Palisades Fire - Los Angeles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have much empathy for people who don't insure even though they are high income. A high income person can afford the mortgage in Malibu AND the FAIR coverage, AND fill in what isn't covered with their savings and ongoing income. If they decided to risk it and not pay for coverage, they have to pay up when their bet doesn't pay off.

And I really don't feel bad for the grandfathered in grandparents either. They are holding on to VERY expensive properties and basically betting that they won't have a fire. They shouldn't enjoy both windfall profits from the past 30 years and not have to pay the price when things go wrong.

"PP here from the area. Yep, FAIR doesn't apply to most people even in Malibu since they still CAN get insurance, it's just really expensive and bad coverage (FAIR is expensive and bare bones too).

But yeah, the thing about the area is, it's very expensive and people are generally UMC but not necessarily risk-averse and not the sort of financial situation where the cost of fire + earthquake + flood or an umbrella policy would not be a SERIOUS expense they might not be able to afford comfortably without trimming elsewhere, unless they are grandfathered in (like my parents). Even for my parents, it is a significant cost and one they have to budget for carefully from retirement/pension."

This is such a sh!tty post.

Why? It is the truth, I do not want to subsidize someone who chose not to insure. Everyone is screaming at State Farm, forget about them. There were other insurers writing policies, f g use them for coverage. I hate that have to pay flood insurance premiums because of a creek along the park on my property, guess what? I pay it whether I like it or not because I need to protect my family residence (we only have one) and now I'm supposed to underwrite people who voted for this garbage and these garbage DEI fools who destroyed their community? That's there problem. I have donated to the equestrian center taking in the horses and donkeys, that's it. Pay for insurance, the rest of the world does not owe you.

I am sure that the insurance companies will find a way to deny coverage to those who actually had insurance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

California's governors and mayors should also have been planning for emergencies and the priority of needed public safety measures. The results of poor leadership and planning are on display.

Actually California is top in the nation for emergency preparedness due to the climate changing and geography. There are fights between developers and the state about building on coastal bluffs that fall into the ocean. There are fights between people who own houses teetering on coastal bluffs that want to stay.

Climate change sucks. A lot more of the US and world is going to be destroyed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have much empathy for people who don't insure even though they are high income. A high income person can afford the mortgage in Malibu AND the FAIR coverage, AND fill in what isn't covered with their savings and ongoing income. If they decided to risk it and not pay for coverage, they have to pay up when their bet doesn't pay off.

And I really don't feel bad for the grandfathered in grandparents either. They are holding on to VERY expensive properties and basically betting that they won't have a fire. They shouldn't enjoy both windfall profits from the past 30 years and not have to pay the price when things go wrong.

"PP here from the area. Yep, FAIR doesn't apply to most people even in Malibu since they still CAN get insurance, it's just really expensive and bad coverage (FAIR is expensive and bare bones too).

But yeah, the thing about the area is, it's very expensive and people are generally UMC but not necessarily risk-averse and not the sort of financial situation where the cost of fire + earthquake + flood or an umbrella policy would not be a SERIOUS expense they might not be able to afford comfortably without trimming elsewhere, unless they are grandfathered in (like my parents). Even for my parents, it is a significant cost and one they have to budget for carefully from retirement/pension."

This is such a sh!tty post.

Why? It is the truth, I do not want to subsidize someone who chose not to insure. Everyone is screaming at State Farm, forget about them. There were other insurers writing policies, f g use them for coverage. I hate that have to pay flood insurance premiums because of a creek along the park on my property, guess what? I pay it whether I like it or not because I need to protect my family residence (we only have one) and now I'm supposed to underwrite people who voted for this garbage and these garbage DEI fools who destroyed their community? That's there problem. I have donated to the equestrian center taking in the horses and donkeys, that's it. Pay for insurance, the rest of the world does not owe you.

I am sure that the insurance companies will find a way to deny coverage to those who actually had insurance

There's always a price, your choice to pay it. Sucks, true, but there is always a price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

California's governors and mayors should also have been planning for emergencies and the priority of needed public safety measures. The results of poor leadership and planning are on display.

Actually California is top in the nation for emergency preparedness due to the climate changing and geography. There are fights between developers and the state about building on coastal bluffs that fall into the ocean. There are fights between people who own houses teetering on coastal bluffs that want to stay.

Climate change sucks. A lot more of the US and world is going to be destroyed.

The Santa Anna winds have been around since the beginning of time. Dirty politicians have not, that's where the blame lies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LA is a nightmare, just suburbia stretched out.
Many areas have only a few good highways to get into and out of. Despite this they are popular areas to live in. Evacuation orders cause huge traffic jams.
There is no metro.
This is in someway an opportunity for city planners to rethink and create a better more functional city.
Don’t ask me about the school system, their education is a nightmare too.
One would think that the richest state in the richest country could do better.
Currently they are tackling homelessness by pretending it doesn’t exist even though that has not helped at all

California is the wealthiest state, kind of. They have 500 BILLION of debt. That is the highest debt to income ratio of any state - 106%!
NY is the next most in debt state but no where close to California.

CA swings wildly based on IPOs. For years CA has had billions in surplus. Interest rates going up and the banking issue in SV put a damper on the IPOs. Between reserves , being able to adjust the budget and new start ups recovering it’s fine. CA often ends higher than projected.

CA public education is excellent in some areas and crappy in others, like everywhere else. The public school in some areas of LA , not LA unified and the Bay Area , not San Jose Unified are better than your top public schools in the DMV. The UC system is the best in the nation. Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine and Davis are light years better than other state flagships. Heck, the top Cal State schools are better than most state flagships.

The schools that are good are good because of the types of students that go there, not what the administration is doing or what they're investing in students. You'll get large class sizes and not-great per pupil spending but a good student population especially since some parts of CA don't have as much of a private school culture.

The curriculum was far, far better than MCPS. The buildings and grounds were so much better too. The class sizes were not larger than MCPS. There was more parent and foundation funding for things which you couldn’t do in MCPS. The UC system attract top faculty that get top research grants. The state is large enough and the state options compelling enough that you don’t siphon off the best students to private universities out of state.

A lot of the schools are trailers and look like shanty towns. The facilities are terrible with little security in LA.

With a very few, isolated, exceptions, the public schools in California are comparatively terrible.

This fact is not up for debate. It is simply so.

[Anonymous]

Mel Gibson’s house was burned, and he was away doing the fellow MAGA, Joe Rogan’s, podcast at the time.

so obviously there was some divine retribution going on with this fire.

[Anonymous]

Peopler are really not understanding the interplay between California's housing shortage, increased fire risks due to climate change, and insurance regulation. It's extremely complicated, and people are doing the best they can in the face of the rate of natural disasters accelerating even faster than climate models predicted.

This article about people who lost their homes in the Camp Fire (2018) and again in the Park Fire (2024) lays things out pretty well: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/10/home-insurance-park-wildfire-california-butte-county

For everyone braying on about how California has had high fire risk for centuries is neglecting that the rate of large fires is increasing, and factors such as high wind speeds and dry winters is making them worse. This isn't about brush management. We are in the first days of January! Fires of this magnitude at this time of year are simply unprecedented.

I remember thinking after the floods in NC how, even being the richest nation in history, the US is totally unprepared to handle the costs of climate change. We can deny the causes all we want. Americans are losing their lives, homes, and communities to natural disasters. Those of us unaffected can choose to be callous if we want, but this kind of loss leads to massive economic and social instability...and that impacts all of us. The solutions are not easy, but we will never find them by living in denial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LA is a nightmare, just suburbia stretched out.
Many areas have only a few good highways to get into and out of. Despite this they are popular areas to live in. Evacuation orders cause huge traffic jams.
There is no metro.
This is in someway an opportunity for city planners to rethink and create a better more functional city.
Don’t ask me about the school system, their education is a nightmare too.
One would think that the richest state in the richest country could do better.
Currently they are tackling homelessness by pretending it doesn’t exist even though that has not helped at all

California is the wealthiest state, kind of. They have 500 BILLION of debt. That is the highest debt to income ratio of any state - 106%!
NY is the next most in debt state but no where close to California.

CA swings wildly based on IPOs. For years CA has had billions in surplus. Interest rates going up and the banking issue in SV put a damper on the IPOs. Between reserves , being able to adjust the budget and new start ups recovering it’s fine. CA often ends higher than projected.

CA public education is excellent in some areas and crappy in others, like everywhere else. The public school in some areas of LA , not LA unified and the Bay Area , not San Jose Unified are better than your top public schools in the DMV. The UC system is the best in the nation. Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Irvine and Davis are light years better than other state flagships. Heck, the top Cal State schools are better than most state flagships.

Not sure if you noticed by Silicon Valley ain’t what it used to be and you had one year of major surplus in 2021 that newsom pissed away in 3 years.
50k lottery to people getting Covid vaccine?
Wtf.
Your surplus is down to 15B and not sure how far that will go after this fire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

California's governors and mayors should also have been planning for emergencies and the priority of needed public safety measures. The results of poor leadership and planning are on display.

Actually California is top in the nation for emergency preparedness due to the climate changing and geography. There are fights between developers and the state about building on coastal bluffs that fall into the ocean. There are fights between people who own houses teetering on coastal bluffs that want to stay.

Climate change sucks. A lot more of the US and world is going to be destroyed.

That doesn't explain the cuts Newsom, Bass, and others have made that impacted the response to these devastating fires.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mel Gibson’s house was burned, and he was away doing the fellow MAGA, Joe Rogan’s, podcast at the time.

so obviously there was some divine retribution going on with this fire.

Cannot believe you're making this statement. Is that what you say to the other people who lost their homes, loved ones, pets, snd possessions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

California's governors and mayors should also have been planning for emergencies and the priority of needed public safety measures. The results of poor leadership and planning are on display.

Actually California is top in the nation for emergency preparedness due to the climate changing and geography. There are fights between developers and the state about building on coastal bluffs that fall into the ocean. There are fights between people who own houses teetering on coastal bluffs that want to stay.

Climate change sucks. A lot more of the US and world is going to be destroyed.

The Santa Anna winds have been around since the beginning of time. Dirty politicians have not, that's where the blame lies.

It hasn't rained in LA in 8 months. That is not normal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

California's governors and mayors should also have been planning for emergencies and the priority of needed public safety measures. The results of poor leadership and planning are on display.

Actually California is top in the nation for emergency preparedness due to the climate changing and geography. There are fights between developers and the state about building on coastal bluffs that fall into the ocean. There are fights between people who own houses teetering on coastal bluffs that want to stay.

Climate change sucks. A lot more of the US and world is going to be destroyed.

The Santa Anna winds have been around since the beginning of time. Dirty politicians have not, that's where the blame lies.

It hasn't rained in LA in 8 months. That is not normal

So the potential for catastrophic fires should have been noted by leaders in govt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

For the people who have lived there forever in more modest homes, the land without the house is probably worth more than the land with the house

How so? If the land around yours is uninhabitable then your land value drops too. RE land price depends on what's around. If it's apocalyptic hellscape it's only going to be worth it's projected future valuation (speculation) because now it's worth nothing, you can't live there or build there for a while. This is not the same as buying a lot to build on in the future but not wanting to yet in an area that's fully functioning. It's ruins everywhere and failed infrastructure, anyone buying this land is paying for its future potential.

[Anonymous]

I don't think people understand that the houses that burned are a drop in the hat of LA county homes. There isn't going to be any vast exodus out of California. A few miles north of Palisades two months ago 200 homes were destroyed by a wildfire in Camarillo, CA with a population of under 70,000. It barely makes the news anymore.

The Camp fire, which charged through the Butte County, CA town of Paradise, killed 85 people and razed around 10,000 homes which was more than 90 percent of the community’s homes. Then entirety of Butte County is only 200,000 people.

In Maui over 99 people died and over 2,000 homes were destroyed. Maui only has a population of 241,000.

LA County has 9.6 million people. The Westside of LA County (areas such as Brentwood, Century City, Malibu, Marina Del Rey, the Miracle Mile, Pacific Palisades, Playa Vista, Venice, and Westwood, etc) has a million people.

Of course it is tragic and for so many homes to burn in such a small area is horrific. However, many of the homes were second homes or short-term rentals. But a few weeks from now it will be business as usual in LA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People don't seem to understand that Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Malibu are not at all normal neighborhoods in need of policy solutions that would address 99.9% of the rest of the country. These are ultra luxury houses owned by people who can either cover the cost of replacement without much trouble or people who have lived there long enough to be locked into extremely low public tax rates and affordable home insurance. They could have used their savings from taxes over the years to buy additional insurance or put that money into accounts for savings or to cover unexpected costs like these.

California's governors and mayors should also have been planning for emergencies and the priority of needed public safety measures. The results of poor leadership and planning are on display.

Actually California is top in the nation for emergency preparedness due to the climate changing and geography. There are fights between developers and the state about building on coastal bluffs that fall into the ocean. There are fights between people who own houses teetering on coastal bluffs that want to stay.

Climate change sucks. A lot more of the US and world is going to be destroyed.

The Santa Anna winds have been around since the beginning of time. Dirty politicians have not, that's where the blame lies.

It hasn't rained in LA in 8 months. That is not normal

So the potential for catastrophic fires should have been noted by leaders in govt.

Do you think the state of California should be watering forests and scrubland? The potential was noted and there were warnings