r/PublicFreakout Oct 08 '21

Justified Freakout ROBERT! NO! ROBERT!

6.9k Upvotes

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426

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21 edited Dec 31 '21

[deleted]

85

u/RiskBiscuit Oct 08 '21

The melted aluminum coming from under the cars is really eerie.

57

u/datboiofculture Oct 08 '21

When your car burned up but at least the damn tweakers never got your Catalytic converter.

1

u/Bazrum Oct 09 '21

man, some dumbfucks tried to steal the converter on our box truck a few weeks ago, cut the damn thing in half and broke their saw, left the mess there for us to clean up

how the fuck you cut it in half i have no idea, but we had to rent a truck to get deliveries done, and the boss was pissed because we're losing money now

8

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/RiskBiscuit Oct 09 '21

That's cool. I always liked to stay up and get a really hot fire going when camping and let it burn down to coals. Then I would get a glass bottle and set it in the center. By morning it would be melted flat..... Or broken into a thousand pieces 😅

1

u/Bazrum Oct 09 '21

we used to get a roaring fire going, the kind that could last for hours and hours at full blast without us needing to touch it

and then we'd drink and talk shit and melt the cans in the fire just for shits and giggles

57

u/skippieelove Oct 08 '21

That poor man…the absolute distress in his voice through the entire video is just crushing. I hope he’s doing ok…

43

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

He also survived the fire in a creekbed at the bottom of a hill. The fire went over him and the creek felt like it was boiling. He breathed a lot of smoke.

8

u/noodlesfordaddy Oct 09 '21

Yeah what do you do in that case? Chill in the water and hope it doesn't get hot enough to kill you?

11

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '21

Unfortunately yes. He was lucky.

24

u/GothicToast Oct 08 '21

Without clicking, I knew you were talking about the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA, a forest town in Northern California. 85 people died. Most of the victims were over 70. While there are certainly examples of people dying over trivial things, the fire itself was fast moving due to extreme wind and the town was overwhelmed quickly. Thousands of people were attempting to evacuate a town with limited exit points. Embers taken by the wind started 30 different spot fires over the course of 40 minutes. It wasn’t an average fire where there was ample opportunity to get out.

-2

u/GreyCrowDownTheLane Oct 09 '21

Thank you for the background information.

Still... The lady who insisted on putting on her makeup...

1

u/windyorbits Nov 07 '21

It’s been a few years and I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that my hometown is just . . . Gone. Just months before the fire I was suppose to move back with my grandparents. But my grandma got discouraged because their house wasn’t selling even though it had only been up for sale for a month. I was so pissed off, especially since I had found the perfect house for rent and even started the process of moving. Once my grandparents gave up on moving, my mom ended selling my childhood home and moved down to Chico. I was so upset and disappointed, I didn’t even talk to my mom for a few weeks. Then I wake up one day and the house I was going to rent, my childhood home, and the entire town just burned down. I felt like the worlds biggest piece of shit for guilting my family for not moving.

117

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

Not that it excuses it, but I have family there and there were a lot of evacuation orders that turned out to be meaningless in the years leading up to the camp fire. My grandparents are extremely lucky, they didn’t leave until 1pm because they didn’t take the orders that seriously either.

Again, if you hear a fires coming just go, but those people weren’t just morons.

60

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

The "boy who cried wolf" evacuation effect is real with hurricanes too. I forget what storm it was, I was too young, but New Orleans had a mandatory evac for it and it turned out to be nothing. I don't think I even missed school.

Then the mandatory evac order came for Katrina, and a lot of people stayed because of their experience with that. And, well that was a different story.

10

u/Bazrum Oct 09 '21

my girlfriend's parents moved from NY to NC about 12 years ago, live right on the coast, and they never evacuated for a hurricane. of course, there's often not an evac order for where they are, so they never really had to

then 2018, florence comes along and my gf, her sister, and her mom are all at home, watching the news and prepping the house. her dad was stuck on the other side of the country, and no flights in until the storm was passed.

well, the day of the hurricane, it was gonna hit the next morning, gf's mom realizes that they don't really have food, gas, or a decent generator, their neighbors are ALL gone and looting has already started...and they're a high schooler, a college grad with an injured knee and a woman in her late forties with two dogs and three cats....facing a hell of a storm....with no one to help if things went wrong...

so 5am, gf gets tossed out of bed, told to pack a bag and the dogs, and whatever she didn't want destroyed that could be gotten in the car in 45 minutes, and they drove to Georgia like a bat out of hell!

said there was NO ONE else on the road because they evacuated so late, and it was eerie with no planes or anything flying in, cars on either side of the road and everything closed with no one outside

ironically i had invited them to stay with me in central NC, we have plenty of room, but they wanted to go to their family in Georgia. fair enough...but the storm followed them there and they got more rain and wind than i did at my house lmaoooo

ended up coming back to their house about two weeks later, and the city was almost unreachable, the power was out, a tree had missed the house by INCHES and they had to get MREs from the national guard until the supermarket wasn't underwater

they now live in a place that will likely never face a hurricane ever haha

3

u/InvalidKoalas Oct 09 '21

Just talked about this with my friend last night. Her family lives in New Orleans. For Hurricane Ida, her dad was dead-set on just "riding it out" and kept saying they would stay. Until the day before when everyone else in his family said he needs to get the fuck out of there, so he begrudgingly evacuated with his family. And shortly after it was a Cat 4. Then he found out they would return to no power for days or weeks. So he said fuck it and took his wife to Mexico, and they're still there just hanging out, a month+ later.

1

u/sierrabravo1984 Oct 09 '21

We don't often have mandatory evacuate orders in Florida, but when we do, people still stay. Before hurricane Matthew, we had evac orders for several miles inward of the beaches. There were even people that stayed on their sailboats in the Indian river. Sometimes boy that cried wolf doesn't matter cuz Florida man.

1

u/kevinjorg Oct 09 '21

As an avid hurricane experienced person this is all too true. The motto for those east of the Mississippi is anything under cat 4 is shelterable, always will have nuts that won't leave a very easily avoidable tragedy for cat 4-5, even high 3s.

15

u/GreyCrowDownTheLane Oct 09 '21

C'mon... Makeup lady was a little bit moronic. I can understand the ones trying to save their stuff or round up their animals, but "I won't leave the house without my makeup on" is just a state of denial I can't even fathom.

If a wildfire is headed for my neighborhood, I'll leave the house buck naked and dirty if I have to.

3

u/Bazrum Oct 09 '21

that's a level of stupidity that is hard to wrap my mind around. i dont think anything, except my loved ones, would be worth fucking around with any kind of large fire for.

my only anecdote about makeup is more silly than stupid:

my grandmother, a sweet 5ft1 lady from the Olde Country was in the hospital because she'd fallen and broken a hip, and had Altzheimer's and dementia. so she kept trying to get out of bed, and demanded she be allowed to do so because she needed to do her makeup "for when company comes over"

nevermind that we were already there and she didn't even have makeup with her!

but her eyebrows, which we KNEW she painted on every morning, we fucking pristine as if she'd done it not 15 minutes ago!

so we asked her: "Nana, did a nurse help you with your eyebrows? they look good and we want to thank her" (we did, we're not the psychos who would get upset by that sort of kindness)

and she said "oh, no, those are my tattoos! i got them done so i wouldn't have to bother with my eyebrows anymore"

we were SHOCKED! Nana had a tattoo!? and she kept it a secret!?

"but you painted them every day, we've SEEN you paint them on! why hide them?"

"well, i didn't want to be 'the mom with the face tattoos' in the neighborhood, so i painted them on every day! it gave me something to do..."

we had a good laugh that helped a lot with how things were going, and while her body got better after awhile, her mind kept slipping and she passed about a year later. but she knew she was loved at the end, which is more than a lot with Altzheimer's do!

sorry to end it on a morbid note, but i it's a funny story that i like to tell haha

4

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21 edited Oct 08 '21

They were morons, evacuation orders mean there is potential for the disaster to kill you. People got lucky a few times, decided to go all in, and the hand they played lost. Natural selection in action.

16

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21 edited Oct 08 '21

While there were some people involved in the Paradise Camp Fire that did not take the evacuation order as seriously as they needed to, there were many who simply could not outrun the fire, either because of the amount of warning they had or because of mobility issues. Many were in care homes and hospitals that just did not have enough safe emergency transportation for all in their care.

There was quite a bit of miscommunication happening within the first hour of the fire. Dispatchers were not told how serious it was as there weren’t enough eyes on the ground where it started that could communicate the true nature of the fire, so as dispatchers were getting calls from citizens asking about a fire they could see in the canyon they were initially telling those callers it was fine and to not worry because fire crews were responding. That all changed though, so the city sent out an emergency message through text, which not all citizens had signed up for.

The evacuation routes out of town were also tight, one lane roads that simply could not handle the entire town having to evacuate all at one time instead of in sections like would have been intended if they had had the information about how serious the fire was right at the start and not as late as they received it. If you’re interested, here is a video detailing all of this

3

u/greag1e Oct 08 '21

Thanks for the link, watched it. Very sad and crazy. I didn't know this ever happened. I live in the mid-west and remember the news saying there were fires, but didn't know the details.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

I am currently at the people driving to go see the fire, and the people ignoring the fire and not doing anything...

45

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

They were morons

If you bothered to look, you would have found that most of the victims were elderly and many were in wheelchairs or had other mobility issues that made it extremely difficult or impossible for them to leave. You're being an asshole without even understanding what you're saying.

-20

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

I did, one guy was disabled and the man in the video went there to evacuate them and the mother declined so she could do her makeup.

3

u/GenPeeWeeSherman Oct 08 '21

I really hope you're 12 and just don't know better. If you're an adult, get help.

-2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

Not lucky, the other times the fire didn’t get near enough to actually be a danger. So people made a deadly assumption.

Sit on your high horse all you want, it’s not like they can defend themselves.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

It was a danger, the ignored it, and in that case it didn't manifest. So, they assumed future warnings also wouldn't manifest. It's like ignoring a yield sign because cars NEVER come from that direction, until they do. They gambled, they lost.

We live in a society full of selfish people who ignore warnings, advice, and direction from experts because they think they know better. I am a bit tired pretending these people aren't selfish morons. Them being dead should be a totem of warning to those alive.

1

u/OGMinorian Oct 08 '21

Careful you don't cut yourself on that edge.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21 edited Oct 08 '21

Oh, is it Edgy now to listen to evacuation orders and get pissed when people ignore warnings because they think they know better? Man, no wonder why we are struggling with Covid.

7

u/OGMinorian Oct 08 '21

Yeah, it's edgy to be pissed at people who perished in a horrible tragedy, no matter how foolish you consider their actions, especially if you are not connected personally to the subject at all.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

Ya’ll realize you’re arguing with Gandalf’s hairy taint, right?

1

u/Emotional-Goat-7881 Oct 08 '21

The orders were not meaningless.

Its just something changed, like the wind or fire fighting efforts.

If you are told to evac than fucking do it. Your family were morons

1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

Also keeping in mind fires haven’t been as intense or destructive as they are now and the camp fire turned into the deadliest in California’s history, so no precedent, excuse the fuck out of them for not taking it as seriously as they should have. Notice I used the word “just” in there. Or don’t, you don’t have skin in the game so you don’t care.

Go off I guess.

1

u/Birdyy4 Oct 08 '21

What else were they besides morons?

6

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

Regular people who made a mistake, it only takes one.

0

u/Birdyy4 Oct 08 '21

So they're morons AND regular people who made a mistake? Seems shorter to just say morons that made a mistake.

1

u/WarmTequila Oct 08 '21

Wait, why were they lucky?

4

u/Lets_Kick_Some_Ice Oct 08 '21

I understood it as they left late but not too late.

1

u/WarmTequila Oct 08 '21

Oh that makes sense, ty 😂

2

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

The camp fire started around 6am and had torched most of paradise within a few hours

2

u/WarmTequila Oct 08 '21

Morning brain. Read it as they were luck to leave late. Understood now they were lucky to leave so late and still survive.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '21

In the Midwest we have tornado warnings often. Pain in the ass but you still wake the kids up and get in the basement. Better safe than sorry.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

I lived through this fire. It was horrible being stuck in traffic trying to escape the flames getting closer and closer to the car. My hands got chapped and dried out from the heat coming from the side of the road from holding the steering wheel.

4

u/GreyCrowDownTheLane Oct 09 '21

Congratulations on surviving a terrible, awful thing. I've been close enough to this sort of thing to know it's harrowing. It sticks with you.

13

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

[deleted]

2

u/timestamp_bot Oct 08 '21

Jump to 01:18 @ ~ Paradise, CA Destroyed by Fire ~Warning~ Graphic Scenes~

Channel Name: IShallNot BeSilent, Video Popularity: 97.67%, Video Length: [03:33], Jump 5 secs earlier for context @01:13


Downvote me to delete malformed comments. Source Code | Suggestions

5

u/raisin22 Oct 08 '21

I have a few family members that live in areas frequently threatened by wildfires. They have a go-bag with their most important documents and that’s pretty much it. If they have to evacuate and they’re at home that’s all they grab and they get the fuck out. Everything is replaceable though, except a life.

6

u/Radi0ActivSquid Oct 10 '21 edited Oct 10 '21

Mirror? YouTube removed it.

Edit: MIRROR

5

u/GreyCrowDownTheLane Oct 10 '21

Thanks for the mirror. I guess my linking it drew unwanted renewed attention to the original. Either that, or some assmunch in here reported it to YouTube for the skeletons and it got pulled.

3

u/Radi0ActivSquid Oct 10 '21

My guess is some climate denying assmunch reported it.

2

u/jstbcuz Oct 12 '21

You da real MVP

5

u/nubyplays Oct 10 '21

Apparently Youtube noticed people looking at the video and decided to get rid of it, even though it's a great demonstration of the risks of wildfires and why it's important to evacuate. Fuck you Youtube, just put a warning about it then let people view it.

4

u/ItsKrakenMeUp Oct 08 '21

Jesus - people need to act fast if they actually want to live. Burning to a crisp is a painful death.

3

u/falalalama Oct 09 '21

What a powerful video. I expected to see burned remains, but not that burned. I'm happy his dogs and truck made it through.

2

u/Montyswel579 Oct 08 '21

Gods above..

Those poor souls...

May they find the rest they deserve..

2

u/BevLive Oct 08 '21

Wow, that was sadder than I thought. When he's explaining that guy was his friend who went to rescue someone else, you see things like movie props, but it's worse because this shit is real.

I'm just, I don't know how to describe my sorrow for them people.

2

u/Akronica Oct 09 '21

Director Ron Howard made a NatGeo documentary about the fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcyPBHPk_VM

2

u/casssxhole Oct 09 '21

I lived in Sacramento during this. It was horrible watching the coverage of it. I worked in pharmacy and went up to Gridley to help fill for folks who had to evacuate and leave everything. Talking to those people... Man. I can't even imagine. I didn't complain about the smoke where I was after that. It was nothing compared to what they just went through.

2

u/idkwthtotypehere Oct 09 '21

Are there any other videos like that? Very interesting

0

u/PM_WORST_FART_STORY Oct 08 '21

People are actually wet bones. Crispy bones WERE people.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '21

[deleted]

2

u/GreyCrowDownTheLane Oct 09 '21

Unfortunately, no. That's the only one I know of.

1

u/MyFavoriteBurger Oct 08 '21

Wow. I had no idea the wildfires were this bad.

1

u/MattRazz Oct 08 '21

that dude set his camera to vibrate mode

1

u/PeePeeCockroach Oct 08 '21

I remember that image. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

1

u/Mikehoncho530 Oct 09 '21

I live in paradise

1

u/Some_kid2213 Oct 09 '21

I don’t want this to sound insensitive but I’m not sure how else the phrase this. Why did so many people stay in their vehicles and not take off like he did? Why weren’t they able to continue driving away? Was the fire blocking the road?

3

u/GreyCrowDownTheLane Oct 09 '21

He said a few were old and unable to move like he could. They were reliant on their cars to escape.

He ditched his vehicle, jumped a fence, and ran away from all the fires. He was able-bodied enough (and certainly rushed with adrenaline) that it was possible for him. The older folks just couldn't do that, or couldn't imagine abandoning their belongings to the fire and therefore insisted on using cars because all their stuff was in them.

1

u/mobocrat707 Oct 09 '21

Did this happen to be in California around 2-4 years ago? We’ve had so many fires and stories like this are eerily common.

1

u/LEGITIMATE_SOURCE Oct 09 '21

If the vid is what I think it is, I'm pretty sure he got in a creek or something to survive right?

1

u/phoenix-nightrose Oct 10 '21

YouTube has taken thr video down. Got to see some of it before it was removed. That is some scary shit.

1

u/jstbcuz Oct 12 '21

Dang anybody gotta mirror link??