Living with disaster
Posted: Sunday, July 06, 2008 4:03 PM by Ian Sager
By Lester Holt, NBC News anchor
The big "Gap" fire burning near Santa Barbara is only about a quarter contained, and firefighters are working within a narrow window of opportunity. Hot, potentially record-breaking temperatures are forecasted to return to the region as early as Tuesday.
Meanwhile, 2,700 homes remain under an evacuation order and another 1,400 households have been warned they may be next. Between the fires that have consumed so much of California over the last week, and the floods that inundated parts of the Midwest last month, there have been so many homes lost and lives displaced.
The truth is, even after the flames are extinguished or the flood waters recede, the victims are still living with disaster. Tonight Peter Alexander reports from the California fire lines, but we will also turn our cameras back toward the flood zone. City council member Brian Fagan of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, takes us on a tour of his city as it confronts rebuilding properties and resettling the thousands of residents whose lives were upended in the June floods that consumed 1,300 square blocks.
I'm glad you checked in, and hope you'll tune in later for tonight's edition of Nightly News.