Logan Landslide

In our community, we have an ingrained sense of helping our neighbor, especially when it comes to a warning of danger. We know how ingrained this sense of responsibility is —we see stories all the time of common, everyday people acting spontaneously and instinctively to save others, even at the risk of serious harm or death to themselves.

How is it then that the fire department, the water department, a major university, the police department, the Mayor, the canal cooperative, and everyone else responsible for ensuring community safety failed to warn potential victims of the almost certain and very imminent threat of a mudslide —a mudslide that would end up burying alive a mother and her two young children?

The question is troubling, particularly when many of those who failed to act are individually responsible for creating the dangerous conditions in the first place —a ticking time bomb that was bound to go off sooner or later.

The troubling answer may be that at moments of peril, our government and its representatives have become used to debating action rather than taking action.

That’s not leadership. That’s turning a blind eye. In this case, it’s turning a blind eye knowing that people will die.

When faced with danger in our communities, our leaders have a responsibility to step up to the plate and take action; that’s why we make them leaders. Just because the guy next to them or the folks in the office down the hall make the wrong choice doesn’t make it right.