ZCZC
BFF-31
US-FIRE-POLITICS-TRUMP
Often divisive Trump switches to Consoler in Chief role
PARADISE, United States, Nov 18, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Even the bright lights
on Donald Trump’s motorcade grew dim as “the Beast” limousine and the rest of
the presidential procession slid into the haze covering the fiery inferno of
northern California.
All along the route to the town of Paradise stretched blackened fields.
Many of the locals, often holding children, watched the scene from behind
surgical masks, looking like specters from an apocalypse.
California is not natural Trump territory. All the less so after he
outraged many here by initially responding to the state’s deadliest-ever wild
fires with a political attack on forestry management policies, rather than
offering help — or even sympathy.
But Saturday, in a grueling round trip from Washington that saw him ride
Air Force One, helicopters and motorcades, he came to make amends.
“I just felt this was something we had to do,” he said, seemingly shocked
by the intensity of what he’d witnessed.
– Humbling –
Never is the power of a US president more tangible than in the spectacle of
the motorcade, rolling with almost imperial self-confidence wherever the
leader touches down on the planet.
But on this trip, all the impressive choreography of SUVs and armored
limos, support vans, bodyguards and traveling journalists was instantly
eclipsed by the helplessness of the authorities in the face of such merciless
natural forces.
Paradise, incinerated by wind-driven fires described as a blow torch, was
empty except for dust-covered emergency services personnel. Walking next to
the mayor of a town that essentially no longer exists, Trump trod through
ash, flanked by skeletal trees and twisted cars.
There was little this most voluble of presidents could say or do — except
to listen.
Firefighters told him at a base in nearby Chico of the terrifying hours
when locals tried — and in dozens of cases failed — to escape flames, which
Trump said moved as fast as the length of one “football field a second.”
“You know, it takes an extra five minutes and that’s the difference between
life and death and you have no idea what’s going to happen,” Trump told
journalists in amazement.
Then it was time to reboard Air Force One, which had delivered him from
Washington earlier that morning, for a flight south to Malibu. Unlike,
Paradise, which was home to many retirees on modest incomes, Malibu is the
classic home of the California dream — for those who can afford it.
The walled-off villas of the rich, however, burned just as quickly as the
RVs and small homes torched up north. Trump, a real estate billionaire, was
aghast as he surveyed the devastation, framed by the Pacific Ocean and the
southern California hills.
– Odd couple –
With him all day was California Governor Jerry Brown, a quiet-spoken
Democrat who in many ways is the polar opposite to Trump, the Republican.
Bonded by the devastation, however, they became a little like one of the
odd couples so beloved of the buddy movies churned out just a little further
down the coast in Hollywood.
Trump said that they’d known each other for a long time but in those hours
had got closer than “in 20 years.”
They even agreed to disagree, it seems, on the most contentious issue of
the day — the role of global climate change in accelerating annual fire
seasons in California to such an unmanageable extent.
Trump, a defiant climate change skeptic, and Brown a firm believer in a
trend confirmed by nearly all serious scientists, were never going to resolve
their differences. Trump even insisted that they didn’t discuss the issue, to
which Brown said that they had — “obliquely.”
But they both said they agreed that poor management of the forests was part
of the problem and that the federal government would step up to help the
state.
“I think we have similarities in many ways,” Trump said in one of his
several shows of unity.
Before departing back for Washington, to end an 18-hour day, Trump also
made time to meet with victims of a very different kind of American disaster
— the shooting of 12 people at a bar in Thousand Oaks on November 7.
Trump left the media behind, talking privately with first responders who
worked during the bloodshed and with families of victims.
At the steps of Air Force One afterward, he did not hide his emotion and
fatigue.
“The families: what can you say, except that it’s so sad to see?” he said.
“We just hugged them.”
“It’s been a tough day when you look at all the death from one place to the
next.”
BSS/AFP/MRI/1625 hrs