Los Angeles in flames

[dudog84]

Those water systems were never designed to fight an events at this scale. They were designed for a few houses or a large building or a city block not these types of situations. They aren’t ment to deal with the volume of water and replenish it quickly.

Exactly. I'm not a civil engineer but worked with them most of my career and actually took a grad course in civil engineering. Planning infrastructure for a may-never-happen catastrophic event (whether fire or flooding or...) is overdesign and hugely expensive. Nobody wants to pay for it, everybody wants to b**** about it afterwards.

Edit: Although with global warming, may-never-happen is becoming when-will-it-happen. And people still won't pay for it.

 

[PackMan97]

Exactly. I'm not a civil engineer but worked with them most of my career and actually took a grad course in civil engineering. Planning infrastructure for a may-never-happen catastrophic event (whether fire or flooding or...) is overdesign and hugely expensive. Nobody wants to pay for it, everybody wants to b**** about it afterwards.

Edit: Although with global warming, may-never-happen is becoming when-will-it-happen. And people still won't pay for it.

I think that folks expect the government to do everything and prevent bad stuff from ever happening. We seem to have folks in society that think the government will handle everything and those that think it will handle nothing...very few with realistic expectations.

 

[tommy]

I think that folks expect the government to do everything and prevent bad stuff from ever happening. We seem to have folks in society that think the government will handle everything and those that think it will handle nothing...very few with realistic expectations.

And there are those that want to forever shrink the size of government, starve it even, but then when an event like this happens, blame the strangled government -- whether it be FEMA or other agencies -- for not doing enough to save their behinds.

 

[moonpie23]

there have been many recording studios lost during this. And while equipment and facilities can be replaced, the loss of archives is irreplaceable ...

 

[budwom]

Those water systems were never designed to fight an events at this scale. They were designed for a few houses or a large building or a city block not these types of situations. They aren’t ment to deal with the volume of water and replenish it quickly.

An engineer spent 15 years fireproofing his California home. Here's why his house was the last one standing after a devastating blaze last year.

Chris Arai's home in Sonoma County, California, was the only one on his ridge that was still standing after the Kincade Fire ripped through.

www.businessinsider.com

Yeah there was some gratuitous grandstanding by NBC News last night trying to get people to complain about inadequate hydrants. If people would just think about things for a second they would understand what can realistically be expected of hydrants

 

[CrazyNotCrazie]

And there are those that want to forever shrink the size of government, starve it even, but then when an event like this happens, blame the strangled government -- whether it be FEMA or other agencies -- for not doing enough to save their behinds.

Exactly. People want smaller government until it is their project that needs to be funded. One can argue whether government, private sector, or some combination of the two is most efficient at completing these projects. But without government being involved in some way, most of these projects don't get done. And at some point, one can argue that the cost outweighs the benefit, but it kind of stinks when it is your home that is being considered not worth saving.

I did some infrastructure financing not too long ago and was largely on the periphery of it, but saw enough to be dangerous. I was involved in the early stages of a massive project to alleviate major flooding issues in the Fargo area. It involved a ton of coordination among the Feds (Army Corps of Engineers), multiple states, counties, cities, public-private partnerships, etc. People had to move out of their homes. Farms were taken over. And the debate is do you plan for the 100 year flood, 500 year flood, etc. And there are those (who generally did not live in Fargo) who asked whether it was worth spending all this money to save Fargo. I haven't checked in a while (this was about eight years ago) but I'm assuming much work has been done on it.

The irony is that they have more water than they know what to do with (as do many other areas) while Southern California and other areas don't have enough.

And yes, I got to go to Fargo TWICE for this project. One right after Thanksgiving (when it was unseasonably warm and raining) and once in June when it was lovely.

 

[sagegrouse]

Lived in Pacific Palisades when my kids were born, a number of decades ago. Lovely community with many small houses, all families. You didn't need a large house, because you could be outside except during the very occasional winter monsoon rain. Summers are cool because it's less than a mile to the frigid Pacific. Winters are comfortable.

Satellite photo with imposed fire areas suggest my house has survived. I don't believe it for one minute.

 

[tommy]

Lived in Pacific Palisades when my kids were born, a number of decades ago. Lovely community with many small houses, all families. You didn't need a large house, because you could be outside except during the very occasional winter monsoon rain. Summers are cool because it's less than a mile to the frigid Pacific. Winters are comfortable.

Satellite photo with imposed fire areas suggest my house has survived. I don't believe it for one minute.

The climate in the Pacific Palisades is really ideal, you're right. Since you were there, there have also been an awful lot of very not small houses built there. Expensive, even for LA. Almost all of them are gone now.

 

[tommy]

Exactly. People want smaller government until it is their project that needs to be funded. One can argue whether government, private sector, or some combination of the two is most efficient at completing these projects. But without government being involved in some way, most of these projects don't get done. And at some point, one can argue that the cost outweighs the benefit, but it kind of stinks when it is your home that is being considered not worth saving.

I did some infrastructure financing not too long ago and was largely on the periphery of it, but saw enough to be dangerous. I was involved in the early stages of a massive project to alleviate major flooding issues in the Fargo area. It involved a ton of coordination among the Feds (Army Corps of Engineers), multiple states, counties, cities, public-private partnerships, etc. People had to move out of their homes. Farms were taken over. And the debate is do you plan for the 100 year flood, 500 year flood, etc. And there are those (who generally did not live in Fargo) who asked whether it was worth spending all this money to save Fargo. I haven't checked in a while (this was about eight years ago) but I'm assuming much work has been done on it.

The irony is that they have more water than they know what to do with (as do many other areas) while Southern California and other areas don't have enough.

And yes, I got to go to Fargo TWICE for this project. One right after Thanksgiving (when it was unseasonably warm and raining) and once in June when it was lovely.

Interesting.

Glad you stayed away from the wood chippers in Fargo.

 

[BigWayne]

Here's a good piece on the problems housing insurance faces in California (and really just about everywhere these days) due to climate change:

What happens when a state insurer of last resort goes belly-up?

A possible next act in this new drama: California

susanpcrawford.substack.com

Thanks for finding that. It explains a bit about the FAIR plan issues I was wondering about after what I saw on the Dan Abrams show last night. He had a guy on that was a former CA Insurance Commissioner that was explaining how the FAIR plan will pay out claims as Dan was speculating about whether insurers would be able to pay claims. He reeled off numbers that were quite scary and worse than what this article covers.

He claimed that the FAIR plan exposure for the Palisades fire was around $5.9B. The numbers he gave for assets FAIR has were less than that as he did not show them having the $5B reinsurance that's discussed in the article. Once the claims exceed all of that, he stated (as does the article) that they then can come and assess all policy holders in the state to make up the difference. So we might all be getting a bill for this down the road.

 

[MChambers]

Thanks for finding that. It explains a bit about the FAIR plan issues I was wondering about after what I saw on the Dan Abrams show last night. He had a guy on that was a former CA Insurance Commissioner that was explaining how the FAIR plan will pay out claims as Dan was speculating about whether insurers would be able to pay claims. He reeled off numbers that were quite scary and worse than what this article covers.

He claimed that the FAIR plan exposure for the Palisades fire was around $5.9B. The numbers he gave for assets FAIR has were less than that as he did not show them having the $5B reinsurance that's discussed in the article. Once the claims exceed all of that, he stated (as does the article) that they then can come and assess all policy holders in the state to make up the difference. So we might all be getting a bill for this down the road.

The author of the article, Susan Crawford, is a former law firm colleague of mine, from quite a while ago. She's very smart and is doing a great job of writing about the intersection of climate change and financial issues. You can subscribe to her newsletters for free.