Month: January 2025

By Teri Figueroa / The San Diego Union-Tribune / January 18, 2025

The images of the fires in Los Angeles stopped some Harmony Grove residents cold.

Debbie O’Neill knows the stress of evacuating as fire bears down. A decade ago, she and her husband fled after they saw the flames from the Cocos fire crest a nearby hill and hurtle down toward their Harmony Grove home. And that was before more than a 700-home development went up in the semi-rural area.

There’s the potential for 453 more residences in the area. O’Neill and neighbors are fighting it, arguing that they — and the new residents — will be vulnerable if there is a fire due to inadequate evacuation routes.

“We don’t want to die in here,” O’Neill said Tuesday. “And if we do, I want to make damn sure that everybody knows that the county Board of Supervisors knew that this was not a safe development.”

By Bonnie Kutch / SD Union-Tribune Op-Ed / Jan. 21, 2025

San Diego so far has dodged a major disaster during the recent Santa Ana winds, but more events are just around the corner. With our vegetation bone-dry, and wildfires becoming more extreme and unpredictable, residents here have never been more vulnerable and justifiably terrified.

The devastating wildfires that have been ravaging Los Angeles tell us one thing for certain: Wildfires are far more deadly in dense urban areas where traffic grids are limited and evacuation is more difficult. This factor was also in play in the tragic 2023 Maui wildfires.

This should be enough to caution San Diego City officials that building in very high fire hazard severity zones is foolish and irresponsible. Adding more people to these areas means more cars on the road, potentially creating traffic gridlock and making it impossible for residents to get out of harm’s way.

From PLA’s Peninsula News

By Ann Jarmusch / SOHO Newsletter / January-February 2025

At their November 2024 meeting, the City of San Diego Historical Resources Board designated three houses and an apartment building and heard a detailed informational report on the current Heritage Preservation Program, which is under review.

Kelley Stanco, the City’s Deputy Director, Environmental Policy & Public Spaces (which includes heritage preservation), noted that November is Native American Heritage Month, when “we honor the history, rich culture, and vast contributions” of the Kumeyaay, on whose ancestral lands San Diego was built. She announced that the City’s Historic Preservation Awards, which were reinstated in 2024, will again be presented in May 2025 during National Preservation Month.

Stanco also outlined the application process for 2025 Mills Act contracts. Owners of historic resources designated in 2024 or earlier must submit applications for 2025 contracts between January 1 and March 31, 2025.

As usual, our friends at PLA’s Peninsula News have their eyes and ears close to the ground — so here’s the latest from the neighborhood around the proposed project at Rosecrans and Talbot.

By Eric DuVall / Pt Loma-OB Monthly (SDU-T) / January 14, 2025

In summer 1958, 27-year-old Navy Staff Lt. Don Walsh was assigned to the submarine tender Nereus, part of Submarine Flotilla 1 at the sub base on Point Loma. It was a safe, steady desk job, but less than exciting.

Six months later, Walsh found himself as the officer in charge (OIC) of what he referred to as “the strangest craft in the Navy,” the bathyscaph Trieste. How did that happen? He volunteered.

The bathyscaph was a deep submergence vehicle, or DSV, invented by Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard. It was no ordinary submarine. In fact, Trieste had been further described as a deep-diving dirigible.

By Mat Wahlstrom / Special to the OB Rag

My attention was caught by a throwaway statement in Wednesday’s [1-15-25]  Union-Tribune article about dangerous street intersections and Vision Zero. Vision Zero is a public policy initiative that has taken priority over and bled into the other programs and initiatives being pursued by the City of San Diego.

For those who don’t know, Vision Zero has as its singular goal “to reduce traffic fatalities to zero within a decade.”

As such, one might understandably think that this initiative merits applause and anticipate these street intersections will become less dangerous. Yet readers were greeted with this airy admission: “Vision Zero hasn’t reduced injury crashes or fatalities since it was launched in 2015. But instead of giving up, city officials said they plan to spend more money on safety features and other initiatives.”

I, too, needed to reread that sentence to be sure I understood it correctly.

The intersection of Rosecrans and Kurtz streets in the Midway District will soon get new safety features including flashing beacons, countdown timers, pedestrian-friendly delayed-green stoplights and crosswalks aimed to boost visibility.

The intersection is one of seven road locations considered among the most dangerous in San Diego. The upgrades are part of the city’s 10-year-old Vision Zero campaign, which intends to reduce traffic deaths to zero.

Each of the locations had five or more crashes in 2023. The city’s Transportation Department annually studies intersections and street segments with the most crashes involving pedestrians and injuries.

Traffic engineering teams are now designing and scheduling the safety improvement projects for five intersections and two street segments.

Along with Rosecrans and Kurtz, the other dangerous intersections or segments are:

By Heather Souvaine Horn / Nation Magazine / January 14, 2025

In Kim Stanley Robinson’s widely acclaimed, Obama-praised climate novel, The Ministry for the Future, the climate crisis is already well underway when catastrophic rains drown Los Angeles in water. Recreational kayaks and motorboats become crucial rescue vehicles, thousands die in the floods, and early projections suggest some $30 trillion in damage.

“So now,” the main character muses, “one could imagine that the American people might support action on the climate change front. Better late than never! But no. Already it was becoming clear that LA was not popular in Texas, or on the east coast, or even in San Francisco for that matter.” Despite these public sentiments, “California’s government, one of the most progressive in the world, and the US federal government, one of the most reactionary in the world—both were making efforts to help.” And the devastation of a famed city shocked just enough elites to make a difference: “If it could happen to LA, rich as it was, dreamy as it was, it could happen anywhere. Some deep flip in the global unconscious was making people queasy.” Los Angeles’s disaster becomes one of the key turning points leading to a global carbon coin.

OBcean Jane Andrews sent this to us for others to see, she thought it was so magical.  She told us:

By Lisa Mortensen

Hello Councilmembers:

While you were in council session yesterday, a fire broke out in Mission Valley temporarily closing the 15 freeway. It has become evidently clear that the numerous homeless encampments on city and state property as well as our drought conditions will very likely create a dangerous cocktail of wildfires that will become normalized.  So, my question for all of you is What is your Disaster Preparedness Plan for citizens in all communities?

I called my council member’s office (Steve Whitburn) yesterday to notify the office of the fire. All the receptionist could tell me was “go on social media and the Fire Department’s website” to learn about emergency preparedness. Oh, ok, I said. So, if I must evacuate and I pack my things, how will I get out and where will I go?  Again, he answered, “go on social media and the website”.  So basically, city hall is telling its citizens that “You’re on your own, good luck!”

Meanwhile, the city council is moving swiftly forward with massive development with limited or no onsite parking available in all districts with no consideration for evacuation.