Political Quotes

“as you and everybody here knows, a little bit over a week ago, fires broke out in Los Angeles County. And some of you have reached out in the time since to offer your support, to offer your assistance, and even offer condolences for those who have perished in this significant disaster. And I want to thank you for your initial outreach. My colleague Senator Schiff and I have come to the floor today to provide you all a little bit of an update and to lay a foundation on some of the key issues that we are going to need to work together on as we move forward. And let me begin by just taking a step back for a second and acknowledging that, even before the winds increased last week, we knew that the risk of a potential large fire was high. In the midst of a historically dry season in Southern California, forecasters predicted hurricane-force winds, along with little to no humidity--essentially, a dry hurricane condition, if you can imagine that. Californians know that when there is a red flag warning, conditions are ripe for large- scale fires. But what came next, what actually materialized, would become the worst natural disaster in the history of Los Angeles: 100- mile-per-hour winds carrying burning embers from home to home, multiple simultaneous fires burning more than 12,000 structures and more than 40,000 acres. And to give you a sense of the area I am talking about, I am talking about nearly three times the size of Manhattan.…”