With President Trump briefly visiting California today, after ignoring the devastating fires out west for weeks, I’ve been reflecting on why presidential visits matter in moments of crisis and disaster. A few thoughts rooted in personal experience🧵
I lived in San Diego during the 2003 Cedar Fire. At the time it was the largest wildfire in the state’s history. (Now it’s No. 6 — a stark reminder of just how devastating these past few fire seasons have been, particularly this year.)
The fire started on a Saturday, when a lost hunter lit a signal fire in East County. The next morning I woke to the smell of smoke, and from an upstairs balcony I could see it — billowing up from my own community, so close that I ran inside in a panic and began to pack.
Ultimately my family was lucky, but so many others weren’t. More than 300 homes burned in my community alone. Friends and neighbors lost everything. All told, roughly 2,800 homes and buildings across San Diego county were destroyed.
It was a surreal time. Schools closed for a week. Qualcomm Stadium was being used as an evacuation site, so the Chargers played Monday Night Football as the “home team” in AZ. And roughly one week after the fire started, President George W. Bush visited San Diego county.
From my backyard I could see Air Force One land at Miramar. That day President Bush visited with families who lost their homes in El Cajon, then with firefighters. Some WH photos from that trip:
As he visited with families, Bush took some questions. One person asked how he could give folks any hope amidst such devastation. “The best thing I can do is to listen and hug and empathize as best as I can empathize,” Bush responded.
The president’s visit did not raise those families’ homes from the ash. It did not ease years of recovery that followed. And it did not prevent future unthinkable fire seasons. But when your community is suffering, when some have lost everything, it means something to be seen.
(And, on the flip side, that’s why it also matters when a president acts like your suffering is invisible, while your state burns.)
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