We’ve been watching the Watch Duty team do absolutely *unbelievable* technical work all week (they’re members of the Fast Forward open source program that my team at Fastly works on), handling a surge of millions of people trying to see where the LA fires are in real time. Amidst the hopelessness of the fires causing so much destruction, there’s hope in seeing people taking care of each other in this way. There are still people who do such good on the internet. https://gizmodo.com/watch-duty-hits-1-on-apple-app-store-as-wildfires-rage-in-california-2000547740
Watch Republicans try to thwart this organization in short order, as they do with NOAA and FEMA.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-project-2025-weather/678987/
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4907338-heritage-foundation-plan-weather-service/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/26/trump-presidency-gut-noaa-weather-climate-crisis
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3qgqxpwno
Republicans & their fossil fuel donors attack all truth tellers, even emergency services. Scoring cheap talking points is more important to the GOP.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-01-09/barabak-column-california-wildfires-trump-republicans-politicizing-epic-natural-disaster
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/trump-musk-california-democrats-wildfires-00197080