In response to Lou Cannon’s letter regarding supposed inaccuracies in Supervisor Das Williams’s letter to the Summerland community: Mr. Cannon did not see Das walking the streets of Summerland after the debris flow because Das was trapped at his home in Carpinteria until the freeway between Summerland and Carpinteria was opened several days later. His staff were also unable to come south to Summerland because of the freeway being buried in debris in Montecito. So to expect that Das or his staff would be personally on hand would, to say the least, be unreasonable.
As for water being made available in Summerland: what Das meant was that he had water delivered because Cantwells was already closed and thus there was no local source from which to buy water. I know that he had water delivered because I reached out to his chief of staff soon after the debris flow (she was at the office with power; he was at home without) and requested it. Water was delivered to the post office within hours.
The letter to the Summerland community may have been inartfully worded at a few points, but it was not inaccurate.