There are 4 roads out of Paradise, one was covered in fire (Pentz), one had officers turning people around at the north side of town (Skyway) to join the long line of people trying to get out (rather than letting them go through Magalia up to the 32), Skyway which is a two lane road through the narrow gap at the south side of town (designed for 1,000 cars an hour, not the 8,000+ who were all trying to use it at once) and Clark Rd which out of the area LEOs were trying to prevent people from using, incorrectly identifying it as being dangerous.
Adding to it was people north of Paradise also evacuating along Skyway heading south.
A lot of areas of Paradise are long dead end roads that dump into ‘main roads’ like Pearson which should have been turned into a one way only (west) street for evacuation and dumped down Clark (south) as a one way out.
These are the types of things that town and county OES departments are SUPPOSED to figure out AND practice.
Adding to the situation was the 2006 fire which threatened the town with a long evacuation and little damage - many figured they’d be just fine and authorities were overstating the danger, or they’d be safe again.
“...many figured they’d be just fine and authorities were overstating the danger, or they’d be safe again.”
And this same thinking also killed people in New Orleans, Houston, Florida, North and South Carolina, and Puerto Rico. There are just too many SERIOUS DISASTER POTENTIAL DENIERS in this world. Maybe there really is some climate change going on. At age 80, it sure looks that way to me. I also don’t expect it to improve.
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