The Santa Clara Valley Water District wrote to anti-Trump San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo on Tuesday, placing blame squarely on his administration for mismanaging the Coyote Creek flood last month that caught the city by surprise and forced the evacuation of 14,000 residents.
Many residents were given no warning of the flooding before being forced to leave their homes and belongings and find their way through brave treacherous waters contaminated with fuel and sewage.
The letter, obtained by the San Jose Mercury News, says, in part:
… [W]e would like to understand what the City’s evacuation trigger was, given that the City was also aware of the National Weather Service forecasts predicting flooding, and from a technical and professional standpoint should have been considering those as well as other data presented to the City. Similar to when a hurricane is barreling down on a region, an evacuation decision should not wait for the hurricane to hit to trigger a call for action.
… [O]ur question is: why did the City not act on predictions, maps, data, forecasts and other information from the District and the National Weather Service that flooding was imminent?
Had the City acted on Saturday, Sunday or even Monday morning, residents could have been evacuated in a safe and timely manner. The City had all the information and warnings necessary, but for whatever reason it failed to act.
Liccardo seemed to admit that there had been a “failure” in the evacuation process, but city and county officials seem to be determined to avoid blame for having caused that failure.
Last June, Liccardo blamed then-candidate Donald Trump for anti-Trump riots carried out by left-wing mobs against Trump supporters leaving a rally in downtown San Jose.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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