Whoopi Goldberg has asked the public to stop assigning blame for the deadly Los Angeles fires. Speaking on Monday’s episode of The View, the 69-year-old Oscar winner attributed the devastating fires to last week’s hurricane-force winds that swept through Southern California, as reported by the New York Post.
“There was a fire catastrophe in California. It had to do with winds,” she told the studio audience. “The winds move things and sparks move things.”
“It doesn’t matter how much water you have if 900,000 buildings go up at the same time.”
Goldberg continued, “Having lived in California, having lost every house save for one that we ever lived in, I take great offense at pointing fingers.”
“You should be pointing fingers about, how can we help?” she added. “It’s too soon to be saying, ‘Oh it’s [California Governor] Gavin [Newsom]’s fault.’ It’s nobody’s fault.”
“It’s like us taking seriously that there are magic lasers in the sky that direct the weather. That doesn’t work, that doesn’t happen.”
Seeking to underscore the “natural” in “natural disaster,” Goldberg said, “We don’t control Mother Nature. Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn what we want.”
“Mother Nature does what she does and if you’re in the way, this is what happens, and California is chock full of people.”
Goldberg made further insights on the Los Angeles fires during Monday’s episode of The View: Behind the Table, expanding on her call to stop assigning blame for the disaster.
“There’s a lot happening. And please don’t blame the people for this. This is Mother Nature, and nobody was prepared for it,” she implored while chatting with podcast co-host and “The View” executive producer Brian Teta.
“And you couldn’t have been prepared for it because what mind could ever think that 75 hundred-thousand buildings were going to burn at the same time?”
“My whole neighborhood is gone,” she confessed. “The Palisades is gone. It’s insane. It’s insane. So I’m hoping that people will stop listening to people who are blaming other people and just try to figure ways to help.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom are facing scrutiny over the local and state government’s response to the devastating LA fires. As of Monday, the death toll from the fires—including the Palisades and Eaton fires—has risen to at least 24, with nearly 200,000 people displaced and 39,000 acres of land destroyed.
