President-elect Donald Trump blamed California Governor Gavin Newsom for the lack of resources amid the raging wildfires that left at least five people dead and thousands of others without homes within two days.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump said.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California.”
“Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is to blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, no firefighting planes. A true disaster!”
Asked about the dry fire hydrants and the lack of water needed to face the ravaging inferno, Newsom replied that “local folks are going to figure that out.”
“I mean, when you have a system where it’s not dissimilar to what we’ve seen in other extraordinary large-scale fires…those hydrants are typically for two or three fires, maybe one fire, not something of this scale,” he explained on CNN.
“But, again, that’s going to be determined by the local [authorities].”
