California fires can't be compared to Katrina, officials say

Posted by Jeff Duncan, Staff writer October 27, 2007 10:30PM  Categories: Breaking News

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. -- As much as anyone, Andy Menshek understands the difference between Hurricane Katrina and the California wildfires.

The 25-year veteran of California's San Miguel Fire Department has responded to several major disasters, man-made and natural, in the past two decades: Hurricane Katrina as well as the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the 2003 cedar fires of Southern California and now the blazes that have scorched the landscape around much of his hometown of El Cajon.

Standing among the ruins of a charred trailer park a couple of miles from the Mexico border on Thursday, Menshek called the wildfires by far the worst he has seen as a firefighter. But he hesitated to compare them to Katrina, the most costly disaster in American history.

"We didn't even have half the people to evacuate that they had in Katrina," said Menshek, a battalion chief who as a security officer at the FEMA morgue in St. Gabriel witnessed firsthand the devastating toll of Katrina.

"There's no doubt if we would have had to evacuate the same numbers that New Orleans did we'd have encountered some of the same problems. That's really about the only comparison that can be made. That's why (the response has) been more effective here."

The response to the wildfires -- the country's biggest disaster since Katrina -- has earned praise from officials nationwide.

...while the federal government response has been swift in California, it
was unorganized and late in Louisiana, problems that cannot be blamed
on state government. Indeed, a commander with the Arkansas National
Guard who helped secure Convention Center Boulevard told reporters he
did not even receive an order to go to New Orleans until two days after
the hurricane.