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Perspective can be a problem.

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      They are suffering from a kind of blindness, an acceptance of the known and a fear of the unknown. They know their hurricanes so they accept them. They have a Hollywood horror film feeling about earthquakes which has no reality whatever.

      First, I have lived in California now for 46 years. I have been aware of two earthquakes. The second one, the worst of the two, barely moved a rectangular, Tiffany type, hanging lamp over a pool table as I was preparing to shoot.

      There have been several destructive quakes elsewhere in California. But the radius of damage is minuscule compared to the area of damage in a hurricane in Florida. At Santa Cruz, the quake caused a fair amount of damage and several deaths when a double decker freeway collapsed. This freeway was in the process of being retrofitted. Most of the damage was in old parts of town with buildings that had not been retrofitted to withstand a quake.

      California is aware of the danger and there is a timeline in place where buildings have to be retrofitted to earthquake standards by a certain date or they will be torn down. That date is within a few years from now, 2013 I believe.!

      According to the California Geological Survey there have been about 10 earthquakes in the last 30 years that have caused financial damage. Eight of them had damages in the millions while two were in the billions. The Northridge quake was apparently the largest and most damaging and was about 60 miles in diameter. Most earthquakes are much smaller. I didn't even feel the quake 28 miles north of us in Paso Robles.

      My point is that earthquakes are fairly rare and don't disturb a large area. If you're 30 or more miles away you will probably read about it in the newspaper.

      I have been in two hurricanes. They cover a huge area, these two covering the coast all the way from Florida through Massachusetts. They are massive, terribly destructive over a very large area and they occur every year.

      They are one of the biggest reasons why I would never live in Florida. At least I have lived in Florida, taking flying training there in 1943. My friends have never lived in California.

      If you want to convince people of your point of view and measurements are involved, choose that method of measurement that magnifies what you are talking about.

      For example, if you want to impress people with the magnitude of the wildfire disaster in California, use acres, not square miles. It sounds terrible to say that 640,000 acres have burned. Gee whiz, what a disaster! But if you say a thousand square miles have burned in a state that has 163,000 square miles it makes it look small. Further, that is a square about 31.6 miles on a side. That's less than one percent.

      For the person that's burned out it is total. It is a disaster. All gone!

      But I'm a bit more sanguine. California has lots of forest land. Fire is a natural part of that ecology. That's how the natural trash like dead leaves and bark are taken care of. Chaparral burns, every so often. And if it doesn't burn it will build up fuel to where new seeds can no longer reach ground and germinate. No new growth will eventually kill a forest.

      I was told that Berkeley cleared an acre or so of detritus in Sequoia Park. They were wondering why no new sequoias were being produced. The next year there were hundreds of seedlings. The duff had been so thick it was preventing any new germination and trees.

      Smokey the Bear is a bad idea. We need more fires, not less. We need fires when the fuel on the ground is minimal so a fire is quick and relatively harmless to established trees.

      The problem comes when people think that it would be wonderful to live in a forest. They like the trees so they don't cut them. They like the "natural vegetation" so they don't clear the picturesque weeds. And then I'm supposed to feel bad for them when they get on TV, wringing their hands and crying and say, "I've lost my home." My reaction is, "Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn."

      They build a wood house with a shingle roof because it is so cute and woodsy.

      Worse than that, my insurance is going to help them rebuild in the same place so it can happen again. At the very least they should not be re-insurable in the same place. Why should I have to help stupid people re-build their house in an impossible location?

      It's like the people that build under a sand cliff and cry foul when it collapses on them. I have no sympathy.

      Or like the people a half block from me that buy a house on a street with a double yellow line going down the middle and then wake up one day and say, "Hey, this is dangerous for my kids, slow traffic to 25!" My wife and I could see that 43 years ago and we did not even consider buying a home on that street!