[RADIO] It's time for farm city news day by
Agnet Beatty on news talk 1450 KTIP. The South Valley's
news talk leader. The California drought gets worse and worse
and worse. Two years is bad, three a catastrophe. Four
years, unheard of and yet that's what our richest farm state
is just starring at right now.
[MUSIC]
Good morning, Porterville coordinating council. The 211 is referring you? Okay. What
town do you live in? Shoes. So whatever you might
need. The drought has been overwhelming. It has pushed every
limit with money, our time, our space sometimes. And our
families are desperate. They're desperate for water. God is good.
We truly believe that this winter,
we will receive all the rain that we need.
Having the inside of Porterville ground zero. You know, if you
drive around the east side of Portervillle, you're in a
different country. The people in Porterville, hard-working, honest, humble. They're
really trying to make it They're really trying to survive.
They're really trying to To get ahead the best way
that they can. The drought has affected all of this
valley, you know, from Oregon to Mexico. But, I think
Porterville is a community that has been affected the most.
That hot water from here, to the east side of Porterville over there.
I fill up the big tanks in front of the houses. I fill up like, 16 tanks a day.
Because we're gonna come a time where the people are going to be stealing the water lights, stealing. That's why they
put that lock on there. They'll come and fill up. The community
has been suffering for a long time already. We
have lost about anywhere between 18 and 20,000 jobs,
due to the drought. We're losing families, too. Families
moving from this area. To say Oregon, Washington State
or other parts of the country.
Some reporters from New York could not understand what it meant to have a hole in the back of
your yard that's your well. And they depend on this
well, that the river will fill it with water for
their daily domestic use. And there is no water, there
is nothing. So these families are getting up in the
morning to nothing. You can't flush your toilets, you can't
brush your teeth, you cannot take a shower. Simple as
that, you're left like, it's a panic, it's like what
am I gonna do, my kids need water. This map represents a lot of the people, what we call
the East Side of Porterville. We're right here.
And these are, all these little dots represent addresses.
Each one of these has a well. There's probably about 600 houses
here, and out of that probably about 400 of them are
out of water Most of these are 20, 30 feet deep.
And they drill down and in some cases, they actually
pound a pipe into the ground. And then they put
a pump on it and it starts sucking the water out. [MUSIC] The morale of the community is
very low. There's no hope. They're just surviving. They're
just living like On a daily basis. Let me deal with today and
hopefully we can make it through tomorrow. Because of the
voices that we don't have, the families who don't feel
that can voice their opinion, whether it's those families are
undocumented or they have been brought up to just humble
themselves and do as People have told them to do.
Cleaning dishes is a pain in the. It's just
rough, everything. Going to the bathroom takes like almost
a gallon at a time. Every day living sucks. Sucks like
this. I feel so dirty at times. I'm like oh, my god. I just wanna go to running water.
When I go into the store and I use the bathroom
or whatever, I'm like oh, running water. [LAUGH] And I'm
like. I'm a clean person. And I'm like oh my
god it's so gross. Nobody really realizes how much water
is a luxury. Really they don't. It really is. It's a big
luxury. When we got together at task force meetings with
the Office of Emergency Services, there were three organizations that
were chosen by them to be part of the drought relief effort for families in the Port of
Alaria. So we have Office of the Emergency Services at
the top and they designate to Self-Help, who buys
the tanks for families to fill up with water. Under them
is CSET, who actually plumbs and hires workers to plumb
the PVC pipes. After that is the United Way, who are
responsible for making sure those tanks are filled twice
a month. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that.
Why didn't the government come in
right away to help these families, and see what could be
done? They're saying that maybe they can drill new wells
on the east side of Porterville. Well, that's good
but it's gonna take anywhere between four, five, even six
years. I mean, by then, there won't be nobody here. As it
is right now, some of the donations of water
that we've been getting, some of them have stopped all
together. If this was Los Angeles, if this was Oakland,
San Francisco, Chicago, New York. I do believe,
honestly, I do believe that the government's response would
have been way different, you know, from what it has been here. If it
wasn't for the volunteers, people would not be getting help.
The truth I think that they really don't care cuz
basically all the people that live right here on the
East Side are Hispanic. So what does this say about
us as a society? I think it might say things like we never care for these families. We
never care for this community. Nobody has came from the
White House, from the President. It's only been people
that are giving water. I'm directly asking, begging, the President
to look into this. I mean, we are his people. If it gets really
bad, yeah, I'll have to move. Someplace where there's ground,
and lots of water. I'll have to let my house go, and move my family somewhere else. Thank
you. Now if another winter comes by and again no
rain, I really can't tell you what is gonna happen.
A ghost town possibility is very real. Realistically
if you look at history, over time have got the country
Across anywhere else in the world. You take away the factor that keeps the
community there, then that community will fall apart.
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