California Fires

[ian16th]

I see that the authorities are talking about 1,000 'missing feared dead'.

If one was overburdened with debt, how easy is in in the USA to 'disappear' in these circumstances, and take on the ID of someone else that you knew had died?

[OFSO]

Remember the 747 freighter crash which took out a block of flats near Amsterdam ? Quite a few people disappeared in that one. Germany is a good country to reappear. Lost your documents, speak fluent German, escaped from the east. No questions asked in Rosenheim.

[llondel]

Large numbers of missing are not unusual at this stage, people have escaped sometimes pretty much with nothing apart from what they were wearing, someone else has reported them as missing and they haven't checked in with the system yet. Still scary though, I have friends who were there and were lucky to get out. Houses are now piles of ash.

[G~Man]

The thousands are not missing, but more un-accounted for. The sheriff had them put all those who had called 911 and marked as safe put back on the list until they check in.

I was there on day 1 of the fire and have 4 helicopters currently working it out of either Chester or Chico. I flew over it a 7am when it was only 4-5 acres.

[Capetonian]

One always fears the worst when one hears 'missing' and in the case of those flats near Schiphol (ElAl cargo aircraft crash) it is probably justified.

I would imagine that in this case it is simply not yet 'accounted for' as someone has said. Hope so anyway.

[zarniwoop]

I've read a number of accounts of people in the US who decided to reinvent themselves, a few of them for quite some time, one that sticks out is a chap who got cold feet shortly before he was due to get married, one day at the beach with fiance and family he tells everyone he's going for a swim only to walk up the beach half a mile away and off to a new life.

He moved to another state, created a new identity, eventually got married, raised a family, pillar of the community and so on, this lasted for 35-40 years without incident or suspicion until he was pulled over by the police because of a defective tail light on his car, a bit of digging by the police officer and it all started to unravel.

[Capetonian]

until he was pulled over by the police because of a defective tail light on his car, a bit of digging by the police officer and it all started to unravel.

Yorkshire Ripper too. Stopped him for a minor defect, in that process picked up a minor infraction, and a bit of digging and there's Peter Sutcliffe in the frame for a dozen or so murders.

[Undried Plum]

After the Grenfell fire there were numerous scams by people inventing non-existent 'missing persons'. Something like ten percent of the number of actual fatalities were quite fictitious.

[G-CPTN]

Stopped him for a minor defect, in that process picked up a minor infraction, and a bit of digging and there's Peter Sutcliffe in the frame for a dozen or so murders.

"his arrest for driving with false number plates"
"the police questioned him about the killings and he confessed to being the perpetrator."

West Yorkshire Police were criticised for the time taken in apprehending Sutcliffe despite interviewing him nine times during the murder hunt.