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SAN DIEGO-They know what the winds can do. They forecast them. Fight the fires the winds fan. Ready for evacuations that, in years past, never came. They thought they knew, until seven days of fury began a week ago.From almost the beginning, this Santa Ana was different somehow.Meteorologist Philip Gonsalves recognized it when he saw the smoke through the picture windows of the National Weather Service station in Rancho Bernardo, closing in on the office itself. He had helped forecast the tempest: an ominous combination of strong gusts, low humidity and soaring temperatures. In weather speak: red flag fire conditions.Fire Battalion Chief Tom Zeulner understood it, too, when en route to his first blaze of the week, his wife called to tell him five more had begun.Dan Crane thought it was "situation normal," his words for the Santa Ana fire season that torments Californians every October through February, when blustery winds blow out of the desert. He's lived through a half-century of them, and never once had to evacuate-not even during the two-week onslaught of 2003, when fires burned 750,000 acres and killed 22 people.This time, he awoke to neighbors honking and smoke wafting through his windows.By Saturday, more than a half-million acres would be gone, 1,700 homes destroyed, with the damage surpassing $1 billion.Stunned homeowners who just last weekend were setting out Halloween decorations and watching football would find themselves sifting through kindling and ash, mumbling things like: This used to be my kitchen. This used to be my bedroom.This used to be ...Even a week after it all started, several thousand would remain evacuated as blazes burned on relentlessly.There would be questions about prevention in the midst of persistent drought, lack of preparation in a fire-plagued state and whether resources were put to use as fast as possible.But first, before all of that, came the winds.They were different, undoubtedly, although no one could have predicted just how deadly and destructive....To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
