January 10, 2025 • 41 mins
A series of deadly wildfires broke out earlier this week in Los Angeles, decimating neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades and Eaton. At least 10,000 structures have been destroyed, including homes, schools, and local businesses. What would you do if wildfires such as in L.A. ever happened here? How do you handle the magnitude of such a tragedy?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's nice time with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy
Boston Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Just looking at pictures of Los Angeles, pictures of people
standing by what was their homes. Again, anyone who loses
a home to a fire is tragic, but we're talking
about thousands of people who have nowhere to go and
have nothing left except for the clothes on their back.
(00:27):
It's an incredible story. We'll keep rolling here six one
seven two six seven. I was gonna change at ten
o'clock and talk about Donald Trump's day in Zoom Court.
We can say that till next week, but let's let's
continue along. We're gonna go next. Steve is in Bridgewater. Steve,
(00:49):
You're next one night side. Appreciate you holding through the news.
Go right ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How you doing again, Nice to talk to you again.
I talk with you, sir, you know, to take a
few things. It was just it's funny they just talked
about it on the news just now about a reservoir
that was taken off line. Was close to two million
gallons of water. Yeah, and I think that had a
(01:13):
lot to do with why some of the hydrants ran
dried then and they didn't have enough water to fight
the fires.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Why did they take it? Why did they take that
reservoir offline? Did they explain that?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, yeah, I heard of it even on Fox News.
They were for repair is it something for some reason
like that, for repairs or they were repairing something.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But well, they must have let me just add this,
they must have known that the Santa Anti winds. I
mean that that is what they get this time of
year out there. It's like we get cold weather in January,
they get the Santa Ana winds. Why would they take
it right line at this time?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I know? No, mean that you're talking about hundred hurricane
force winds in one hundred miles an hour. Yeah, I
stayed pictures of hillsides and that were glowing in Orange.
They were so much on fire. I couldn't even believe
what I was watching. They were glowing at Orange, the
hillsides right.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And all of the contributing factors. I know that people
are going to say, well, it's the lack of rain, Okay,
that's fair, gonna say climate change, that's fair. But in winds,
that's fair. But how can you allow your city to
be exposed? You take a reservoir with two million or
(02:35):
whatever the number of gallons of water.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
You take one one point seven million gallons.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Take it offline. Was that whoever made that decision? I mean,
that's just Look, I'm sure that it wasn't uh, you know,
something that was done intentionally and saying, oh, yeah, we're
gonna have a fire next week. No, it was just
abject stupidity. Competence.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of incompetence. I understand. The fire
chief cut so many, so many, so much money from
the fire budget, a lot of a lot of bats.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Who whoa, whoa, whoa waste that? Hold on, let me
defend the fire chief. It wasn't the fire chief. It
was the mayor of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
The man, the mayor, I'm sorry, yeah, the man, the.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Mayor who used to be a member of Congress, and
and she was away. They knew that they had some problems,
some weather problems, and she went off to some sort
of celebration in Ghana.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, what a ship of fools.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That city is. And that's the city that had had
the prosecutor, George Gasbag gascon who who was defeated, thank god.
And there's a new prosecutor out there who tonight, believe
it or not, Thank God is threatening looters and and scammers.
Listen to this sound by that I got. I played
(03:56):
this last hour, but I think it's worth a second play.
Wouldn't it be great to get a prosecuted like this
a message in Boston? This has cut thirty seven. Play
that one again, please Rob.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
This is the La County Colisades at the sight of
what used to be my sister's home.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
She's lived here for a while, a long time with
her family, and are now this this home, along with
the homes in the street, in this neighborhood, are just gone.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I've been here for over sixty years.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
I've not seen devastation like this in my lifetime. I mean,
you have to harken back to the nineteen nineties when
we're hit with the floods and the fires and the
earthquakes and the riots to even get.
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Close to this.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Now, I'm absolutely convinced that La is incredibly resilient and
like it's done many many times before, Angelino's will come
back and build this back better than ever. But for
the people who are thinking, the criminals who are out
there thinking about taking advantage of this situation through looting
or through scams or over.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
The Internet and praying on vulnerable victims. Let me make
it quite clear what's going to happen. The DA's office
working for with law enforcement is going to arrest you.
They're going to prosecute you, and you will be punished
to the full extent of the law.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's a promise.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Now, that's a prosecutor. And hopefully if there's anybody out
there who's scamming people, twenty years should would would be
about right, I think for people who are scamming. I
hope so, I hope so and I and I hope
that we can we can find some prosecutors here in
Massachusetts as well. We got a couple, you know, John
(05:40):
Blodge it up in Essex County retired unfortunately, Uh, and
we do have we do have a couple of prosecutors,
but we need more. I mean, Gascon was the guy
who wouldn't prosecute anybody. No wonder people are out there
figuring that they can loot and they can scam.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, Jan can I just sad one more thing about
let you go Nextcarlo. Sure, you know they're talking about rebuilding.
I know it looks you see all this devastation, but
you know what I think it's going to be rebuilt
faster than you think. The bulldozers will come through there,
will clear out the debris, and people are going to
come in. New people with money are going to come
in and buy the land and rebuild on there.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You must waste. You got people out there who are
pretty wealthy to live in palace in the Pacific Palace,
right they own the property. I mean, you know they're
not gonna I don't know. Maybe some will sell, maybe
some won't. How long do you think before it will
take you're optimistic, how many years do you think before
(06:40):
that that those fire ravaged communities will come back to
where they were two weeks ago? How many years.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
They said five to ten? I say five. Maybe it
might even be within five. Because it happened, it can
happen faster than you think.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, I hope, so, I hope, so, I hope the people.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Would have money. Then the people that have money will rebuild.
I'm talking about the ones that are kind of financially
in the middle and didn't have it and don't have insurance.
In that case, somebody else will replace will coming by
the land because they will go to rebuild all Steve.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I appreciate you call. Got to keep rolling, thank you
very much.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
All right, by bye bye, let me keep rolling here.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I got to get Ruth at Uxbridge. Ruth, I don't
want you to have to wait any longer. I'll take
you before. Go ahead, Ruth.
Speaker 7 (07:28):
Thank you, thanks doing good to talk to you. And
oh my heartaches for those people. Because I lived out
there for a few years. I was born and raised
here in Massachusetts. And the thing is is that when
people look at the city of Los Angeles, you see
something on television and you see all the lights of
(07:48):
the city and everything you know, and what you basically
see is like a flat city from a tall high
mountain's side there and so, but the thing is all
the land that's around the city, outside the city, it's
all hilly. It's not flat. It's surrounded by hills and
(08:10):
canyons and stuff like that. And I know that when
we were out there for a couple of years, most
of the moisture that they get it was really weird.
They'd get it in March, in April and May, and
it would be damp. It would be like demp moisture.
At nighttime, you'd wake up and you'd walk out in
(08:32):
the morning and the ground and your roof and everything
would be wet. But it wasn't really like rainfall. But
yet I know they have a rainy time. But I
think the other, the other part of it is the foliage.
The foliage is so very different than what we have
around here. And this is what people don't understand. Why
(08:55):
can these fires go so fast. It's because a lot
of it's time and it's scrubby brushed, okay, and it
is it's comprised a lot of it's the oils that
are in the brush and it's bordering the sides of
the roads and stuff like that, and they just go.
(09:15):
And so their big thing was, like you mentioned, they
did not clean out the brush, and that was that
was to me, one of the biggest things right there.
And the other thing you mentioned was and my son
just mentioned this to me just recently. He lives in
(09:37):
South Dakota, but he mentioned those big planes that are
based in Colorado.
Speaker 8 (09:48):
Yep.
Speaker 7 (09:48):
I've never seen one, but and I don't know how
they fill them, you know what I mean. But yeah,
it's it's so different. It's almost like you've got to
be out there to really understand and see what the
terrain is like, and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And did you live in the city or did you
live outside of the city.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
No, we live We lived in both sides of the city,
on the east side and on the west side, both
sides during the time we were out there. But we'd
take a lot of trips going up. We had a
young we had a baby, and we'd take day trips
up into the mountains and stuff like that, you know,
and then come back, you know. So we saw what
(10:31):
it was like out there, you know, very very different,
very different. So I'll let us people talk.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Ruth, Thank you much. I appreciated interesting perspective. I'm glad
you're back in Uxbridge, to be honest with you.
Speaker 9 (10:45):
Yes, me too.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, it's devastating, devastating than it is.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
Thank you. Happy new to you too.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Byebye.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
We'll be back on night Side. We'll continue to call,
will continue to talk about this. Six one, seven, two, five,
four ten, thirty six one seven. We'll be right back
after this quick break.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World,
Nice Sight Studio. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Let's go next to Jerry and Michigan. Jerry, next to
night Thanks for calling in. How are you sure?
Speaker 10 (11:21):
Hi, Hi, Dan, I'm fine. I wanted to tell you
how they load those planes up with water, I.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Believe, love you know, yeah, how did they do that?
Thank you.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
They've they've got a pan like a vent, a reverse
vent on the belly, and what they do is they
fly over the whatever it is, a lake or the
ocean or whatever, and they scoop that water up into
the plane as they fly over. And it takes I'm
going to say a minute or so to do. It
doesn't take very long. And that technology, Hold on, I
(11:56):
got questions.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The person who sent me the material hasn't called in,
so thank you. How low do they have to fly
over the body of water to scoop the water up?
Speaker 10 (12:05):
Well, they got to make contact with it, so it's
almost like a seaplane. You've probably seen steam planes into
You got to make contact with the water or you're
not going to pick it up. And so they're flying
probably one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty
miles an hour, so I mean they're really they're really
moving along and it doesn't take long depending on how
(12:26):
big their scoop is. And they'll have that plane loader
that I'm going to say, in less than a minute.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Okay, So now how long has this technology been available?
Speaker 7 (12:36):
Is this that?
Speaker 10 (12:37):
Believe it or not? That technology goes back to World
War two because you know as well as I do,
that we had steam locomotives back in that era that
ran on water and coal and then they switched cold oil. Well,
the steam locomotives, what they would do is they would
flood between the tracks and instead of having that train
(13:01):
stop at a at a one of those whistle stops
where they brought the big pipe down from the water
tower and filled the tender with water, they dropped a scoop.
That train would drop a scoop and they would load
that tender up full of water in no time. Okay,
so that technology goes way back.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Okay, so here's my question, Jerry. They someone said that
they were able to put on like one point seven
million gallons of water on the plane.
Speaker 10 (13:31):
Well, probably a big seven. I don't know what planes
they're using, they have have them out there.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
They said seven. They were two seven to twenty sevens.
The question is, if the plane is on the water
scoops the water into the belly of the plane, how
the hell can the plane get off? The ground. It
has nothing to it has no runway to come down.
Speaker 10 (13:53):
It's it's still flying. It's flying right over the water.
It's it's flying just at the surface of the water,
scoop in that water up. It's still in flight. It's
not a question is it taking off or whatever. It's
still And I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Assuming that it would only be able to fly over
a body of water where it had. When I say
when I use the word runway, I'm using the word
runway in sort of a metaphorical sense. It couldn't drop
down just on a small lake. It would have to
be able to come down. You just can't. You can't
(14:28):
like dive bomb down. You got to have quite a
distance to be able to run.
Speaker 10 (14:33):
I assume it's gonna need probably two to three miles
at least, because depending on the airplane and the wait.
But it's it's probably going out over the ocean out
there where you're at. But we have those planes around here.
I'm in northern Lower Michigan, and we have a lot
of wildfires out here. Just as soon as the snow melts,
(14:55):
we have wildfires here that end up going across two
and three counties. But that's that's the that's the way
they do it. And and one of those planes that
they had out there was taken out a commission because
somebody was flying a drone and the drone hit right
on the leading edge of one of those planes and
took one of them out of service. So they only
have two of them now that are available for flight.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I'm not sure that the plane that it took out
a service was one of these seven thirty sevens, these
seven No.
Speaker 10 (15:26):
You're right, you're right, it wasn't. It was a red one,
And I don't know. And they probably have those smaller
planes so they can get into smaller lakes.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Absolutely. The seven thirty sevens are based at Colorado Springs,
which is close to the Air Force Academy, and it
said it was based at the Colorado Springs Airport. Why
they haven't been They could fly, if they could do it,
fly right over the Pacific Ocean and run run, you know.
Speaker 10 (15:52):
And the other thing they have or they have helicopters.
I don't know if those are out there or not,
but they have like these elephant snouts or whatever you
want to call it, or maybe six or eight inches
or ten inches in diameter. They dropped down and they
suck the water up. That takes a lot longer and
they don't carry as much water, but they scooped that
water out and like I say, they did that with
(16:13):
trains back around World War two.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
All right, Hey, Jerry, have you called my show before
since your first time?
Speaker 11 (16:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 10 (16:20):
No, I called you had an airplane thing when the
eight of system went down three or four years ago.
I called you and told you talk to you about
about that. I don't call you very often, but I've
been listening to you for years.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Jerry. I appreciate it very much. What town are you
in out there?
Speaker 10 (16:37):
I'm in a very small town. It's I'm going to
tell you. I'm around Grailing, which is about an hour
and a half south of the bridge there between the
up and Yeah, I got an idea.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I know. I know Michigan a little bit. Jerry. I
appreciate you called very much. I really do.
Speaker 10 (16:52):
I'm in a I'm out out in the middle of
the out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Well, you know, when when you're on night side, you're
you're in the middle of everywhere. Because you got a
lot of people in a lot of parts of the
country listening to you tonight. It was a very informative
phone call. The fellaw who sent me the seven twenty
seven pictures. I wish that he would be listening tonight.
We get a lot of information people send to you,
and then it's like, hey, I'm going to use it,
(17:16):
but I'm gonna have some questions. You helped answer some
of my questions. You were God sent tonight, Jerry. I
appreciate it. Don't be a strange.
Speaker 10 (17:22):
Well, for ten years, I got a pilot's license. I
flew instruments for ten years, and my license is hanging
on the wall. Now I got heard issues and I
can't fly anymore. But I've got it all upstairs. Still
I can still go and fly. I just take an
instructor with me.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
He sounds sharp as attack. Appreciate it. Appreciate Jerry, talk soon.
Speaker 10 (17:39):
Thank you. I have a good evening.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Okay, bye.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
All right, We're going to take very quick break here.
The news is a little early. I don't want to
short change anyone. Susan and Cambridge is next. I got
Joe and Abril, and I got room for you. If
you want to call six one, seven, two, five four
to ten thirty or six one, seven nine three one
ten thirty, I'll get you in before eleven. I promise
at eleven we go to the twentieth hour, and tonight.
What I want to do on the twentieth hour is
(18:03):
give people an option sort of like kind of like
a caller's Choice hour. Uh, it's not quite open lines.
I'm hoping that some of you might come up with
a thought or an idea that will generate some conversation.
I'll explain that one as well. We had Laurie and
Idah who she dropped off. Laurie, well, if we don't
get you this hour, we'll get the next hour. One
of my favorite callers out there in Idaho. So we
(18:26):
got Michigan, we get Detroit, we had Rhode Island, and
of course we had California earlier. So we're we're across
the cross the country tonight. Stay with us. You never
know who's listening, and if you're listening for the first time,
left to have you join us. Six one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty.
My name is Dan Ray. You're listening to Nightside on WBZ.
(18:46):
If you interested in our podcast, just go to Nightside
on demand dot com over the weekend, plenty of opportunity
to listen to some of our programs during the week
that you might have missed back on Nightside right after
this quick break here on.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
At Night's Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
All right, let's keep broller. You're going to go to
Susan in Cambridge. Susan, I suspect you and I are
looking at this very in a very similar fashion. How
are you, Susan.
Speaker 11 (19:15):
I'm good, I'm good. And I just got to say,
Jerry and Michigan rocks really informative call. Yeah, yeah, I
learned a lot. I just wanted to provide some context
to something that the prior college, Steve had said about
the you know, the reservoir being taken offline. And while
(19:37):
you know that may have posted some issues, they didn't
run out of water in like a traditional sense of
like there wasn't enough water. It was an issue of
at elevation they have to put And I missed a
little bit of your prior hour, so I don't know
if this is discussed, but they have these giant tanks
(19:59):
that they have of filled up in the palisades because
you can't you can't just get water from a hydrant
at elevation, that's true, like anywhere, you know. So they
had these giant tanks up there, right, and the tanks
ran dry before they could be refilled. Like it's basically
(20:22):
a long term infrastructure problem. And they hadn't they hadn't
had to deal with stuff in that you know, particular
residential area before where the planes were. The planes couldn't fly,
I mean they were usually yes, there's you know Santa
Ana wins and they kick up, but they usually don't
(20:45):
come on quite so hard and so fast, and so
usually they can get the planes up and do some
preliminary stuff. You know, it's kind of like salting the
roads around here, you know what I mean, like pre treatment,
you know. But they kicked up up, you know, so
viciously that the planes were grounded, and so they had
(21:06):
to rely on you know, just the existing you know
water in those tanks, and they simply couldn't keep up
the refilling with the usage because it was such an
out of control fire.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well that might be interesting, but and it may have
maybe absolutely accurate. I'm not an expert on it, but
that's a little consolation to people who watch their houses bright.
I mean, this has never happened on this magnitude. There
have been fires in small towns. Remember there was a
fire in a small California town four or five years
(21:41):
ago that I mean it was literally a town that
right woods, this is Los Angeles, this is suburban Los Angeles,
I mean right.
Speaker 11 (21:50):
Well, but that actually makes it harder to fight because
you can't really do it's difficult to do controlled burns
around fidential areas, and they're limited in their seasons. Like
obviously you can't do a control burn in the dry season, right,
so you have to do them, you know, in the
wet season. But if the wet season isn't particularly wet
(22:14):
or doesn't last as long, then you can't do it.
And then if you're trying to do it in a
residential area, it's really impossible because.
Speaker 9 (22:23):
Many dangers or susan.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, absolutely, you wouldn't want to do a control burn
in a residential area. You go in and you get
that stuff out. Now, I'm not an expert in this,
but if this has never happened before, and the people
who are in charge, the mayor out there, I guess
(22:48):
in December a month ago, cut the fire budget by
seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
Okay, I got to give contacts for that.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh, of course, because it's a democratic mayor. Go ahead.
Speaker 11 (23:01):
Yeah, well let's just look, she inherited a budget shortfall.
The fire department actually got like the lowest cut. It
was two percent. The budget is over eight hundred and eighty.
Is it million or billion?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
It wouldn't be billion, it wouldn't be billion.
Speaker 11 (23:18):
Okay, yeah, okay, million. So so it was a it
was a two percent cut, it's and it was the
least of like you know, all the departments basically, except
I think for police.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Susan. Can I ask you a question, and this is
an honest question, Okay, if this had been a Republican community,
do you think you would have been reaching for as
many excuses as you're reaching for right now. I mean
this in a very gentle way. I'm not trying to
be difficult.
Speaker 11 (23:47):
This is well, if it was if it was a
Republican would you be would you not be providing context?
You always provide content. The boneheaded thing that Trump says,
you know, you're always providing context, but you never you
never know that for Kamala.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Harris, really well, oh, let me ask you when when
Trump back in twenty and sixteen, and you've been listening
a long time, made the comment the so called Billy
Bush tape, you know, the one I'm talking about. We
talked about grab right private parts. Do you know what
my comment was? This was October twenty sixteen. I said,
(24:24):
get off the ticket, resign from.
Speaker 11 (24:27):
The ticket, right, Okay. But more recently you have provided
context for things like like the things when he said,
you know there's going to be blood you know, I
don't know bloodshed or something like that, and you provided
context for what he said.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I have what you're talking about there. Look, I am
not a Trump person, as I think.
Speaker 9 (24:49):
You know you're not.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
You probably know that, Okay.
Speaker 11 (24:52):
So I even don't provide context for Democrats.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
I mean, we all have biases, Dan, But what I'm
saying is you just had But Susan, this is a
devastating lack of leadership, A devastating This is.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I can't think of anything that has hit me harder
in terms. I looked at what happened in Hawaii and
I was I felt concerned about that. But but it
is now starting to percolate up that they were budget
counts seventeen you know, billion dollars, not billion dollars, seventeen
(25:31):
million dollars. That's a lot of money. That's a lot
of money. And all I'm just saying is that you
have you have, you have news him out there, the governor.
Thank god, you finally elected a district attorney in Los Angeles,
this fellow Nathan Haukshman, Huckman, who apparently is willing to
enforce the law. And if anybody's out there scamming or looting,
they're gonna they're gonna end up in jail. I don't
(25:52):
think Gascon would have put them in jail anyway. I
don't provide a context for Trump. Never have, uh never will.
I've said when my comment is about Trump, as I
think you heard me say this a million times, he
could hire competent people, and he could hire some people
(26:13):
who were loyal, but he couldn't hire people who were
both competent and loyal, which is a devastating criticism because
if you confinde find people who are both competent and loyal,
you shouldn't be the president of the United States.
Speaker 11 (26:28):
Okay, I would submit that anyone who's who's going to
pass his loyalty test is probably not going to be
particularly competent.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, that may be, And that's my comment. And if
you if you consider that that I'm providing context to
defending him, I think you're mistaken. Anyway, Good luck with
Karen Bass. She decided to take a little trip as
as the mayor of Los Angeles to a celebration of
presidential inauguration in Ghana, and was she was out of
(27:00):
town when Harold Washington was out of town on a
blizzard in Chicago. Uh, that was not nearly as predictable
as this. You knew the Santa Anna wins were coming.
And then you have you have Governor Newsom. This is
the end of his career right there. Period. This is
going to be tattooed on his political resume forever. So
(27:20):
find yourself a new front runner for twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 11 (27:23):
Susan, Well, he was never my choice anyway. So well,
but may have been some you know, some issues, but
can we not overlook this. This is an unprecedented natural disaster.
You know, I didn't see people in you know, western
North Carolina, you know, well they were they were, I mean,
(27:46):
people on the right were blaming you know, we're claiming
that you know, the government was controlling the weather and
creating oh wha, wha wha was waste.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
There was a woman who worked for THEEMA who testified
in front of car Ungress that she had been instructed
not to provide assistance to people who had Trump signs
of support on their homes.
Speaker 11 (28:09):
People from Shima were being threatened by people with Trump signs.
There were people I.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Can just imagine that. I can imagine that. Susan. Oh
my god, Susan, I got a run. Thanks very much,
this was not your greatest call. Okay, thank you much,
appreciate it, all right, Oh God, Daryln Brunswick in New Brunswick, Daryl,
welcome back.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
How are you hey?
Speaker 9 (28:33):
Dan? I was just calling in to Kauflman and Jerry
reference the aircraft for water bombing. Yes, he did great
and great and also Gaylord is a great area. They
got a great place where you order anything and you
get a pound of bacon every order.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
All right, that's good.
Speaker 9 (28:51):
Don't know what I'm talking about, but anyways, a serial
two fifteen's they're actually made out of Canada. Canada there,
and uh what they do is they have scoops on
the very bottom. Like Jerry was saying, but they also
have a relief mechanism so that way they don't overflow.
So they don't because they have the boat for an end.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, again, I gotta be honest with you. I'm not
an expert in this one, Darryl at all, and any
uh any information. I thought Jerry explained it pretty well.
I didn't realize that these planes literally, uh skim the
surface of a body of water to ingest upwards of
a million gallons of water onto the plane and they
still can stay, they still can gain altitude after that.
(29:37):
It's it's amazing. One of my listeners like.
Speaker 9 (29:42):
The old what they're like, the old p B PB wise.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Oh, the pb wise. You're right, Darrel, I forgot about those. Yeah,
they're similar to the r X fours too, by the way.
And I think the x W threes I think they're
in the same category, don't Darryl. Thanks thanks man, I
gotta run talk soon. Thanks bye bye. Oh come on, folks,
(30:07):
we had some good calls earlier. Let's finish up strong
six one, seven, two. I don't need any excuses for
Karen Bass and I don't need any excuses for Gavin Newsom. Okay,
their political careers are at an end at this point
as of the preparations. This is devastating. And anyone who
wants to call and make excuses for these these fools,
(30:29):
uh and and Susan is better than that. And I
thought Jerry explained everything, uh clearly. Uh and again six one,
seven four ten thirty, six seven thirty. We're coming right
back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ, the News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
I wish you could have heard the conversation between Rob
and me. Just then, Folks, when you call, try to
stay on topic, Okay, just try to stay on topic. Okay, Daryl,
if you're listening, I don't care that there's there's some
place in Michigan you get a pound of bacon. I mean,
we're talking about some serious stuff, Daryl. Let's get back
to the call. It's gonna go to Dave in Bridgewater. Dave,
(31:15):
welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 8 (31:17):
Dan? Hey, Look at let's be real about this. A
plane cannot lift a million gallons of water, all right, Yeah,
there's no way eight pounds a gallon. There's no way
a planet could lift that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, no way, be real, right, Okay, let me tell
you what someone sent me. A guy who occasionally communicates
with me sent me pictures, and I'm going to find
them here because I want you to understand I'm.
Speaker 8 (31:50):
Not nice to say one the biggest plane in the
world can carry a load of two hundred and forty
ton Okay, that's the biggest plane in the world.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Milliam a million gallons of water is it's it's not
even feasible. You can't even what never couldn't even happen.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, okay, let me let me see if I can
find these.
Speaker 8 (32:17):
Let me see if these are This fire is, like
you said, devastating, and they should have been prepared for this,
they speak, there should be water lines coming from the ocean.
Whatever they have to do.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah. So the plane that was that that I received,
and the fellow who sent the information to me is
pretty sharp, dude. It's called the seven forty seven Supertanker.
The seven forty seven to Supertanker is a retired aerial
firefighting air tanker derived from various Boeing seven forty seven models.
(32:49):
The aircraft's rated up to carry nineteen uh nineteen thousand
US gallons.
Speaker 8 (32:57):
Right thousand gallons. Yeah, that's not nearly a million.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, no, I understand that somebody mentioned that, and I
should have caught it to be.
Speaker 8 (33:09):
Water and a lot of weight.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah yeah. And that's just trying to figure out.
Speaker 8 (33:13):
That the spires burned so hot that the water hardly
does anything. Really, it's you know, it's the winds are
so fast and like, you know, you can't control the weather,
but in the wind.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, I will, I just say this. The Santa Anna
winds are very predictable. They happened every year in California.
Now they may have happened with more intensity, but California
should have been on the alert. Remember how we had
some drought this summer. We had rained that August, and
(33:49):
then we had nothing in September, October into November, and
we had a whole bunch of brush fires around the state.
Uh and and and then then we did get rain.
They hadn't had any substantial rain, I believe, since May.
Speaker 9 (34:05):
And that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
You have the mayor who flies off to a presidential
inauguration in Ghana, Ghana. I mean, so you're former congresswoman
Congress Mayor Bass, and you have the guy out there
who's been running for President Governor Gavin Newsom, and they
(34:34):
cut they cut the fire budget by seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 8 (34:38):
I mean that that's such a bad move. I mean, well,
where's all this money go to the people who are
coming in from the border. Well, it doesn't go to
the homeless people or anything like that. They waste money
and it's terrible that they don't have fire control out
their prevention and they just they spend money. Stupid.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
They also appearently not clear out a lot of underbrush.
And you know, people were talking about having controlled burns.
I don't you kind of have a controlled burn neighborhood.
Speaker 8 (35:09):
No, not like that, Not like that. They got to
you know, you go in with the army, the core
or whatever and clean it up, you know, to chip
it up and you know, make make guidance out of
it whatever. But you have to take care of it.
You don't see that stuff happening out here. And there's
a lot of debris in the woods too, a lot
of trees down, A lot of fire could happen, but
(35:32):
we don't. I mean, we had winds this week, but
not like they have a California hundred miles an hour. Yeah,
I mean that's that's a there's plenty of fuel for
that fire to burn, and you throw that winding with
that oxygen. It's burning so hot it can't stop it.
It makes its own storm. It's it's and then what
(35:55):
scares me is that it's not gonna go west. It's
gonna come east, and that's where.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
We It's like, well, I think, well, I think that
we geographically are protected in the sense that in New
England we have of all the weather patterns around the country.
We have blizzards, we have hurricanes. Yeah, we get that.
Sometimes we get you know, big time marine storms.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
We haven't had a while.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Well, we've had a lot of rain in the last
month and a half. Believe me, we actually it turned out.
I believe that in twenty in twenty twenty four, we
actually had uh more inches of rain in the Boston
area than on average.
Speaker 8 (36:37):
After even with all, I heard on WPZ this morning
that they just lifted the burning or the du roat. Yeah,
in the west of Massachusetts today.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I get that. Yeah, And obviously the what I'm saying
is at the end of the day here we we
kind of dodged a bullet, is what I guess. But
we're both agreeing upon. Hey, look, I appreciate you all day.
Thank you so much. Appreciate Yeah. Absolutely, you'll go to
Mike and MITHU and Mike you might wrap us up here.
Go ahead, Mike, Hey, I'm doing just great. What's your
(37:12):
take on all of this?
Speaker 8 (37:15):
I agree?
Speaker 12 (37:17):
Yeah, terrible. Look that it was, you know, a couple
of years ago we saw pictures of this, so you know,
it was a freak accident once, but it can't be
a freak accident twice. Kind of fool me once. Shame
on you and pull me.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
There happened fires before you had the fire in Hawaii
a couple of years ago, which again there was a
weather situation out there and I guess they had some
high winds and it got going and uh and they
did have some fires previously in California. I know there
was a small town that was devastated, but this is
a big city.
Speaker 12 (38:03):
Who did anything like this, No, And I just I
pray for all the people out there, and I just
I was at the doctor Goblin and I just saw
that you know, they're setting up you know, donation mines
and things like that. So that's one thing we can
be hopeful for.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
But I do.
Speaker 12 (38:24):
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
No, I'm just saying, you look at these people, and
you know, when we have a fire back here and
there's a family that loses everything, or for that matter,
an apartment building. I was watching the news tonight there
was an apartment building I think it was in Fall River.
Fifteen people or have to find a new place to live,
(38:46):
and they may have lost a lot of their worldly possessions.
But fifteen people, they can go to Red Cross, they
can go to Salvation Army. There's Catholic charities, there's a
whole bunch of charitable organizations that help people get back
their feet. But there are thousands of families that have
lost everything in California. I mean, the scope of this
(39:09):
is monumental. I don't know.
Speaker 12 (39:16):
Yeah, I agree, I don't know how you recover. I
really don't. Because they're using seawater, which is salting earth.
So you got one bad choice or another.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah. They were saying that that even if they could
have scooped seawater out, it could have had an adverse
impact on some of the the planes end or helicopters.
I I'm not a smart enough person kept from a
chemical point of view, to understand. I do understand that
that that seawater is corrosive, and anyone who lives near
(39:51):
uh the Atlantic Ocean knows exactly what what what I'm
talking about there, But boy, this is I just think
there's such a lack of leadership. California has has has
been bereft of leadership for a long time. And uh,
there were some bad decisions made here and now mother
(40:15):
nature wake up. I sure hope so too. And uh, look,
we all kind of go along. We get up every day,
we work, we pay our taxes, We don't think about things,
but there are decisions that are made by government that
have long term implications. You know, what happened, what happened
in North Carolina was this this superstorm that came up
(40:38):
and there was and it happened to hit a poor
section of western North Carolina. Totally different. It's it's frightening.
It's just frightening. And I think all of us need
to pray for these people and and hope that nothing
like this ever happens again, or at least we get
some better political leadership at California.
Speaker 10 (40:58):
I agree.
Speaker 12 (41:00):
Just one thing for all the listeners, with.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Your listeners out there, yep, let's be prepared.
Speaker 12 (41:06):
Let's let's make emergency catch for ourselves just in case.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Absolutely What do you what do you do if your
house goes on fire? What do you grab? And you
don't have a lot of time? You know, those people
had a matter of minute or two to get out
of their house.
Speaker 12 (41:22):
I'm gonna think about that an idea.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
All right, Mike, me too, Thanks, my friend, talk to
you soon. All right, I think we've wrapped this. I
think we have talked about this. We're gonna go to
the eleven o'clock hour and we're gonna change it up
just a little bit. It's the twentieth hour. I'll explain
right after the eleven o'clock news
It's nice time with Dan Ray. I'm telling you easy
Boston Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Just looking at pictures of Los Angeles, pictures of people
standing by what was their homes. Again, anyone who loses
a home to a fire is tragic, but we're talking
about thousands of people who have nowhere to go and
have nothing left except for the clothes on their back.
(00:27):
It's an incredible story. We'll keep rolling here six one
seven two six seven. I was gonna change at ten
o'clock and talk about Donald Trump's day in Zoom Court.
We can say that till next week, but let's let's
continue along. We're gonna go next. Steve is in Bridgewater. Steve,
(00:49):
You're next one night side. Appreciate you holding through the news.
Go right ahead.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
How you doing again, Nice to talk to you again.
I talk with you, sir, you know, to take a
few things. It was just it's funny they just talked
about it on the news just now about a reservoir
that was taken off line. Was close to two million
gallons of water. Yeah, and I think that had a
(01:13):
lot to do with why some of the hydrants ran
dried then and they didn't have enough water to fight
the fires.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Why did they take it? Why did they take that
reservoir offline? Did they explain that?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah, yeah, I heard of it even on Fox News.
They were for repair is it something for some reason
like that, for repairs or they were repairing something.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But well, they must have let me just add this,
they must have known that the Santa Anti winds. I
mean that that is what they get this time of
year out there. It's like we get cold weather in January,
they get the Santa Ana winds. Why would they take
it right line at this time?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I know? No, mean that you're talking about hundred hurricane
force winds in one hundred miles an hour. Yeah, I
stayed pictures of hillsides and that were glowing in Orange.
They were so much on fire. I couldn't even believe
what I was watching. They were glowing at Orange, the
hillsides right.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And all of the contributing factors. I know that people
are going to say, well, it's the lack of rain, Okay,
that's fair, gonna say climate change, that's fair. But in winds,
that's fair. But how can you allow your city to
be exposed? You take a reservoir with two million or
(02:35):
whatever the number of gallons of water.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
You take one one point seven million gallons.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Take it offline. Was that whoever made that decision? I mean,
that's just Look, I'm sure that it wasn't uh, you know,
something that was done intentionally and saying, oh, yeah, we're
gonna have a fire next week. No, it was just
abject stupidity. Competence.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of incompetence. I understand. The fire
chief cut so many, so many, so much money from
the fire budget, a lot of a lot of bats.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Who whoa, whoa, whoa waste that? Hold on, let me
defend the fire chief. It wasn't the fire chief. It
was the mayor of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
The man, the mayor, I'm sorry, yeah, the man, the.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Mayor who used to be a member of Congress, and
and she was away. They knew that they had some problems,
some weather problems, and she went off to some sort
of celebration in Ghana.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, what a ship of fools.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That city is. And that's the city that had had
the prosecutor, George Gasbag gascon who who was defeated, thank god.
And there's a new prosecutor out there who tonight, believe
it or not, Thank God is threatening looters and and scammers.
Listen to this sound by that I got. I played
(03:56):
this last hour, but I think it's worth a second play.
Wouldn't it be great to get a prosecuted like this
a message in Boston? This has cut thirty seven. Play
that one again, please Rob.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
This is the La County Colisades at the sight of
what used to be my sister's home.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
She's lived here for a while, a long time with
her family, and are now this this home, along with
the homes in the street, in this neighborhood, are just gone.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I've been here for over sixty years.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
I've not seen devastation like this in my lifetime. I mean,
you have to harken back to the nineteen nineties when
we're hit with the floods and the fires and the
earthquakes and the riots to even get.
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Close to this.
Speaker 5 (04:36):
Now, I'm absolutely convinced that La is incredibly resilient and
like it's done many many times before, Angelino's will come
back and build this back better than ever. But for
the people who are thinking, the criminals who are out
there thinking about taking advantage of this situation through looting
or through scams or over.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
The Internet and praying on vulnerable victims. Let me make
it quite clear what's going to happen. The DA's office
working for with law enforcement is going to arrest you.
They're going to prosecute you, and you will be punished
to the full extent of the law.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
That's a promise.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Now, that's a prosecutor. And hopefully if there's anybody out
there who's scamming people, twenty years should would would be
about right, I think for people who are scamming. I
hope so, I hope so and I and I hope
that we can we can find some prosecutors here in
Massachusetts as well. We got a couple, you know, John
(05:40):
Blodge it up in Essex County retired unfortunately, Uh, and
we do have we do have a couple of prosecutors,
but we need more. I mean, Gascon was the guy
who wouldn't prosecute anybody. No wonder people are out there
figuring that they can loot and they can scam.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, Jan can I just sad one more thing about
let you go Nextcarlo. Sure, you know they're talking about rebuilding.
I know it looks you see all this devastation, but
you know what I think it's going to be rebuilt
faster than you think. The bulldozers will come through there,
will clear out the debris, and people are going to
come in. New people with money are going to come
in and buy the land and rebuild on there.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You must waste. You got people out there who are
pretty wealthy to live in palace in the Pacific Palace,
right they own the property. I mean, you know they're
not gonna I don't know. Maybe some will sell, maybe
some won't. How long do you think before it will
take you're optimistic, how many years do you think before
(06:40):
that that those fire ravaged communities will come back to
where they were two weeks ago? How many years.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
They said five to ten? I say five. Maybe it
might even be within five. Because it happened, it can
happen faster than you think.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Well, I hope, so, I hope, so, I hope the people.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Would have money. Then the people that have money will rebuild.
I'm talking about the ones that are kind of financially
in the middle and didn't have it and don't have insurance.
In that case, somebody else will replace will coming by
the land because they will go to rebuild all Steve.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I appreciate you call. Got to keep rolling, thank you
very much.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
All right, by bye bye, let me keep rolling here.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I got to get Ruth at Uxbridge. Ruth, I don't
want you to have to wait any longer. I'll take
you before. Go ahead, Ruth.
Speaker 7 (07:28):
Thank you, thanks doing good to talk to you. And
oh my heartaches for those people. Because I lived out
there for a few years. I was born and raised
here in Massachusetts. And the thing is is that when
people look at the city of Los Angeles, you see
something on television and you see all the lights of
(07:48):
the city and everything you know, and what you basically
see is like a flat city from a tall high
mountain's side there and so, but the thing is all
the land that's around the city, outside the city, it's
all hilly. It's not flat. It's surrounded by hills and
(08:10):
canyons and stuff like that. And I know that when
we were out there for a couple of years, most
of the moisture that they get it was really weird.
They'd get it in March, in April and May, and
it would be damp. It would be like demp moisture.
At nighttime, you'd wake up and you'd walk out in
(08:32):
the morning and the ground and your roof and everything
would be wet. But it wasn't really like rainfall. But
yet I know they have a rainy time. But I
think the other, the other part of it is the foliage.
The foliage is so very different than what we have
around here. And this is what people don't understand. Why
(08:55):
can these fires go so fast. It's because a lot
of it's time and it's scrubby brushed, okay, and it
is it's comprised a lot of it's the oils that
are in the brush and it's bordering the sides of
the roads and stuff like that, and they just go.
(09:15):
And so their big thing was, like you mentioned, they
did not clean out the brush, and that was that
was to me, one of the biggest things right there.
And the other thing you mentioned was and my son
just mentioned this to me just recently. He lives in
(09:37):
South Dakota, but he mentioned those big planes that are
based in Colorado.
Speaker 8 (09:48):
Yep.
Speaker 7 (09:48):
I've never seen one, but and I don't know how
they fill them, you know what I mean. But yeah,
it's it's so different. It's almost like you've got to
be out there to really understand and see what the
terrain is like, and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And did you live in the city or did you
live outside of the city.
Speaker 7 (10:09):
No, we live We lived in both sides of the city,
on the east side and on the west side, both
sides during the time we were out there. But we'd
take a lot of trips going up. We had a
young we had a baby, and we'd take day trips
up into the mountains and stuff like that, you know,
and then come back, you know. So we saw what
(10:31):
it was like out there, you know, very very different,
very different. So I'll let us people talk.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Ruth, Thank you much. I appreciated interesting perspective. I'm glad
you're back in Uxbridge, to be honest with you.
Speaker 9 (10:45):
Yes, me too.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, it's devastating, devastating than it is.
Speaker 7 (10:52):
Thank you. Happy new to you too.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Byebye.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
We'll be back on night Side. We'll continue to call,
will continue to talk about this. Six one, seven, two, five,
four ten, thirty six one seven. We'll be right back
after this quick break.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World,
Nice Sight Studio. I'm WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Let's go next to Jerry and Michigan. Jerry, next to
night Thanks for calling in. How are you sure?
Speaker 10 (11:21):
Hi, Hi, Dan, I'm fine. I wanted to tell you
how they load those planes up with water, I.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Believe, love you know, yeah, how did they do that?
Thank you.
Speaker 10 (11:31):
They've they've got a pan like a vent, a reverse
vent on the belly, and what they do is they
fly over the whatever it is, a lake or the
ocean or whatever, and they scoop that water up into
the plane as they fly over. And it takes I'm
going to say a minute or so to do. It
doesn't take very long. And that technology, Hold on, I
(11:56):
got questions.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The person who sent me the material hasn't called in,
so thank you. How low do they have to fly
over the body of water to scoop the water up?
Speaker 10 (12:05):
Well, they got to make contact with it, so it's
almost like a seaplane. You've probably seen steam planes into
You got to make contact with the water or you're
not going to pick it up. And so they're flying
probably one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty
miles an hour, so I mean they're really they're really
moving along and it doesn't take long depending on how
(12:26):
big their scoop is. And they'll have that plane loader
that I'm going to say, in less than a minute.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Okay, So now how long has this technology been available?
Speaker 7 (12:36):
Is this that?
Speaker 10 (12:37):
Believe it or not? That technology goes back to World
War two because you know as well as I do,
that we had steam locomotives back in that era that
ran on water and coal and then they switched cold oil. Well,
the steam locomotives, what they would do is they would
flood between the tracks and instead of having that train
(13:01):
stop at a at a one of those whistle stops
where they brought the big pipe down from the water
tower and filled the tender with water, they dropped a scoop.
That train would drop a scoop and they would load
that tender up full of water in no time. Okay,
so that technology goes way back.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Okay, so here's my question, Jerry. They someone said that
they were able to put on like one point seven
million gallons of water on the plane.
Speaker 10 (13:31):
Well, probably a big seven. I don't know what planes
they're using, they have have them out there.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
They said seven. They were two seven to twenty sevens.
The question is, if the plane is on the water
scoops the water into the belly of the plane, how
the hell can the plane get off? The ground. It
has nothing to it has no runway to come down.
Speaker 10 (13:53):
It's it's still flying. It's flying right over the water.
It's it's flying just at the surface of the water,
scoop in that water up. It's still in flight. It's
not a question is it taking off or whatever. It's
still And I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Assuming that it would only be able to fly over
a body of water where it had. When I say
when I use the word runway, I'm using the word
runway in sort of a metaphorical sense. It couldn't drop
down just on a small lake. It would have to
be able to come down. You just can't. You can't
(14:28):
like dive bomb down. You got to have quite a
distance to be able to run.
Speaker 10 (14:33):
I assume it's gonna need probably two to three miles
at least, because depending on the airplane and the wait.
But it's it's probably going out over the ocean out
there where you're at. But we have those planes around here.
I'm in northern Lower Michigan, and we have a lot
of wildfires out here. Just as soon as the snow melts,
(14:55):
we have wildfires here that end up going across two
and three counties. But that's that's the that's the way
they do it. And and one of those planes that
they had out there was taken out a commission because
somebody was flying a drone and the drone hit right
on the leading edge of one of those planes and
took one of them out of service. So they only
have two of them now that are available for flight.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
I'm not sure that the plane that it took out
a service was one of these seven thirty sevens, these
seven No.
Speaker 10 (15:26):
You're right, you're right, it wasn't. It was a red one,
And I don't know. And they probably have those smaller
planes so they can get into smaller lakes.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Absolutely. The seven thirty sevens are based at Colorado Springs,
which is close to the Air Force Academy, and it
said it was based at the Colorado Springs Airport. Why
they haven't been They could fly, if they could do it,
fly right over the Pacific Ocean and run run, you know.
Speaker 10 (15:52):
And the other thing they have or they have helicopters.
I don't know if those are out there or not,
but they have like these elephant snouts or whatever you
want to call it, or maybe six or eight inches
or ten inches in diameter. They dropped down and they
suck the water up. That takes a lot longer and
they don't carry as much water, but they scooped that
water out and like I say, they did that with
(16:13):
trains back around World War two.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
All right, Hey, Jerry, have you called my show before
since your first time?
Speaker 11 (16:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 10 (16:20):
No, I called you had an airplane thing when the
eight of system went down three or four years ago.
I called you and told you talk to you about
about that. I don't call you very often, but I've
been listening to you for years.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Jerry. I appreciate it very much. What town are you
in out there?
Speaker 10 (16:37):
I'm in a very small town. It's I'm going to
tell you. I'm around Grailing, which is about an hour
and a half south of the bridge there between the
up and Yeah, I got an idea.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I know. I know Michigan a little bit. Jerry. I
appreciate you called very much. I really do.
Speaker 10 (16:52):
I'm in a I'm out out in the middle of
the out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Well, you know, when when you're on night side, you're
you're in the middle of everywhere. Because you got a
lot of people in a lot of parts of the
country listening to you tonight. It was a very informative
phone call. The fellaw who sent me the seven twenty
seven pictures. I wish that he would be listening tonight.
We get a lot of information people send to you,
and then it's like, hey, I'm going to use it,
(17:16):
but I'm gonna have some questions. You helped answer some
of my questions. You were God sent tonight, Jerry. I
appreciate it. Don't be a strange.
Speaker 10 (17:22):
Well, for ten years, I got a pilot's license. I
flew instruments for ten years, and my license is hanging
on the wall. Now I got heard issues and I
can't fly anymore. But I've got it all upstairs. Still
I can still go and fly. I just take an
instructor with me.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
He sounds sharp as attack. Appreciate it. Appreciate Jerry, talk soon.
Speaker 10 (17:39):
Thank you. I have a good evening.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Okay, bye.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
All right, We're going to take very quick break here.
The news is a little early. I don't want to
short change anyone. Susan and Cambridge is next. I got
Joe and Abril, and I got room for you. If
you want to call six one, seven, two, five four
to ten thirty or six one, seven nine three one
ten thirty, I'll get you in before eleven. I promise
at eleven we go to the twentieth hour, and tonight.
What I want to do on the twentieth hour is
(18:03):
give people an option sort of like kind of like
a caller's Choice hour. Uh, it's not quite open lines.
I'm hoping that some of you might come up with
a thought or an idea that will generate some conversation.
I'll explain that one as well. We had Laurie and
Idah who she dropped off. Laurie, well, if we don't
get you this hour, we'll get the next hour. One
of my favorite callers out there in Idaho. So we
(18:26):
got Michigan, we get Detroit, we had Rhode Island, and
of course we had California earlier. So we're we're across
the cross the country tonight. Stay with us. You never
know who's listening, and if you're listening for the first time,
left to have you join us. Six one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty.
My name is Dan Ray. You're listening to Nightside on WBZ.
(18:46):
If you interested in our podcast, just go to Nightside
on demand dot com over the weekend, plenty of opportunity
to listen to some of our programs during the week
that you might have missed back on Nightside right after
this quick break here on.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
At Night's Side with Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
All right, let's keep broller. You're going to go to
Susan in Cambridge. Susan, I suspect you and I are
looking at this very in a very similar fashion. How
are you, Susan.
Speaker 11 (19:15):
I'm good, I'm good. And I just got to say,
Jerry and Michigan rocks really informative call. Yeah, yeah, I
learned a lot. I just wanted to provide some context
to something that the prior college, Steve had said about
the you know, the reservoir being taken offline. And while
(19:37):
you know that may have posted some issues, they didn't
run out of water in like a traditional sense of
like there wasn't enough water. It was an issue of
at elevation they have to put And I missed a
little bit of your prior hour, so I don't know
if this is discussed, but they have these giant tanks
(19:59):
that they have of filled up in the palisades because
you can't you can't just get water from a hydrant
at elevation, that's true, like anywhere, you know. So they
had these giant tanks up there, right, and the tanks
ran dry before they could be refilled. Like it's basically
(20:22):
a long term infrastructure problem. And they hadn't they hadn't
had to deal with stuff in that you know, particular
residential area before where the planes were. The planes couldn't fly,
I mean they were usually yes, there's you know Santa
Ana wins and they kick up, but they usually don't
(20:45):
come on quite so hard and so fast, and so
usually they can get the planes up and do some
preliminary stuff. You know, it's kind of like salting the
roads around here, you know what I mean, like pre treatment,
you know. But they kicked up up, you know, so
viciously that the planes were grounded, and so they had
(21:06):
to rely on you know, just the existing you know
water in those tanks, and they simply couldn't keep up
the refilling with the usage because it was such an
out of control fire.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Well that might be interesting, but and it may have
maybe absolutely accurate. I'm not an expert on it, but
that's a little consolation to people who watch their houses bright.
I mean, this has never happened on this magnitude. There
have been fires in small towns. Remember there was a
fire in a small California town four or five years
(21:41):
ago that I mean it was literally a town that
right woods, this is Los Angeles, this is suburban Los Angeles,
I mean right.
Speaker 11 (21:50):
Well, but that actually makes it harder to fight because
you can't really do it's difficult to do controlled burns
around fidential areas, and they're limited in their seasons. Like
obviously you can't do a control burn in the dry season, right,
so you have to do them, you know, in the
wet season. But if the wet season isn't particularly wet
(22:14):
or doesn't last as long, then you can't do it.
And then if you're trying to do it in a
residential area, it's really impossible because.
Speaker 9 (22:23):
Many dangers or susan.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, absolutely, you wouldn't want to do a control burn
in a residential area. You go in and you get
that stuff out. Now, I'm not an expert in this,
but if this has never happened before, and the people
who are in charge, the mayor out there, I guess
(22:48):
in December a month ago, cut the fire budget by
seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
Okay, I got to give contacts for that.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Oh, of course, because it's a democratic mayor. Go ahead.
Speaker 11 (23:01):
Yeah, well let's just look, she inherited a budget shortfall.
The fire department actually got like the lowest cut. It
was two percent. The budget is over eight hundred and eighty.
Is it million or billion?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
It wouldn't be billion, it wouldn't be billion.
Speaker 11 (23:18):
Okay, yeah, okay, million. So so it was a it
was a two percent cut, it's and it was the
least of like you know, all the departments basically, except
I think for police.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Susan. Can I ask you a question, and this is
an honest question, Okay, if this had been a Republican community,
do you think you would have been reaching for as
many excuses as you're reaching for right now. I mean
this in a very gentle way. I'm not trying to
be difficult.
Speaker 11 (23:47):
This is well, if it was if it was a
Republican would you be would you not be providing context?
You always provide content. The boneheaded thing that Trump says,
you know, you're always providing context, but you never you
never know that for Kamala.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Harris, really well, oh, let me ask you when when
Trump back in twenty and sixteen, and you've been listening
a long time, made the comment the so called Billy
Bush tape, you know, the one I'm talking about. We
talked about grab right private parts. Do you know what
my comment was? This was October twenty sixteen. I said,
(24:24):
get off the ticket, resign from.
Speaker 11 (24:27):
The ticket, right, Okay. But more recently you have provided
context for things like like the things when he said,
you know there's going to be blood you know, I
don't know bloodshed or something like that, and you provided
context for what he said.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I have what you're talking about there. Look, I am
not a Trump person, as I think.
Speaker 9 (24:49):
You know you're not.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
You probably know that, Okay.
Speaker 11 (24:52):
So I even don't provide context for Democrats.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
I mean, we all have biases, Dan, But what I'm
saying is you just had But Susan, this is a
devastating lack of leadership, A devastating This is.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I can't think of anything that has hit me harder
in terms. I looked at what happened in Hawaii and
I was I felt concerned about that. But but it
is now starting to percolate up that they were budget
counts seventeen you know, billion dollars, not billion dollars, seventeen
(25:31):
million dollars. That's a lot of money. That's a lot
of money. And all I'm just saying is that you
have you have, you have news him out there, the governor.
Thank god, you finally elected a district attorney in Los Angeles,
this fellow Nathan Haukshman, Huckman, who apparently is willing to
enforce the law. And if anybody's out there scamming or looting,
they're gonna they're gonna end up in jail. I don't
(25:52):
think Gascon would have put them in jail anyway. I
don't provide a context for Trump. Never have, uh never will.
I've said when my comment is about Trump, as I
think you heard me say this a million times, he
could hire competent people, and he could hire some people
(26:13):
who were loyal, but he couldn't hire people who were
both competent and loyal, which is a devastating criticism because
if you confinde find people who are both competent and loyal,
you shouldn't be the president of the United States.
Speaker 11 (26:28):
Okay, I would submit that anyone who's who's going to
pass his loyalty test is probably not going to be
particularly competent.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, that may be, And that's my comment. And if
you if you consider that that I'm providing context to
defending him, I think you're mistaken. Anyway, Good luck with
Karen Bass. She decided to take a little trip as
as the mayor of Los Angeles to a celebration of
presidential inauguration in Ghana, and was she was out of
(27:00):
town when Harold Washington was out of town on a
blizzard in Chicago. Uh, that was not nearly as predictable
as this. You knew the Santa Anna wins were coming.
And then you have you have Governor Newsom. This is
the end of his career right there. Period. This is
going to be tattooed on his political resume forever. So
(27:20):
find yourself a new front runner for twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 11 (27:23):
Susan, Well, he was never my choice anyway. So well,
but may have been some you know, some issues, but
can we not overlook this. This is an unprecedented natural disaster.
You know, I didn't see people in you know, western
North Carolina, you know, well they were they were, I mean,
(27:46):
people on the right were blaming you know, we're claiming
that you know, the government was controlling the weather and
creating oh wha, wha wha was waste.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
There was a woman who worked for THEEMA who testified
in front of car Ungress that she had been instructed
not to provide assistance to people who had Trump signs
of support on their homes.
Speaker 11 (28:09):
People from Shima were being threatened by people with Trump signs.
There were people I.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Can just imagine that. I can imagine that. Susan. Oh
my god, Susan, I got a run. Thanks very much,
this was not your greatest call. Okay, thank you much,
appreciate it, all right, Oh God, Daryln Brunswick in New Brunswick, Daryl,
welcome back.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
How are you hey?
Speaker 9 (28:33):
Dan? I was just calling in to Kauflman and Jerry
reference the aircraft for water bombing. Yes, he did great
and great and also Gaylord is a great area. They
got a great place where you order anything and you
get a pound of bacon every order.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
All right, that's good.
Speaker 9 (28:51):
Don't know what I'm talking about, but anyways, a serial
two fifteen's they're actually made out of Canada. Canada there,
and uh what they do is they have scoops on
the very bottom. Like Jerry was saying, but they also
have a relief mechanism so that way they don't overflow.
So they don't because they have the boat for an end.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, again, I gotta be honest with you. I'm not
an expert in this one, Darryl at all, and any
uh any information. I thought Jerry explained it pretty well.
I didn't realize that these planes literally, uh skim the
surface of a body of water to ingest upwards of
a million gallons of water onto the plane and they
still can stay, they still can gain altitude after that.
(29:37):
It's it's amazing. One of my listeners like.
Speaker 9 (29:42):
The old what they're like, the old p B PB wise.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Oh, the pb wise. You're right, Darrel, I forgot about those. Yeah,
they're similar to the r X fours too, by the way.
And I think the x W threes I think they're
in the same category, don't Darryl. Thanks thanks man, I
gotta run talk soon. Thanks bye bye. Oh come on, folks,
(30:07):
we had some good calls earlier. Let's finish up strong
six one, seven, two. I don't need any excuses for
Karen Bass and I don't need any excuses for Gavin Newsom. Okay,
their political careers are at an end at this point
as of the preparations. This is devastating. And anyone who
wants to call and make excuses for these these fools,
(30:29):
uh and and Susan is better than that. And I
thought Jerry explained everything, uh clearly. Uh and again six one,
seven four ten thirty, six seven thirty. We're coming right
back on night Side.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ, the News Radio.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
I wish you could have heard the conversation between Rob
and me. Just then, Folks, when you call, try to
stay on topic, Okay, just try to stay on topic. Okay, Daryl,
if you're listening, I don't care that there's there's some
place in Michigan you get a pound of bacon. I mean,
we're talking about some serious stuff, Daryl. Let's get back
to the call. It's gonna go to Dave in Bridgewater. Dave,
(31:15):
welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 8 (31:17):
Dan? Hey, Look at let's be real about this. A
plane cannot lift a million gallons of water, all right, Yeah,
there's no way eight pounds a gallon. There's no way
a planet could lift that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, no way, be real, right, Okay, let me tell
you what someone sent me. A guy who occasionally communicates
with me sent me pictures, and I'm going to find
them here because I want you to understand I'm.
Speaker 8 (31:50):
Not nice to say one the biggest plane in the
world can carry a load of two hundred and forty
ton Okay, that's the biggest plane in the world.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
Milliam a million gallons of water is it's it's not
even feasible. You can't even what never couldn't even happen.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, okay, let me let me see if I can
find these.
Speaker 8 (32:17):
Let me see if these are This fire is, like
you said, devastating, and they should have been prepared for this,
they speak, there should be water lines coming from the ocean.
Whatever they have to do.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah. So the plane that was that that I received,
and the fellow who sent the information to me is
pretty sharp, dude. It's called the seven forty seven Supertanker.
The seven forty seven to Supertanker is a retired aerial
firefighting air tanker derived from various Boeing seven forty seven models.
(32:49):
The aircraft's rated up to carry nineteen uh nineteen thousand
US gallons.
Speaker 8 (32:57):
Right thousand gallons. Yeah, that's not nearly a million.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, no, I understand that somebody mentioned that, and I
should have caught it to be.
Speaker 8 (33:09):
Water and a lot of weight.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah yeah. And that's just trying to figure out.
Speaker 8 (33:13):
That the spires burned so hot that the water hardly
does anything. Really, it's you know, it's the winds are
so fast and like, you know, you can't control the weather,
but in the wind.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Well, I will, I just say this. The Santa Anna
winds are very predictable. They happened every year in California.
Now they may have happened with more intensity, but California
should have been on the alert. Remember how we had
some drought this summer. We had rained that August, and
(33:49):
then we had nothing in September, October into November, and
we had a whole bunch of brush fires around the state.
Uh and and and then then we did get rain.
They hadn't had any substantial rain, I believe, since May.
Speaker 9 (34:05):
And that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
You have the mayor who flies off to a presidential
inauguration in Ghana, Ghana. I mean, so you're former congresswoman
Congress Mayor Bass, and you have the guy out there
who's been running for President Governor Gavin Newsom, and they
(34:34):
cut they cut the fire budget by seventeen million dollars.
Speaker 8 (34:38):
I mean that that's such a bad move. I mean, well,
where's all this money go to the people who are
coming in from the border. Well, it doesn't go to
the homeless people or anything like that. They waste money
and it's terrible that they don't have fire control out
their prevention and they just they spend money. Stupid.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
They also appearently not clear out a lot of underbrush.
And you know, people were talking about having controlled burns.
I don't you kind of have a controlled burn neighborhood.
Speaker 8 (35:09):
No, not like that, Not like that. They got to
you know, you go in with the army, the core
or whatever and clean it up, you know, to chip
it up and you know, make make guidance out of
it whatever. But you have to take care of it.
You don't see that stuff happening out here. And there's
a lot of debris in the woods too, a lot
of trees down, A lot of fire could happen, but
(35:32):
we don't. I mean, we had winds this week, but
not like they have a California hundred miles an hour. Yeah,
I mean that's that's a there's plenty of fuel for
that fire to burn, and you throw that winding with
that oxygen. It's burning so hot it can't stop it.
It makes its own storm. It's it's and then what
(35:55):
scares me is that it's not gonna go west. It's
gonna come east, and that's where.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
We It's like, well, I think, well, I think that
we geographically are protected in the sense that in New
England we have of all the weather patterns around the country.
We have blizzards, we have hurricanes. Yeah, we get that.
Sometimes we get you know, big time marine storms.
Speaker 8 (36:19):
We haven't had a while.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Well, we've had a lot of rain in the last
month and a half. Believe me, we actually it turned out.
I believe that in twenty in twenty twenty four, we
actually had uh more inches of rain in the Boston
area than on average.
Speaker 8 (36:37):
After even with all, I heard on WPZ this morning
that they just lifted the burning or the du roat. Yeah,
in the west of Massachusetts today.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I get that. Yeah, And obviously the what I'm saying
is at the end of the day here we we
kind of dodged a bullet, is what I guess. But
we're both agreeing upon. Hey, look, I appreciate you all day.
Thank you so much. Appreciate Yeah. Absolutely, you'll go to
Mike and MITHU and Mike you might wrap us up here.
Go ahead, Mike, Hey, I'm doing just great. What's your
(37:12):
take on all of this?
Speaker 8 (37:15):
I agree?
Speaker 12 (37:17):
Yeah, terrible. Look that it was, you know, a couple
of years ago we saw pictures of this, so you know,
it was a freak accident once, but it can't be
a freak accident twice. Kind of fool me once. Shame
on you and pull me.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
There happened fires before you had the fire in Hawaii
a couple of years ago, which again there was a
weather situation out there and I guess they had some
high winds and it got going and uh and they
did have some fires previously in California. I know there
was a small town that was devastated, but this is
a big city.
Speaker 12 (38:03):
Who did anything like this, No, And I just I
pray for all the people out there, and I just
I was at the doctor Goblin and I just saw
that you know, they're setting up you know, donation mines
and things like that. So that's one thing we can
be hopeful for.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
But I do.
Speaker 12 (38:24):
Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
No, I'm just saying, you look at these people, and
you know, when we have a fire back here and
there's a family that loses everything, or for that matter,
an apartment building. I was watching the news tonight there
was an apartment building I think it was in Fall River.
Fifteen people or have to find a new place to live,
(38:46):
and they may have lost a lot of their worldly possessions.
But fifteen people, they can go to Red Cross, they
can go to Salvation Army. There's Catholic charities, there's a
whole bunch of charitable organizations that help people get back
their feet. But there are thousands of families that have
lost everything in California. I mean, the scope of this
(39:09):
is monumental. I don't know.
Speaker 12 (39:16):
Yeah, I agree, I don't know how you recover. I
really don't. Because they're using seawater, which is salting earth.
So you got one bad choice or another.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah. They were saying that that even if they could
have scooped seawater out, it could have had an adverse
impact on some of the the planes end or helicopters.
I I'm not a smart enough person kept from a
chemical point of view, to understand. I do understand that
that that seawater is corrosive, and anyone who lives near
(39:51):
uh the Atlantic Ocean knows exactly what what what I'm
talking about there, But boy, this is I just think
there's such a lack of leadership. California has has has
been bereft of leadership for a long time. And uh,
there were some bad decisions made here and now mother
(40:15):
nature wake up. I sure hope so too. And uh, look,
we all kind of go along. We get up every day,
we work, we pay our taxes, We don't think about things,
but there are decisions that are made by government that
have long term implications. You know, what happened, what happened
in North Carolina was this this superstorm that came up
(40:38):
and there was and it happened to hit a poor
section of western North Carolina. Totally different. It's it's frightening.
It's just frightening. And I think all of us need
to pray for these people and and hope that nothing
like this ever happens again, or at least we get
some better political leadership at California.
Speaker 10 (40:58):
I agree.
Speaker 12 (41:00):
Just one thing for all the listeners, with.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Your listeners out there, yep, let's be prepared.
Speaker 12 (41:06):
Let's let's make emergency catch for ourselves just in case.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Absolutely What do you what do you do if your
house goes on fire? What do you grab? And you
don't have a lot of time? You know, those people
had a matter of minute or two to get out
of their house.
Speaker 12 (41:22):
I'm gonna think about that an idea.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
All right, Mike, me too, Thanks, my friend, talk to
you soon. All right, I think we've wrapped this. I
think we have talked about this. We're gonna go to
the eleven o'clock hour and we're gonna change it up
just a little bit. It's the twentieth hour. I'll explain
right after the eleven o'clock news
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