ÂÂ
“We just gotta get ready,” firefighter Paul Carlton said, “because the fire’s headed this way.”ÂÂ
We have some good news and some bad news regarding the Santiago Wildfire. The good news is that the fire is now 30% contained, and Irvine and Tustin look to be safe now. However, the bad news tonight is that Santa Ana Winds are now carrying the fire southeast, into South County. Now, evacuations are being ordered for all residents of the Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills communities of Lake Forest.
There is now an information hotline for residents of Lake Forest, which is at (714) 628-7085. The Red Cross has set up at the evacuation site at El Toro High School, 25255 Toledo Way (off El Toro Road). So far there are no casualties, but at least one firefighter was injured in Santiago Canyon as others suffered for a lack of engine and air support.
And even though the fire is headed toward Lake Forest, the entire county has been affected by the fire. Schools are closed due to the heavy smoke, freeways are clogged as people escape the danger zone. John Wayne Airport lost power briefly this afternoon, and so did about 6,000 homes throughout Orange County.
For more information, go to The Register’s wildfire page for the latest updates. Also, stay tuned here at The Liberal OC. We’ll keep mointoring the situation, and we’ll continue posting updates as soon as we have new information.
I’m becoming rather frustrated with finding only telephone numbers for calling in for information. What are deaf and hard of hearing people supposed to do? I can understand that you would only provide voice numbers, but Orange County Register, which SHOULD know better, isn’t providing any kind of alternate means of getting information, or indeed any sort of alternate/additional information that people with other kinds of disability besides deafness would be able to utilize.
Maybe this is an issue you and other blogs could start to highlight around here, because, really, once I noticed all the info given out was for hearing people on telephones, I started looking for any kind of additional ways of getting info and have not seen any so far. There’s the web, of course, and closed captioning on some of the news service, but neither of these provide up to the minute or emergency info, of course.
BEG-
You do have a good point. I’ll try to find a TDD line for you. And if there isn’t a TDD line available, we should set one up soon. You’re right that we need other ways to get info on the fires to be made available to blind and deaf people. They’re also at risk, so they also need to know what to do.