Editor:
A few years ago, we had quite the storm come through, dumping very wet snow on our mountains. Many trees could not take the weight and came down everywhere, along with many limbs breaking as well.
As a result, power was out all over the mountains. SCE crews worked many hours to restore our power. Kudos to them.
Fast forward to 2016. Again, wet snow has wreaked havoc on our mountains, and again tress are down and power out all over. SCE crews to the rescue once more. Again, kudos to them and their hard work.
Rewind to past storm. Many were without power. Ours was out five full days. Many lost quite a bit of food. Expensive to say the least. Claims to SCE were answered as, “We are not responsible for acts of God” Wait. What? You mean the God that is not allowed in our schools, courts or public places?
After waiting for everything to blow over, SCE crews and contractors were all over the Hill, cutting trees so as to not have a repeat. Had they maintained their right-of-way to start with, many of us would not have lost power and, thereby, food would not have spoilt. Bluntly put, their “act of God” claim was just a way to deny paying anyone for the damage their lack of maintenance caused.
Fast forward to 2016 again. I think you will find that most of the power outages this time around were caused by entire trees coming down, and not so much as individual limbs falling.
I will grant them the claim of “act of God” where entire tress are concerned, but if you lost anything to limbs falling, well, don’t buy into their “act of God’ claim too quickly. Could proper maintenance have avoided your damage?
And that brings me to this. After living here since 2007 and driving these roads, I have always looked at Dead Man’s Curve as a problem waiting to happen. Anyone else notice the cables and nets supporting other parts of mountainsides, especially going down the Banning side?
Nobody, myself included, expects the entire mountains to be “slide free” at all times, but it seems to me that had someone actually looked at places like Dead Man’s Curve, they would have seen the same things I have seen — that being many parts of the mountainsides ready to come down at any time.
Where were the geologists? Where were the state crews doing preventive maintenance on these areas?
Instead of giving refugees and illegals welfare and benefits at taxpayer expense, shouldn’t that money be spent on infrastructure? Nobody lost their lives this time, but …
M.J. Mitchell
Pine Cove
