Editor,
(This letter also went to council members.)
You are considering under grounding high-tension wires for safety? Really?
The nightmare many of us recall from the Laguna firestorm of 1993 is of exploding palm trees and flaming fronds sailing onto our roofs and roads carried by Santa Ana winds.
Park Avenue, one of the main “evacuation routes” from Alta Laguna and Top of the World to the high school (an evacuation center in 1993), is clogged with traffic every weekday from 7:20 to 7:45 a.m. (8:20 to 8:45 a.m. on Thursdays and Fridays) and around 2:30 p.m. The power lines were removed years ago, but they were replaced by tiki torches. Google “palm trees fire” and look at the images. If you missed those images in person in Laguna, check them out now from the comfort of your home. Imagine a Santa Ana wind, a fire, and the Laguna Beach High School entrance and Park Avenue at peak traffic times.
Instead of spending millions of dollars under grounding power lines (which by the way, we paid for years ago in my neighborhood years ago because we felt it a worthy project) demonstrate your safety concerns by improving “evacuation routes” now. Take action, which requires orders of magnitude less money and does not require a vote! Remove the “tiki torches” in and around our evacuation centers, roads and neighborhoods. If you won’t do it for me, do it for the children.
Merton Hill, Laguna Beach
