A Mighty Wind

As a sort of update to John's post below, here are some photos of aftermath of Operation "Apocalypse, Now."  I'm compressing the photos to minimize bandwith, so we'll lose a lot of detail.  But you'll be happy to know that the car partially covered by the fence belongs to Mike Lewis.  That might even be him on the phone, calling his auto insurance agent.  Just desserts.

These guys don't care about anything but getting that store open.  Did they have the traffic lanes nearest the fence closed, just in case something blew over?  No.  Did they arrange for sheriff overtime in the event lane closures were necessary?  No.  Did they advise residents that "Apocalypse, Now" was going to start shooting outside their windows?  Well, sort of.  Area residents received a post card on Friday informing them that the choppers were coming the next day.  Did they water down the field where the air conditioning units were being picked up?  No, not until after they had blown dust all over the area.  Lame.  And dangerous.

If a child was walking along the sidewalk when the fence came down, he or she would have been squished, just like that tree you can see under the fence.  If a bicyclist was peddling along either Delta or Rush when the fence came down, he or she could also have been seriously injured.

The only "preparation" they did before bringing "Apocalyse, Now" to Rosemead?  Mike Lewis arranged for a couple of his Wal-Mart PRIDE toadies to be around to counter-demonstrate, just in case SOC decided to protest the use of the helicopter.

Their priorities are completely inverted.  Rather than working to make sure the operation was *actually* safe, they put all their effort into making sure they could get out their "message" that Wal-Mart is a good neighbor.  Yeah, some neighbor:  They huffed, and they puffed, and they blew their own fence down.