Poor, Elderly and Too Frail to Escape: Paradise Fire Killed the Most Vulnerable Residents - Los Angeles Times
We can do far better by our vulnerable citizens. This is an indictment of a towns evacuation plan that was wildly inadequate.
Dorothy Mack had crippling back pain and deteriorating eyesight. Helen Pace used a walker and could barely hear. Teresa Ammons suffered a stroke in 2017 and couldn’t drive.
Although each woman had a different frailty, their final circumstances were strikingly similar: They were all seniors on fixed incomes, they all lived alone, and they all died when the Camp fire roared through their mobile home park.
Experts say the incineration of Paradise, a sleepy town of 27,000 nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, is a case study in what can go wrong when a landscape that’s prone to wildfire is disproportionately populated by those who are least likely to escape.