Brian Greenspun points out the silver lining of the cloud of smoke over Southern California

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.

America at work.

I don't know where more than half a million evacuees, 1,500 destroyed homes, untold billions of dollars in losses, and a body count and injury list not yet fully known ranks in the history of disastrous events in the United States, but I do know it is right up there near the top.

When hurricanes hit the southeastern United States, tornadoes turn the Midwest upside down and a Katrina - for all its tragedy, devastation and destruction of an American city and the invincibility mind - set of most Americans - hit this country, it is as if it is happening someplace else. That's because, for us in Las Vegas, it is.

But as Americans, we are never far away from those tragedies - whether it is our firefighters and other rescue units traveling to faraway states to lend a hand, or local charitable endeavors designed to bring relief to those who are suffering - because we all like to do something when our fellow citizens are suffering.

But the fires in Southern California, even though they were separated from us by more miles than we can drive in one hour, hit Las Vegans right where we live.

It isn't that we can smell and breathe the smoke that has been blown this way from its choking hold over most of the people who live from north of Los Angeles to south of San Diego, although we can. Rather, I believe, we can put ourselves in our neighbors' shoes, suffer their pain, feel their hurt and live through their losses because so many of them are really us.

Some of us have family living in that area. Others have friends. Still others have moved from Southern California to Las Vegas in recent months and years and remember very well the neighbors they left, many of whom were chased from their homes by fires that almost unbelievably raged into their lives when they weren't looking.

I cannot recount the number of e-mails and phone calls I received from friends and mere acquaintances who saw the firestorms on their television sets in other parts of the country and wondered whether my family or friends were in jeopardy. I suspect that I received but a fraction of what so many other Las Vegans got from anxious friends.

That is just a part of America's greatest gift - its ability to care for and about others. That ideal, of course, was challenged when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and left in its wake a major fault in America's belief that it could care for and protect its own.

The fires came with even less warning than Katrina. And yet, the level of preparedness, the reaction at all levels of government, and the images that emanated from the region almost as quickly as the smoke billowed from the out - of - control fires, all told a story so vastly different from that which has sullied our reputation and challenged our own belief in ourselves.

If I had to take a guess at the silver lining that has come from this awful tragedy in Southern California, it is simply that we have learned from our mistakes and people have lived because of that knowledge.

Like everyone else who spends five minutes listening to the cable "news" shows and their paid pundits as they run off at the mouth, I have heard dozens of times the comparisons to Katrina and the reasons for the difference in the way the victims have been treated. There are many reasons why government failed in Louisiana and shined in California.

And I am sure there will be valid critiques of the way governments at all levels didn't perform as well as they should have in this latest fight with Mother Nature. That criticism should be welcome because, in the end, we all learn from those failures and that is the way we improve for the next disaster, which most assuredly will happen.

That is the nature of these events. They happen in places and at times that are not ever convenient or helpful. But they happen. The test is: Are we as a country, as a state or as a locality ready for them when they come our way?

We know the answer when the Gulf Coast was buried under walls of water. And I think we know the answer to this latest tragedy, even as the brave and indefatigable firefighters continue to do what they must to make sure the worst is over and people can return to their homes - those who still have them - safely.

For all the criticism that may follow, I want to make one point about what I believe went right in the midst of all the sadness and disbelief.

I am not sure there can be a more heartwarming reaffirmation of what it means to be an American than the volunteer efforts that were made on behalf of so many thousands of people in the San Diego area. The businesses that came together to provide whatever was needed for the families left stranded ; the entertainers, students and even pets riding motorcycles ; and the health care professionals who dropped everything and tended to those who needed help - all stood as symbols of what is good about this country.

We can all debate the merits of whether there was enough planning, enough equipment in a state of readiness, enough coordination among various branches of government and the armed services, and enough money allocated to the job at hand. But I don't think we can question the basic goodness of those Americans - ordinary, everyday people - who thought about others' needs before they considered their own.

There are lessons to be learned that start with where we should be building in this country and how much we should really be challenging Mother Nature's wrath and end with a discussion about how much money we should be providing in preparation for the worst. And what we learn should inure to the benefit of potential victims of some other natural or man-made disaster.

But, for now, consider the silver lining. People voluntarily helping people for no other reason than that they needed help. That's got to make us all feel a little bit better about ourselves and our neighbors.

archive