Californians aren't as susceptible to misinformation?
Fire not water
Densely populated versus a lot of rural folks
People aren’t stranded where the fires are, many were stranded for extended period in the flood without food, clean water, electricity or shelter
Flood played out over a long period of time, days into it FEMA was setting up outposts and so were private citizens and orgs in all kinds of places when the weird stuff started. Still relatively early in the fires and their aftermath.
The “misinformation” in many cases was coming directly from people on the ground, recording it and posting in real time. Their first hand accounts, with little to gain, were unsurprisingly not picked up by any mainstream journalism because it conflicted with the administration’s insistence that everything was fine and FEMA had it under control.
You know as well as I do that because Trump was upset about the aid response you and 48% of other Americans immediately believed the the aid response was great and the people suffering were at fault.