We are now at a point where patients across the county are at risk. There is no safety net.

There is now no back-up to the supply that the hospitals have on hand. We have issued virtually all of the blood on our shelves, and urge healthy individuals to donate blood now.

We can't emphasize enough how dangerous this shortage has become. We are fortunate that there weren't more serious injuries in the sign collapse on Interstate 805 yesterday, and that blood was not needed.

Though many donors have responded to this emergency, the amount of blood needed to rebuild the supply far outweighs donations.

I don't like to micro-manage federal agencies. But federal safety is at risk here and we have not only the right but the responsibility to provide some oversight.

I sometimes think there's not a real serious attempt to make our contractors comply with the same safety standards that everybody else has to out here.