In the past few years there’s a lot of squawking from the folks out on Highway 174 about the Cal Trans road widening project. “It will ruin the ambiance,” they say. “It will make people drive faster,” they say.
All you have to do is watch the video of residents trying to escape the Paradise fire to see what it’s like driving through a tunnel of flames. The sad reality is we can’t have the nice little narrow tree-covered roads in this tinderbox state anymore.
Just yesterday, the wife and I took a drive out that way to survey the damage from the River fire. The fire burned right up to road at the Chicago Park Store. It was only the lack of wind and the herculean efforts of firefighters that save hundreds of homes from destruction, and a hurried evacuation that could have easily clogged the roads out of the fire’s path.
And ironically, some asshole in a big truck passed us, honking and swerving over double yellow lines, because we had the gall to drive the speed limit.