Consequences/Concerns of LA Fires

[Stretch 74]

Those fires are an absolute tragedy, the videos coming out of the area are simply horrific. It is hard to imagine what those people have gone through already, having to flee the oncoming fire and then returning to find that everything you own is destroyed. Gone. Obliterated. Family heirlooms, treasured awards, letters, gifts, etc-EVERYTHING in your life is gone forever. It is simply heartbreaking to see and think about.

All of what I just said is the immediate impacts, but I am already starting to think about some of the long term implications of this catastrophic event. Haven't heard anything from any official on the following things yet, but these things are going to hit them soon:

1. Where in the world are they going to dispose of all the debris and waste from these fires, and how will they do it? The amount of material that needs to be removed is going to be a colossal amount, is there any existing "garbage disposal site" existing that can handle this amount? I doubt it. Will the city or state come in to areas with large crews and equipment to do it on a vast scale or will they wipe their hands of the task and leave it up to the individual property owners? How many of the individuals will not have the ability and resources to deal with that? Will they be prosecuted if they are unable to do so? Final mostly cynical question- will Newsome require all excavators, loaders, and dump trucks hauling debris be electric?

2. How long before the LA officials realize the tremendous drop in the tax base that will hit them? Huge areas will have individual properties drop 60-90% from existing values, thus tax revenues will face a severe decrease at the exact time that they need more revenues to recover from the disaster. Will the powers that be implement big tax rate increases on those people's properties that were not destroyed by the fires? Will it all just fall upwards to Uncle Sam?

3. How will rebuilding be accomplished? California being California, will they be sticklers for enforcing all kinds of big brother rules and regulations or will they take actions to help expedite individuals being able to rebuild quicker and less expensively? Sadly, I don't have much confidence in the People's Republic of CA relaxing any of their existing restrictions to help those affected individuals. I remain prepared to be surprised.

 

[roses04]

It's tragic to say the least, I feel for all those people who lost loved ones, and their homes. The Maui fires a few years ago were terrible, and Lahana is still a shell of it's former self today. These fires impacted far more people and far more homes. If you plan on building anything in the next few years you can expect prices and the cost to increase dramatically. The overall impact of the fires will last for years, and impact all of us.

I hope the States take a long look at their policies, and systems currently in place, increasing capacity of water supplies, and setting fire breaks, should be something all states out west take a close look at. We have had many large fires in this state, one recent example was the Carlton complex fire in North Central Washington burnt over 370 square miles, in a far less populated area. All Western states need to spend more time and money on forestry management and preparation, as another large fire will happened. it's only a matter of time. We need to look at what we can to do to not only prevent fires, but things that can be done now to mitigate the size of these fires once they start and having the manpower and equipment to react.


All the right wingers blaming DEI doesn't help, race, color or gender identity had nothing to do with it, the problem is there were many incompetent people in charge, poor decisions were made at all levels.

Here is an article from Newsweek that explains what could have been done to lessen the impact of the fires. I am all for protecting the environment, but sometimes those protections create much bigger problems. Some balance and common sense must be used.


What could have been done

 

[chugspig]

Will be interesting to see what comes of all this. Insurance companies cancelling policies in that area due to fire dangers months ago. That area houses some of the most wealthy and influential in LA. It will take years and years to get permits to rebuild, but will have celebrities backing the efforts with high powered lawyers going to war with the coastal commission and LA government. Investment companies will try to buy up land from devastated families. I would imagine lots of lawsuits vs. LAFD and Mayor etc. I know for a fact the owner of our company had a house there that was “average” for that area ~ 5 bed 8 bath and was in the 18-20m range. Insane $$ damage.

 

[Loyal Coug1]

It's tragic to say the least, I feel for all those people who lost loved ones, and their homes. The Maui fires a few years ago were terrible, and Lahana is still a shell of it's former self today. These fires impacted far more people and far more homes. If you plan on building anything in the next few years you can expect prices and the cost to increase dramatically. The overall impact of the fires will last for years, and impact all of us.

I hope the States take a long look at their policies, and systems currently in place, increasing capacity of water supplies, and setting fire breaks, should be something all states out west take a close look at. We have had many large fires in this state, one recent example was the Carlton complex fire in North Central Washington burnt over 370 square miles, in a far less populated area. All Western states need to spend more time and money on forestry management and preparation, as another large fire will happened. it's only a matter of time. We need to look at what we can to do to not only prevent fires, but things that can be done now to mitigate the size of these fires once they start and having the manpower and equipment to react.


All the right wingers blaming DEI doesn't help, race, color or gender identity had nothing to do with it, the problem is there were many incompetent people in charge, poor decisions were made at all levels.

Here is an article from Newsweek that explains what could have been done to lessen the impact of the fires. I am all for protecting the environment, but sometimes those protections create much bigger problems. Some balance and common sense must be used.


What could have been done

Well your Newsweek article kind of lost me at "California authorities allowed the perfect conditions — extremely dry, uncleared forests, hillsides and brush".

I can't seem to find a link that tells me where exactly these fires started and how they started. That is what I want to know. But I am going out on a limb when I surmise that these fires did not begin deep in "uncleared forests". Or did they? I dunno. And the spread (or beginning) into these "hillsides and brush". Is this Forest Service or State-owned land? If not, and since where I come from the property owner is supposed to mitigate fire danger, how are "California authorities" responsible? When I see rows of beachfront, shoe-horned in houses burnt to the ground, I'm kinda thinking that controlling brush and raking miles-away forests may not have prevented them from burning. I give more credit to the dry conditions and the 100+ MPH winds. But again, the Newsweek article does say that California authorities allowed the......."extremely dry" conditions. Ok, how exactly should they have prevented that? Rain dances all summer and fall?

Personally, I hope that they can get control of the fires at some point before the entire city/county goes up. Then analyze how they started, what realistically could have been done to prevent/mitigate, IF ANYTHING, and go from there.

 

[roses04]

Well your Newsweek article kind of lost me at "California authorities allowed the perfect conditions — extremely dry, uncleared forests, hillsides and brush".

I can't seem to find a link that tells me where exactly these fires started and how they started. That is what I want to know. But I am going out on a limb when I surmise that these fires did not begin deep in "uncleared forests". Or did they? I dunno. And the spread (or beginning) into these "hillsides and brush". Is this Forest Service or State-owned land? If not, and since where I come from the property owner is supposed to mitigate fire danger, how are "California authorities" responsible? When I see rows of beachfront, shoe-horned in houses burnt to the ground, I'm kinda thinking that controlling brush and raking miles-away forests may not have prevented them from burning. I give more credit to the dry conditions and the 100+ MPH winds. But again, the Newsweek article does say that California authorities allowed the......."extremely dry" conditions. Ok, how exactly should they have prevented that? Rain dances all summer and fall?

Personally, I hope that they can get control of the fires at some point before the entire city/county goes up. Then analyze how they started, what realistically could have been done to prevent/mitigate, IF ANYTHING, and go from there.

How the fires began:
A homeless person was smoking meth, took a big hit off a pipe, coughed into the pipe, blew the ashes out of the bowl The wind took the burning ashes to a dry brush area, which ignited, and that's where it all began.

In reality we will probably never know the exact cause.

 

[95coug]

How the fires began:
A homeless person was smoking meth, took a big hit off a pipe, coughed into the pipe, blew the ashes out of the bowl The wind took the burning ashes to a dry brush area, which ignited, and that's where it all began.

In reality we will probably never know the exact cause.

Homeless illegal democrats did it. Using gas from Canada and matches from China. In fact, I heard that Biden gave them the matches and Harris gave them gas money.

 

[UberCougars]

How the fires began:
A homeless person was smoking meth, took a big hit off a pipe, coughed into the pipe, blew the ashes out of the bowl The wind took the burning ashes to a dry brush area, which ignited, and that's where it all began.

In reality we will probably never know the exact cause.

Arsonists have been arrested. There are several videos of people lighting fires.

I’ve seen satellite video of fires in three spots starting and growing simultaneously.

But, there is no way of knowing how these fires started.

 

[KRUSTYtheCOUG]

Arsonists have been arrested. There are several videos of people lighting fires.

I’ve seen satellite video of fires in three spots starting and growing simultaneously.

But, there is no way of knowing how these fires started.

Wait...this is YOUR actual input from YOURSELF that didn't come.from some loon on Twitter? OMG. Taihtsat

 

[UberCougars]

SmartLA2028

Remember kids, Change is easy in a crisis!

 

[WillieThePimp]

SmartLA2028

Remember kids, Change is easy in a crisis!

View embedded media

The Q is strong in Goobercoug.

 

[UberCougars]

SmartLA 2028 | Information Technology Agency

ita.lacity.gov

Did you bother to even check the source of this report?

 

[wazzucougs96]

Those fires are an absolute tragedy, the videos coming out of the area are simply horrific. It is hard to imagine what those people have gone through already, having to flee the oncoming fire and then returning to find that everything you own is destroyed. Gone. Obliterated. Family heirlooms, treasured awards, letters, gifts, etc-EVERYTHING in your life is gone forever. It is simply heartbreaking to see and think about.

All of what I just said is the immediate impacts, but I am already starting to think about some of the long term implications of this catastrophic event. Haven't heard anything from any official on the following things yet, but these things are going to hit them soon:

1. Where in the world are they going to dispose of all the debris and waste from these fires, and how will they do it? The amount of material that needs to be removed is going to be a colossal amount, is there any existing "garbage disposal site" existing that can handle this amount? I doubt it. Will the city or state come in to areas with large crews and equipment to do it on a vast scale or will they wipe their hands of the task and leave it up to the individual property owners? How many of the individuals will not have the ability and resources to deal with that? Will they be prosecuted if they are unable to do so? Final mostly cynical question- will Newsome require all excavators, loaders, and dump trucks hauling debris be electric?

2. How long before the LA officials realize the tremendous drop in the tax base that will hit them? Huge areas will have individual properties drop 60-90% from existing values, thus tax revenues will face a severe decrease at the exact time that they need more revenues to recover from the disaster. Will the powers that be implement big tax rate increases on those people's properties that were not destroyed by the fires? Will it all just fall upwards to Uncle Sam?

3. How will rebuilding be accomplished? California being California, will they be sticklers for enforcing all kinds of big brother rules and regulations or will they take actions to help expedite individuals being able to rebuild quicker and less expensively? Sadly, I don't have much confidence in the People's Republic of CA relaxing any of their existing restrictions to help those affected individuals. I remain prepared to be surprised.

Right wingers who obsess over California despite never living there remains the weirdest trend in American politics

 

[Coug90]

Right wingers who obsess over California despite never living there remains the weirdest trend in American politics

The fear that their politicians and RW media machine pumps into them 24/7 with the “you’re next” message is extremely effective. Even the most intelligent among them are suckers. Litter boxes, Haitian cat eaters, immigrant crime sprees, fires, etc. It’s all right at their back door.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Stretch, thank you for the reasonable start to a thread. I will do my small bit to get it back on track.

1.) Tax revenue. You are right. Not much more to say about that one.
2.) Debris and waste. That is probably the easiest thing, though it will be costly and time consuming. We are adjacent to a desert. That is where the landfills have been moving. Again, there is a cost. But at least there is also a solution.
3.) Rebuilding. That conversation has begun. One of the discussion points is whether prefab houses will be allowed in areas where they previously were not zoned. It will take a while to flush & sanitize the water system, but that was mostly underground and not damaged. Ditto the sewer system and treatment plants. Will we bury the power lines in the areas being rebuilt from scratch? Good question. Probably not, due to both time required and cost. Will the phone companies have the money to restore their landline infrastructure? Maybe not; to be determined. As for city permitting, etc., LA is not bad and will probably be even easier. The stories you read about permit problems in LA are mostly due to dingbat contractors and idiot property owners who do no checking with anyone before they start to build. I'm a contractor and I've never had a permit problem in LA. They enforce the code rigidly, but if you follow the code you have no issues. LA County is even easier than LA City. Santa Monica and Irvine are another story, but most of the fire damage is either city of LA or LA county.
4.) We need some rain, but not the downpour we got last year; that would simply plug all the sewers in the fire areas, to say nothing of mud slides. Maybe la nina will work out OK.
5.) We will probably never know how the Palisades fire started; its approx location was someone's back yard. Altadena was power lines whipping around in the 100 mph gusts; that was caught on a security camera. Yes, there were a couple of copycat arsonists once things got rolling, but the two big fires were as noted above.
6.) Agree that the insurance results will be interesting. At least a half dozen potential results, and there is nothing to say that it might not be a combination of approaches. As with most of the rest of the things having to do with this disaster, it is not simple, nor is there a person or group of people that can be blamed (though talk radio continues to try to do so in order to boost ratings).
7.) Prevention. I thought after the 2020 Napa fires, started mostly by PG&E lines with a couple of follow on copycat arsonists, every utility would have a hard shut off wind speed. Better to lose power than start a fire. But it did not happen at Altadena. The rest of the foothills (that is roughly a 20-25 mile stretch, depending upon how you define it) is only now getting power back. It all got shut down after Altadena started. It will be shut down again tomorrow in all likelihood, since there are severe red flag warnings for tomorrow on the news. Most of the last couple of huge urban/suburban fires in California seemed to all relate to electrical distribution (Altadena and Napa for sure; Palisades and Petaluma maybe). That is the obvious place to start in the prevention area. Brush clearance is also a big deal; various jurisdictions handle that with varying degrees of strictness. The town I live in is a high fire area and if you have not cleared your weeds, grass and brush from the hillsides by some time in May, the City has their contractor do it and adds it to your property taxes. That has pretty universal support by the residents, by the way, lest the tinfoil hat/propeller beanie group start crying about government intrusion.
8.) The magnitude of the rebuilding cost will require government intervention in some way, or more likely some combination of ways. With the new administration we probably won't get much cooperation from the federal government; if you compound the normal federal slowness with the many vindictive folks who will be involved, my hopes for actual leadership are not high. It is easy to drag your feet in these matters while saying all the right words, and time will be important. So this is likely to be a state/county/city thing.

Finally, we need to get off the idea that this is a political issue. We got where we are today as a function of at least 70 years of post-war policy and explosive population growth. Both parties have had extended periods in charge during that time. Add the intensification of the wind situation and increased dryness (both due to climate change) and some new ideas will be needed...and somebody will inevitably feel b*tthurt about at least some of the results.

We've had catastrophes in the world, the country and the state before and will have them again. The mark of a people is their sustained response to a catastrophe. Though it will take years, it will be eventually handled. I'd like to think that we will have the support of the federal government, but it seems likely that we will have to do most of it ourselves...which means every other part of the country will see something similar in the future with their catastrophes, as we balkanize along the same lines as this board tends to do as soon as there is something to complain about. This is Trump's opportunity to be president of the entire country. It will be an early test of his administration. We'll see how that goes.

 

[CougInSpain]

The Q is strong in Goobercoug.

This coming from the Nazi Czar of all things Covid. Preach on WillieDaDonk.

 

[WillieThePimp]

This coming from the Nazi Czar of all things Covid. Preach on WillieDaDonk.

Still butthurt and still making up shit about things I never posted. It must suck going through life as an emotionally fragile man boy.

 

[WillieThePimp]

Right wingers who obsess over California despite never living there remains the weirdest trend in American politics

California has always been a target: it’s a state that has always had a hugely outsized influence on the US and the rest of the world. A lot of it is rooted in petty jealousy and bigotry towards progressives. When I was growing up in Spokane I would hear people bitch about those “homos” in San Francisco. Years ago I experienced anti California sentiment in work situations in dealing with people from Texas who worked for the same company as me. I thought it was really weird but it was real.

And you have people like Musk and Rogan who have huge followings and they have weaponized it - it helps gives them control and influence over people that are easily manipulated.

 

[dgibbons]

How the fires began:
A homeless person was smoking meth, took a big hit off a pipe, coughed into the pipe, blew the ashes out of the bowl The wind took the burning ashes to a dry brush area, which ignited, and that's where it all began.

In reality we will probably never know the exact cause.

I think they will actually. Perhaps not every fire, but some of them. There is footage showing what looks like the start of the Palisades fire. So, they have a location. Then it's a matter of sifting through the debris.

 

[UberCougars]

“We’ve already been working on LA 2.0”.

-Gavin Newsome January, 2025

 

[WillieThePimp]

“We’ve already been working on LA 2.0”.

-Gavin Newsome January, 2025

 

[UberCougars]

I know, right? Why does Newsome keep talking about it?

What does he mean when he talks about his Marshall Plan?

 

[UberCougars]

Oh, look!

 

[CougInSpain]

Still butthurt and still making up shit about things I never posted. It must suck going through life as an emotionally fragile man boy.

And yet you respond... Right on que. It must suck going through life being serially offended by just about anything that exists in this world. I haven't made up anything. Everyone here knows how you frothed at the mouth if there was dissent from the SS Order on this board regarding covid. Must've not gotten the courtesy reach-around from your wife's boyfriend the other night. No wonder you're so cranky.

 

[WillieThePimp]

And yet you respond... Right on que. It must suck going through life being serially offended by just about anything that exists in this world. I haven't made up anything. Everyone here knows how you frothed at the mouth if there was dissent from the SS Order on this board regarding covid. Must've not gotten the courtesy reach-around from your wife's boyfriend the other night. No wonder you're so cranky.

Then post the links. You’ve never been able to in the past because they don’t exist. You’ve made it all up.

 

[KRUSTYtheCOUG]

Then post the links. You’ve never been able to in the past because they don’t exist. You’ve made it all up.

So true. CIS never backs up his claims. He does what his ol' buddy limbaugh use to call "drive-bys". Makes a claim, then runs and hides. Very few of the righties around here stay and debate, even fewer stay on point. Taihtsat

 

[CougInSpain]

So true. CIS never backs up his claims. He does what his ol' buddy limbaugh use to call "drive-bys". Makes a claim, then runs and hides. Very few of the righties around here stay and debate, even fewer stay on point. Taihtsat

Just more hot air from the usual lefty loonies on this board. We know you'd like to join in on WillieWanker's cuck parade, but try not to make it so obvious and play a little hard-to-get.

 

[KRUSTYtheCOUG]

Just more hot air from the usual lefty loonies on this board. We know you'd like to join in on WillieWanker's cuck parade, but try not to make it so obvious and play a little hard-to-get.

Tell us how it feels to have Paul Wulff's right thumb up your ass! Taihtsat

 

[Stretch 74]

Stretch, thank you for the reasonable start to a thread. I will do my small bit to get it back on track.

1.) Tax revenue. You are right. Not much more to say about that one.
2.) Debris and waste. That is probably the easiest thing, though it will be costly and time consuming. We are adjacent to a desert. That is where the landfills have been moving. Again, there is a cost. But at least there is also a solution.
3.) Rebuilding. That conversation has begun. One of the discussion points is whether prefab houses will be allowed in areas where they previously were not zoned. It will take a while to flush & sanitize the water system, but that was mostly underground and not damaged. Ditto the sewer system and treatment plants. Will we bury the power lines in the areas being rebuilt from scratch? Good question. Probably not, due to both time required and cost. Will the phone companies have the money to restore their landline infrastructure? Maybe not; to be determined. As for city permitting, etc., LA is not bad and will probably be even easier. The stories you read about permit problems in LA are mostly due to dingbat contractors and idiot property owners who do no checking with anyone before they start to build. I'm a contractor and I've never had a permit problem in LA. They enforce the code rigidly, but if you follow the code you have no issues. LA County is even easier than LA City. Santa Monica and Irvine are another story, but most of the fire damage is either city of LA or LA county.
4.) We need some rain, but not the downpour we got last year; that would simply plug all the sewers in the fire areas, to say nothing of mud slides. Maybe la nina will work out OK.
5.) We will probably never know how the Palisades fire started; its approx location was someone's back yard. Altadena was power lines whipping around in the 100 mph gusts; that was caught on a security camera. Yes, there were a couple of copycat arsonists once things got rolling, but the two big fires were as noted above.
6.) Agree that the insurance results will be interesting. At least a half dozen potential results, and there is nothing to say that it might not be a combination of approaches. As with most of the rest of the things having to do with this disaster, it is not simple, nor is there a person or group of people that can be blamed (though talk radio continues to try to do so in order to boost ratings).
7.) Prevention. I thought after the 2020 Napa fires, started mostly by PG&E lines with a couple of follow on copycat arsonists, every utility would have a hard shut off wind speed. Better to lose power than start a fire. But it did not happen at Altadena. The rest of the foothills (that is roughly a 20-25 mile stretch, depending upon how you define it) is only now getting power back. It all got shut down after Altadena started. It will be shut down again tomorrow in all likelihood, since there are severe red flag warnings for tomorrow on the news. Most of the last couple of huge urban/suburban fires in California seemed to all relate to electrical distribution (Altadena and Napa for sure; Palisades and Petaluma maybe). That is the obvious place to start in the prevention area. Brush clearance is also a big deal; various jurisdictions handle that with varying degrees of strictness. The town I live in is a high fire area and if you have not cleared your weeds, grass and brush from the hillsides by some time in May, the City has their contractor do it and adds it to your property taxes. That has pretty universal support by the residents, by the way, lest the tinfoil hat/propeller beanie group start crying about government intrusion.
8.) The magnitude of the rebuilding cost will require government intervention in some way, or more likely some combination of ways. With the new administration we probably won't get much cooperation from the federal government; if you compound the normal federal slowness with the many vindictive folks who will be involved, my hopes for actual leadership are not high. It is easy to drag your feet in these matters while saying all the right words, and time will be important. So this is likely to be a state/county/city thing.

Finally, we need to get off the idea that this is a political issue. We got where we are today as a function of at least 70 years of post-war policy and explosive population growth. Both parties have had extended periods in charge during that time. Add the intensification of the wind situation and increased dryness (both due to climate change) and some new ideas will be needed...and somebody will inevitably feel b*tthurt about at least some of the results.

We've had catastrophes in the world, the country and the state before and will have them again. The mark of a people is their sustained response to a catastrophe. Though it will take years, it will be eventually handled. I'd like to think that we will have the support of the federal government, but it seems likely that we will have to do most of it ourselves...which means every other part of the country will see something similar in the future with their catastrophes, as we balkanize along the same lines as this board tends to do as soon as there is something to complain about. This is Trump's opportunity to be president of the entire country. It will be an early test of his administration. We'll see how that goes.

Pretty strong effort to focus us! Thanks.

How do you think the debris will be handled? Mass removal by authorities or by the property owners? Maybe do it like CDA treats the fall leaves- the property owner has the duty to get all the leaves in the street and then the city comes along with large equipment to gather the piles up to haul away. And how toxic do you think the mess is? Has there been lessons learned from the Twin Towers that will cause the entire area to be treated as a Hazmat situation? If so, that could drive up removal costs exponentially.

I am not as sure as you are about not getting cooperation from the feds. A significant and obvious pile of help and leadership from them can make a significant change in the way that people vote in upcoming elections. I think there will be a lot of assistance provided. It may not be as much as people there would wish for, but there will be some. As is often the case with federal assistance, be prepared for strings/restrictions to be attached to said help.

I only know 1 family living in greater LA area, a college friend/roommate. I will just say that he has a different opinion of the zoning and permitting process down there. FWIW.

It will be interesting to watch the finger pointing and excuse making after the fires have been extinguished and all the investigations commence. I think we will all learn that there were many mistakes made over the years, and opportunities missed that could have helped mitigate this disaster. Let's hope that something good can come out of this and that LA and many other areas will be able to learn from mistakes made here and take action to avoid the same mistakes elsewhere.

Anecdotal information, FWIW......a caller on a morning radio show today said he was a worker on the last reservoir built in CA. Said it was 1969, IIRC. So in more than a half century no additional water storage capacity was added there, while the population has grown by ~50%. And in the meantime Newsome had removed 4 dams, and dumped billions into the high speed rail boondoggle. Opportunity missed there? I think so. And this is a serious question.......assuming that climate change is real (doesn't it always change over time) and the left's religion is that it is primarily human caused, given that it is a dry/arid/desert area anyway, given that Santa Ana winds are a known occurrence, and given that there have been serious wildfires in southern California in the past......why the Hell wasn't there a serious effort made to increase water storage capacity and steps taken to better prepare for just such an event like this? How about completely fireproofing the pump stations? Actually building more reservoirs? How about having a FLEET of retardant dropping planes as well as water scoopers so they could respond in force to new fires? So many ways that things could have been better in this situation.

 

[WillieThePimp]

So true. CIS never backs up his claims. He does what his ol' buddy limbaugh use to call "drive-bys". Makes a claim, then runs and hides. Very few of the righties around here stay and debate, even fewer stay on point. Taihtsat

Not unlike another poster here who kept throwing smelly turds at the wall to see if thry stuck and had basically 3 “sources” to support their half-baked “argument”; 2 of which publicly refuted said posters assertions and the 3rd of whom had a clear financial conflict of interest. Drive-bys indeed.

 

[UberCougars]

This is good news, at least according to the fire fighters.

A convoy of Cybertrucks has been stationed in a grid throughout the fire area restoring cell and internet service for all involved.

Nobody is upset with this, are they?

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Pretty strong effort to focus us! Thanks.

How do you think the debris will be handled? Mass removal by authorities or by the property owners? Maybe do it like CDA treats the fall leaves- the property owner has the duty to get all the leaves in the street and then the city comes along with large equipment to gather the piles up to haul away. And how toxic do you think the mess is? Has there been lessons learned from the Twin Towers that will cause the entire area to be treated as a Hazmat situation? If so, that could drive up removal costs exponentially.

I am not as sure as you are about not getting cooperation from the feds. A significant and obvious pile of help and leadership from them can make a significant change in the way that people vote in upcoming elections. I think there will be a lot of assistance provided. It may not be as much as people there would wish for, but there will be some. As is often the case with federal assistance, be prepared for strings/restrictions to be attached to said help.

I only know 1 family living in greater LA area, a college friend/roommate. I will just say that he has a different opinion of the zoning and permitting process down there. FWIW.

It will be interesting to watch the finger pointing and excuse making after the fires have been extinguished and all the investigations commence. I think we will all learn that there were many mistakes made over the years, and opportunities missed that could have helped mitigate this disaster. Let's hope that something good can come out of this and that LA and many other areas will be able to learn from mistakes made here and take action to avoid the same mistakes elsewhere.

Anecdotal information, FWIW......a caller on a morning radio show today said he was a worker on the last reservoir built in CA. Said it was 1969, IIRC. So in more than a half century no additional water storage capacity was added there, while the population has grown by ~50%. And in the meantime Newsome had removed 4 dams, and dumped billions into the high speed rail boondoggle. Opportunity missed there? I think so. And this is a serious question.......assuming that climate change is real (doesn't it always change over time) and the left's religion is that it is primarily human caused, given that it is a dry/arid/desert area anyway, given that Santa Ana winds are a known occurrence, and given that there have been serious wildfires in southern California in the past......why the Hell wasn't there a serious effort made to increase water storage capacity and steps taken to better prepare for just such an event like this? How about completely fireproofing the pump stations? Actually building more reservoirs? How about having a FLEET of retardant dropping planes as well as water scoopers so they could respond in force to new fires? So many ways that things could have been better in this situation.

Reasonable points.

I suspect clean up will be consolidated, rather than on an individual level, at least to some extent.

Agree that the Feds should be involved and probably will be. Assume the foot dragging will negate the big words that will undoubtably be offered, but I hope I am wrong.

The dams removed were old, small & mostly filled with silt. The dams thing is something the pot stirrers like to bring up (bear in mind I am not a big Newsome fan), sort of like raking the forest floor.

We've had a number of reservoirs built since 1969. Google AI is wrong on that question (as it is so frequently). I suspect that Google's difficulty relates to trying to understand that an artificial lake is generally also a reservoir. Look up Diamond Valley Lake, as an example. Massive. Completed 2003. New Melones was (IIRC) 1980. Colusa lake and Sites are still in planning; I'm guessing they are 8-10 years away from being useful.

As for global warming and climate change, it is pretty clear that the loss of our polar ice caps and their ability to moderate temperature extremes, the global average temp increase (a degree or two average temp increase in CA over the past 50 years), along with the ocean temp increase and related changes in flow patterns are making for more extreme weather here. The hurricane situation elsewhere is similar. I think this makes a case for more reservoirs/water storage, and CA has at least two big ones in process. The process is not fast; from start to finish I bet they both take close to 15 years. California's water politics acts as a real brake on getting stuff built. The wingnuts like to blame it all on various groups, from environmentalists to lawyers. But the real issue is that the Colorado river has been allocated at over 100% of its flow, and every agricultural interest (there are several), industrial interest (there are several) and community is fighting for its piece. We have farmers growing rice in the Sacramento Delta. Ag as a whole takes something like 75-80% of the water, and some of the idiots who have first call on water are still using row irrigation, whereas those who have lower priority have done wonders with high tech irrigation (we are every bit as advanced in irrigation as the Israelis; but only the ones who have to do that because of low water priority have bothered). It would be hard to find a more contentious issue in California's history than water, and that is no different today. It is the politics between interest groups, not between parties, that makes water so difficult and water projects so slow to bear fruit.

 

[KRUSTYtheCOUG]

Pretty strong effort to focus us! Thanks.

How do you think the debris will be handled? Mass removal by authorities or by the property owners? Maybe do it like CDA treats the fall leaves- the property owner has the duty to get all the leaves in the street and then the city comes along with large equipment to gather the piles up to haul away. And how toxic do you think the mess is? Has there been lessons learned from the Twin Towers that will cause the entire area to be treated as a Hazmat situation? If so, that could drive up removal costs exponentially.

I am not as sure as you are about not getting cooperation from the feds. A significant and obvious pile of help and leadership from them can make a significant change in the way that people vote in upcoming elections. I think there will be a lot of assistance provided. It may not be as much as people there would wish for, but there will be some. As is often the case with federal assistance, be prepared for strings/restrictions to be attached to said help.

I only know 1 family living in greater LA area, a college friend/roommate. I will just say that he has a different opinion of the zoning and permitting process down there. FWIW.

It will be interesting to watch the finger pointing and excuse making after the fires have been extinguished and all the investigations commence. I think we will all learn that there were many mistakes made over the years, and opportunities missed that could have helped mitigate this disaster. Let's hope that something good can come out of this and that LA and many other areas will be able to learn from mistakes made here and take action to avoid the same mistakes elsewhere.

Anecdotal information, FWIW......a caller on a morning radio show today said he was a worker on the last reservoir built in CA. Said it was 1969, IIRC. So in more than a half century no additional water storage capacity was added there, while the population has grown by ~50%. And in the meantime Newsome had removed 4 dams, and dumped billions into the high speed rail boondoggle. Opportunity missed there? I think so. And this is a serious question.......assuming that climate change is real (doesn't it always change over time) and the left's religion is that it is primarily human caused, given that it is a dry/arid/desert area anyway, given that Santa Ana winds are a known occurrence, and given that there have been serious wildfires in southern California in the past......why the Hell wasn't there a serious effort made to increase water storage capacity and steps taken to better prepare for just such an event like this? How about completely fireproofing the pump stations? Actually building more reservoirs? How about having a FLEET of retardant dropping planes as well as water scoopers so they could respond in force to new fires? So many ways that things could have been better in this situation.

Much yet to be determined, of course. I'm willing to wait.

Two things...you SEEM to lament the fact that there will be government red tape (likely) when there is ALWAYS private sector insurance interference (red tape).

You also SEEM to be personally affected by the "human caused climate change" narrative. Why do you find this so disconcerting?

 

[UberCougars]

Hey grok,

How many water reservoirs have been built in Southern California since 2004?

-answer

Since 2004, one major water reservoir project in Southern California has notably progressed, though not entirely new in terms of construction from scratch. The San Vicente Dam Raise was completed in 2014, which increased the storage capacity of the existing San Vicente Reservoir by adding 157,000 acre-feet. However, this was not a new reservoir but an expansion of an existing one.

Regarding entirely new reservoirs, there have been no significant new water reservoirs built in Southern California since 2004. Projects like the Sites Reservoir, which has been in planning for many years, are primarily aimed at Northern California but would benefit Southern California's water supply. However, these have not been constructed yet as of the most recent information available.[](https://www.sdcwa.org/your-water/reservoirs-rainfall/reservoirs/)

 

[UberCougars]

Stretch, thank you for the reasonable start to a thread. I will do my small bit to get it back on track.

1.) Tax revenue. You are right. Not much more to say about that one.
2.) Debris and waste. That is probably the easiest thing, though it will be costly and time consuming. We are adjacent to a desert. That is where the landfills have been moving. Again, there is a cost. But at least there is also a solution.
3.) Rebuilding. That conversation has begun. One of the discussion points is whether prefab houses will be allowed in areas where they previously were not zoned. It will take a while to flush & sanitize the water system, but that was mostly underground and not damaged. Ditto the sewer system and treatment plants. Will we bury the power lines in the areas being rebuilt from scratch? Good question. Probably not, due to both time required and cost. Will the phone companies have the money to restore their landline infrastructure? Maybe not; to be determined. As for city permitting, etc., LA is not bad and will probably be even easier. The stories you read about permit problems in LA are mostly due to dingbat contractors and idiot property owners who do no checking with anyone before they start to build. I'm a contractor and I've never had a permit problem in LA. They enforce the code rigidly, but if you follow the code you have no issues. LA County is even easier than LA City. Santa Monica and Irvine are another story, but most of the fire damage is either city of LA or LA county.
4.) We need some rain, but not the downpour we got last year; that would simply plug all the sewers in the fire areas, to say nothing of mud slides. Maybe la nina will work out OK.
5.) We will probably never know how the Palisades fire started; its approx location was someone's back yard. Altadena was power lines whipping around in the 100 mph gusts; that was caught on a security camera. Yes, there were a couple of copycat arsonists once things got rolling, but the two big fires were as noted above.
6.) Agree that the insurance results will be interesting. At least a half dozen potential results, and there is nothing to say that it might not be a combination of approaches. As with most of the rest of the things having to do with this disaster, it is not simple, nor is there a person or group of people that can be blamed (though talk radio continues to try to do so in order to boost ratings).
7.) Prevention. I thought after the 2020 Napa fires, started mostly by PG&E lines with a couple of follow on copycat arsonists, every utility would have a hard shut off wind speed. Better to lose power than start a fire. But it did not happen at Altadena. The rest of the foothills (that is roughly a 20-25 mile stretch, depending upon how you define it) is only now getting power back. It all got shut down after Altadena started. It will be shut down again tomorrow in all likelihood, since there are severe red flag warnings for tomorrow on the news. Most of the last couple of huge urban/suburban fires in California seemed to all relate to electrical distribution (Altadena and Napa for sure; Palisades and Petaluma maybe). That is the obvious place to start in the prevention area. Brush clearance is also a big deal; various jurisdictions handle that with varying degrees of strictness. The town I live in is a high fire area and if you have not cleared your weeds, grass and brush from the hillsides by some time in May, the City has their contractor do it and adds it to your property taxes. That has pretty universal support by the residents, by the way, lest the tinfoil hat/propeller beanie group start crying about government intrusion.
8.) The magnitude of the rebuilding cost will require government intervention in some way, or more likely some combination of ways. With the new administration we probably won't get much cooperation from the federal government; if you compound the normal federal slowness with the many vindictive folks who will be involved, my hopes for actual leadership are not high. It is easy to drag your feet in these matters while saying all the right words, and time will be important. So this is likely to be a state/county/city thing.

Finally, we need to get off the idea that this is a political issue. We got where we are today as a function of at least 70 years of post-war policy and explosive population growth. Both parties have had extended periods in charge during that time. Add the intensification of the wind situation and increased dryness (both due to climate change) and some new ideas will be needed...and somebody will inevitably feel b*tthurt about at least some of the results.

We've had catastrophes in the world, the country and the state before and will have them again. The mark of a people is their sustained response to a catastrophe. Though it will take years, it will be eventually handled. I'd like to think that we will have the support of the federal government, but it seems likely that we will have to do most of it ourselves...which means every other part of the country will see something similar in the future with their catastrophes, as we balkanize along the same lines as this board tends to do as soon as there is something to complain about. This is Trump's opportunity to be president of the entire country. It will be an early test of his administration. We'll see how that goes.

Hey grok,

Have Republicans controlled the state legislature in California since 1995?

-answer

No, Republicans have not controlled the California state legislature since 1995. The Democrats have held majorities in both the State Senate and the State Assembly since then.

Hey grok
- How long ago was 1995?

Answer
- 1995 was 30 years ago from 2025.


Hey grok,
How long has California enjoyed a super majority in the state legislature?
answer
-California Democrats have held a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature at various points, but the most consistent period began in 2012. They achieved a supermajority in both the Assembly and the Senate in that year, but it was briefly interrupted due to resignations and special elections. However, since regaining the supermajority in subsequent years, Democrats have maintained this control with only short lapses. As of the most recent data, this supermajority has been in place for significant portions of time since 2012, with Democrats holding a supermajority in both houses for much of this period up to 2025.[](https://ballotpedia.org/State_Legis...lifornia-democrats-supermajority-legislature/)

 

[WillieThePimp]

This is good news, at least according to the fire fighters.

A convoy of Cybertrucks has been stationed in a grid throughout the fire area restoring cell and internet service for all involved.

Nobody is upset with this, are they?

View embedded media

Neat, Nowhere near as charitable as the robber barons of the 1st gilded age but so generous of Elon to spare one thin dime.

 

[UberCougars]

What did you( or anyone else) do to restore cell and internet service in the disaster zone?

 

[WillieThePimp]

What did you( or anyone else) do to restore cell and internet service in the disaster zone?

Why do people worship at the feet of power mad billionaires who toss out a few crumbs to the underclass? Truly bizarre. Something akin to Stockholm Syndrome.

 

[UberCougars]

Saving lives just not important to Willie, check.

Putting the 🔥 out is BAD in willieworld

from da river to da sea right, Willie?

 

[WillieThePimp]

Saving lives just not important to Willie, check.

Putting the 🔥 out is BAD in willieworld

from da river to da sea right, Willie?

Saving lives? Lol. No he isn’t. It’s a political/publicity stunt. No one asked for his help and no one needs it.

You sure do worship your gilded masters.

 

[UberCougars]

Saving lives? Lol. No he isn’t. It’s a political/publicity stunt. No one asked for his help and no one needs it.

You sure do worship your gilded masters.

LAFire is quite grateful to have communications restored, lil willie.

Imagine doing what nobody else on the planet is capable of doing in the face of the worst disaster in history.