Recipe for disaster?
Rob Brown has now gone on record publicly opposing a role for local farmers in emergency food security preparations. One of his objections apparently was the lack of focus on large-scale pear and walnut operations. Perhaps Sacatto and Shand were too polite to point it out, but for the most part, these commodity crops are not a local food supply ? grapes, pears and walnuts leave the county as soon as they are harvested.
Brown”s suggestion that we should be looking to the Office of Emergency Services, a California state agency, is disturbing ? do we really want to assure people that they can rely on the government to step in and provide three squares in an emergency?
Given that the state is nearly bankrupt, would they actually be effective in a real disaster? How many staff do they have here in Lake County and what resources do they have? I suspect staffing and budget are inadequate, as is usual for this type of thing.
It bears repeating: The only routes for big rigs to Lake County supermarkets are via Highway 20, either from 101 or I-5. Either route and, in some locations, both of these routes could be shut down by a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. If, or when, such a disaster occurs, perhaps Brown will be eating his words, but most of us prefer something a bit more nourishing.
Roberta Actor-Thomas
Lakeport
