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Evacuated San Diegans gathered at the city's NFL football field. "This is humanity on the run, hundreds of thousands uprooted, scrambling to collect their loved ones and pets," ABC's Mike von Fremd (no link) mused, as the National Guard delivered sleeping cots. "All the roads leading into Qualcomm Stadium are jammed tonight," noted NBC's George Lewis. "The number of refugees almost quadrupled." Calling such temporarily displaced residents "refugees" was too melodramatic. The terminology used during Hurricane Katrina--"evacuees"--is more apt. That comparison with Katrina was made by all three anchors. "You remember the desperation of the Superdome?" ABC's Gibson asked von Fremd. "Qualcomm was quite a contrast." CBS' Couric checked out an army of volunteers and the tons of donated food, and called it "a massive tailgate party"--unlike the Superdome, which was "a small city of violence, filth and chaos."
NBC's Williams, who was actually in the Superdome during the hurricane, saw residents patiently wait in line for hours for a police escort to return home as a measure to prevent looting: "Do you think any of this came out of Katrina--learning to treat people better and respond to emergencies?" he wondered. Partly Katrina, a woman conceded, "but I also think San Diego has learned a lot from the Cedar Fire"--a blaze that caused similar disruption just four years ago. Williams concluded that coping the wildfires "is part of the deal. It is part of the contract you make with nature if you are going to live in a beautiful, kind of wild, unusual kind of place."
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