The LA Wildfires

This has reinforced to me that anyone thinks technology is going to get us out of the climate crisis is dreaming. The USA is one of the most well equipped and technology advanced countries and yet have been helpless against mother nature when the time comes.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
Seems 17 million cut from the fire department in LA, no water in the fire hydrants. Some fair criticism?
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Seems to be perfect storm of events coming together for this current destruction.

The former fire chief said herself, this was a factor in funding cuts.

She, also, questioned the lack of access to water for her teams to access. Apparently billionaire couple pistachio (and others since then) farmers the Resnicks who also own 'The Wonderful Company', own 60% of the water in Cali.

I understand they syphon off most of the water towards their farmland of which is (ironically) about the size of San Francisco 4 times over. They have, over the years, circumvented former Cali law that citizens get primary need for water before agriculture needs otherwise called 'The Monterey Plus Agreement/ Amendment' in 1994. In times of drought the local gov have to BUY water they need.

The MSM have skirted around this fact because the Resnicks have a LOT of political power.

Vested interests are at play from certain posters, I would say.
 
Bigga said:
Seems to be perfect storm of events coming together for this current destruction.

The former fire chief said herself, this was a factor in funding cuts.

She, also, questioned the lack of access to water for her teams to access. Apparently billionaire couple pistachio (and others since then) farmers the Resnicks who also own 'The Wonderful Company', own 60% of the water in Cali.

I understand they syphon off most of the water towards their farmland of which is (ironically) about the size of San Francisco 4 times over. They have, over the years, circumvented former Cali law that citizens get primary need for water before agriculture needs otherwise called 'The Monterey Plus Agreement/ Amendment' in 1994. In times of drought the local gov have to BUY water they need.

The MSM have skirted around this fact because the Resnicks have a LOT of political power.

Vested interests are at play from certain posters, I would say.
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Yes, I noted her comments on budget cuts preventing brush inspections earlier. We don’t know that this was a factor but it could be.

The fight between southern CA and northern/central CA for water has been going on for decades. I do think it’s likely that ag water practices will be and need to be reviewed. What’s concerning is that new sources of water ex-rain are getting harder to come by. The cost of drilling wells in central CA is prohibitive for many smaller farmers.

I don’t think the MSM have ignored this issue here locally. The Resnicks are huge so they are a convenient target and it’s in their economic interest to use as little water as possible. But you are absolutely right to question the potency of big ag lobbying efforts; they cannot be understated here.
 
Bazzmand Show said:
This has reinforced to me that anyone thinks technology is going to get us out of the climate crisis is dreaming. The USA is one of the most well equipped and technology advanced countries and yet have been helpless against mother nature when the time comes.
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Capitalism.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Yes, I noted her comments on budget cuts preventing brush inspections earlier. We don’t know that this was a factor but it could be.

The fight between southern CA and northern/central CA for water has been going on for decades. I do think it’s likely that ag water practices will be and need to be reviewed. What’s concerning is that new sources of water ex-rain are getting harder to come by. The cost of drilling wells in central CA is prohibitive for many smaller farmers.

I don’t think the MSM have ignored this issue here locally. The Resnicks are huge so they are a convenient target and it’s in their economic interest to use as little water as possible. But you are absolutely right to question the potency of big ag lobbying efforts; they cannot be understated here.
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Would you agree reducing money from the already small fire depts towards the police depts had to be a factor? The former chief said her estimate was that Cali needed 60 depts.

Why on earth would the mayor redirect much needed money from an area in security and safety that suffers from wildfires?

And what's your opinion onfire insurance being retracted from homes just before the fires started?
 
Bigga said:
Seems to be perfect storm of events coming together for this current destruction.

The former fire chief said herself, this was a factor in funding cuts.

She, also, questioned the lack of access to water for her teams to access. Apparently billionaire couple pistachio (and others since then) farmers the Resnicks who also own 'The Wonderful Company', own 60% of the water in Cali.

I understand they syphon off most of the water towards their farmland of which is (ironically) about the size of San Francisco 4 times over. They have, over the years, circumvented former Cali law that citizens get primary need for water before agriculture needs otherwise called 'The Monterey Plus Agreement/ Amendment' in 1994. In times of drought the local gov have to BUY water they need.

The MSM have skirted around this fact because the Resnicks have a LOT of political power.

Vested interests are at play from certain posters, I would say.
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You would think in a city on the sea which has had fires before that they would have fire engines that could use sea water!
 
Bigga said:
Would you agree reducing money from the already small fire depts towards the police depts had to be a factor? The former chief said her estimate was that Cali needed 60 depts.

Why on earth would the mayor redirect much needed money from an area in security and safety that suffers from wildfires?

And what's your opinion onfire insurance being retracted from homes just before the fires started?
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I don’t know that we know yet, but I wrote about annual brush inspections before, which my local FD does every year. They are critical for prevention and awareness. If we find out them not being done led to a faster spread of the fire, I would 100% agree and in general I don’t think the two should be in competition for funds relative to other city services — especially fire which should NEVER be politically-charged!

I am experiencing first hand the issue of homeowners’ fire insurance premium escalation, zone-shifts, and insurers pulling out in Oregon. I don’t know if this is just unfortunate timing in terms of refusal to renew policies or something else but it’s been chaotic and frustrating and worrying a large number of CA and OR (and esp FL) residents for some time.
 
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@Bigga to your point, here’s a few items from a construction substack I subscribe to that lays out some of the issues you brought up. FYI I have State Farm in Oregon and the state just declared our property in a fire zone. Either my rates are going way higher or they’re going to cancel my policy.

Last month, State Farm — the largest home insurance provider in California — said it would drop 72,000 property policies across the state amid a home insurance crisis. Of those, about 30,000 are home insurance policies.

Denise Hardin, president and chief executive of State Farm, explained the company's decision in a March 20 letter to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, stating that rate hikes that were recently approved by the Department of Insurance amid high inflation would be insufficient to restore the company's financial strength.

"We must now take action to reduce our overall exposure to be more commensurate with the capital on hand to cover such exposure, as most insurers in California have already done," she wrote. "We have been reluctant to take this step, recognizing how difficult it will be for impacted policyholders, in addition to our independent contractor agents who are small business owners and employers in their local California communities."...

In Pacific Palisades, according to the letter, 69.4% of the 2,342 policyholders — or about 1,600 — will lose coverage. In Brentwood, 61.5% of State Farm's 2,114 customers there will lose their policies, or about 1,300 non-renewals.
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These cancellations are driven by a California law, Prop 103, that limits the ability of insurers to raise their rates. They have created a ticking time bomb in California’s state-backed “insurer of last resort”. From an EE News article from March of 2024:

California residents would be forced to pay billions of dollars to bail out the state’s insurer of last resort if a major wildfire hits, the insurer’s president warned last week in a startling admission that speaks to the growing cost of climate change.

The comments are the latest and perhaps starkest indication of how intensified disasters due to global warming are eroding the U.S. property insurance industry and shifting rebuilding costs from insurers to the general public.

In California and hurricane-prone Gulf Coast states, property insurers are retreating from risky areas, forcing people to buy coverage from state-chartered insurers that can impose surcharges on insurance policies statewide to pay claims.

The California FAIR Plan has been overwhelmed by a surge of new policyholders and would need to impose charges on millions of insurance policies of varying types throughout the state after a major wildfire.
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This bomb has now gone off.

$50 billion in damages THUS FAR. It boggles the mind. And the reality is the coverage per holder is probably nearly always inadequate to reconstruct buildings given the incredible increase in replacement costs since policies were written.
 
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FogBlueInSanFran said:
@Bigga to your point, here’s a few items from a construction substack I subscribe to that lays out some of the issues you brought up. FYI I have State Farm in Oregon and the state just declared our property in a fire zone. Either my rates are going way higher or they’re going to cancel my policy.


These cancellations are driven by a California law, Prop 103, that limits the ability of insurers to raise their rates. They have created a ticking time bomb in California’s state-backed “insurer of last resort”. From an EE News article from March of 2024:


This bomb has now gone off.

$50 billion in damages THUS FAR. It boggles the mind. And the reality is the coverage per holder is probably nearly always inadequate to reconstruct buildings given the incredible increase in replacement costs since policies were written.
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Thanks for the info.

Interestingly, they're not stupid. They know what they're doing. They have studies that have looked at the trends and acted accordingly. There are people that think the denial/ abandonment of policies are a coincidence; they are not.

Ultimately, whether it was this year, next year or soon after, fire insurance would have been ejected.

They've taken billions from homeowners and, as you know as all of these businesses do, do as much as possible not to return anything meaningful.


As an aside, I'm happy we are having this dialogue, however tentative on both sides.

Whether we agree or not on subjects, I hope we can further do that with respect to one another.
 
Whether it's a fire or a flood it seems in certain areas people can't live like generations before them did.

I'm hoping that civil engineers figure out "nature-resilient" structures and lifestyles because the global situation is impossible to resolve.

For example, people in vulnerable areas need to almost be nomadic so should they keep all their important personal possessions in safe boxes far away and resist the urge to customise their houses. Or have very movable stuff with defined exit procedures. Just a thought.
 
Bigga said:
For that to happen, homeowners abandoned at the 'last minute' need to band together and take class action against insurance companies.
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I think there might well be some claims against the local authorities as well as insurance companies.
 
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