12/21/24
October 26, 2007
Chargers to play at Qualcomm as scheduled. : The game's date and time had been in doubt because Qualcomm has been used as a major evacuation center during the wildfires that swept San Diego County.
posted by SFValley_Dude to football at 03:18 PM - 10 comments
More from the SD newspaper today:
... San Diego police Capt. Robert Kanaski said the city plans to begin moving evacuees from the stadium today and would do so regardless of whether the Chargers play there Sunday or Monday. As many as 10,000 evacuees stayed at the stadium while the fires raged, but a city spokesman estimated that only 400 remained by yesterday afternoon. The buildings at the Del Mar Fairgrounds would be more comfortable for evacuees, Kanaski said, and would offer better protection against smoky air and damp evenings. ... The fairgrounds, which at one point sheltered 2,200 people, had 88 evacuees as of last night, said Kina Paegert, a fairgrounds spokeswoman. She expected stadium evacuees to begin arriving at noon today.Now, that's good reporting.
posted by worldcup2002 at 05:30 PM on October 26, 2007
Thanks for the follow up. It's nice to know that the Chargers aren't just kicking the refugees out in order to play at Qualcomm.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 05:40 PM on October 26, 2007
SFValley_Dude, I changed the wording of your post. It's best to put opinion, especially strong opinion, inside the thread and not in the post. Thanks.
posted by justgary at 05:57 PM on October 26, 2007
It is okay. This is just not right. People have died, this is not over. There is smoke everywhere here in LA. I thought it would be nice to those who lost everything to postpone this game. I also think the evacuees are more important than a football game. I nearly lost my home 3 times now to wildfires. It is not fun. No matter how it is painted, if I were an evacuee being moved all the way to Del Mar (which actually has les seasonable weather than Mission Valley), I would feel like cattle. I am sorry it has come to this, but I feel disgusted at the way those people are being moved for a three hour game.
posted by SFValley_Dude at 12:44 AM on October 27, 2007
It sounds like they were planning on moving the people out regardless. Also, postpone the game? How? The playoffs start the week after the season ends. There isn't any time to play a makeup game. They could move where the game is played, but no way to postpone more than from Sunday to Monday.
posted by apoch at 02:50 AM on October 27, 2007
Well moving it was the least they could do, but not Houston. They should have found a neutral site.
posted by SFValley_Dude at 11:03 AM on October 27, 2007
From what I've gathered they were already planning to move people out of Qualcomm regardless of whether or not there was to be a game played. The Chargers are just taking advantage of the opportunity rather than leaving to play in Texas while Qualcomm is left unused.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 02:24 PM on October 27, 2007
SFValley_Dude, I understand that this is very close to the bone for you. I can certainly see how it seems inappropriate, even outrageous, that life should go on in a somewhat normal fashion while your world is all upside down. At the same time, however, I think it's fair to point out that life rarely grinds to a complete halt in the case of a disaster. This is particularly true of business: I used to work in IT, which is one of the many jobs where you get involved in making disaster recovery plans. The number one focus of such plans is avoiding deaths and direct losses from the disaster, but running a close second is the task of contingency planning and business continuation. "How quickly can we be back up and running?" is always one of the most important questions to a business confronted by a disaster. The Chargers are a business, not a relief agency -- that they would want to get their operation back on a normal footing ASAP is to be expected. It sounds like they will be able to do so, so why should they not? The 400 people left in the stadium are living out of suitcases as it is, it's not like you're going to be worsening their situation by consolidating them with another group of evacuees into one facility. Sure, a football game is not the most important thing right now, but if playing this football game isn't going to cause any problems, then why not play it?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 02:26 PM on October 27, 2007
There is smoke everywhere here in LA. I'm presently in the central Nevada desert about 200 miles north of Las Vegas, and our visibility was severely limited on Friday by the smoke from the fires. It was hard to believe that the smoke could travel that far, especially over the Sierras. I've been in the LA basin when the Santa Ana winds start blowing. It's scary watching the hills start to burn, but life does go on, as l_b_b points out. I hope that the victims are able to put their lives back together and move on.
posted by Howard_T at 07:13 PM on October 28, 2007
Funny that the article didn't have any followup information on what would happen to the evacuees at Qualcomm. Perhaps there's a perfectly rational arrangement that was not reported. (Bad reporting: not news.) But if there's not ... (News!) Here we go ... according to this blog (San Diego Union-Tribune?): Qualcomm evacuees will move to Del Mar Fairgrounds. Lazy bastard journalists, trying to stir up folk by omitting information. Whowouldathunkit!