackled and took to jail a decorated local news reporter covering the protests.
Lucien Wulsin
9/23/20