Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the waste of resources is jaw dropping.

With the budget surplus they could have been burying power lines, but I guess there were more important priorities to squander the money.

The cost and time required to bury overhead lines in settled areas would far exceed any budget surplus, plus it isn’t going to come from state funds.

I live in a different western state where some neighborhoods have buried lines and most do not. Our city utility provider began burying lines in the early 2000s and abandoned the effort in our specific neighborhood after completing just two streets due to the infrastructure challenges they encountered. In other neighborhoods it is moving along but definitely not quickly- it’s literally a decades-long, patchwork effort. It would probably take a century to bury the lines just in Pacific Palisades.

With the sheer devastation in the area, Pacific Palisades will be rebuilt with buried lines. I expect the area to look a lot different after this. The city has the opportunity to remake an entire urban area near the beach. It's not going to be a low-density sprawling bedroom community again.

I’m the Pp you’re replying to and I agree, lines will be buried where areas have been leveled- that’s the easy part. My point was that the PPs saying that lines should have been buried in existing neighborhoods are naive about how challenging and expensive it is.

How expensive will be rebuilding entire towns and neighborhoods? It should have been a priority and it wasn't. There's no excuse for misplaced priorities anymore and the residents should be fed up. I used to live in LA County and got the hell out because I couldn't take it anymore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the waste of resources is jaw dropping.

With the budget surplus they could have been burying power lines, but I guess there were more important priorities to squander the money.

The cost and time required to bury overhead lines in settled areas would far exceed any budget surplus, plus it isn’t going to come from state funds.

I live in a different western state where some neighborhoods have buried lines and most do not. Our city utility provider began burying lines in the early 2000s and abandoned the effort in our specific neighborhood after completing just two streets due to the infrastructure challenges they encountered. In other neighborhoods it is moving along but definitely not quickly- it’s literally a decades-long, patchwork effort. It would probably take a century to bury the lines just in Pacific Palisades.

With the sheer devastation in the area, Pacific Palisades will be rebuilt with buried lines. I expect the area to look a lot different after this. The city has the opportunity to remake an entire urban area near the beach. It's not going to be a low-density sprawling bedroom community again.

I’m the Pp you’re replying to and I agree, lines will be buried where areas have been leveled- that’s the easy part. My point was that the PPs saying that lines should have been buried in existing neighborhoods are naive about how challenging and expensive it is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the waste of resources is jaw dropping.

With the budget surplus they could have been burying power lines, but I guess there were more important priorities to squander the money.

The cost and time required to bury overhead lines in settled areas would far exceed any budget surplus, plus it isn’t going to come from state funds.

I live in a different western state where some neighborhoods have buried lines and most do not. Our city utility provider began burying lines in the early 2000s and abandoned the effort in our specific neighborhood after completing just two streets due to the infrastructure challenges they encountered. In other neighborhoods it is moving along but definitely not quickly- it’s literally a decades-long, patchwork effort. It would probably take a century to bury the lines just in Pacific Palisades.

With the sheer devastation in the area, Pacific Palisades will be rebuilt with buried lines. I expect the area to look a lot different after this. The city has the opportunity to remake an entire urban area near the beach. It's not going to be a low-density sprawling bedroom community again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the waste of resources is jaw dropping.

With the budget surplus they could have been burying power lines, but I guess there were more important priorities to squander the money.

The cost and time required to bury overhead lines in settled areas would far exceed any budget surplus, plus it isn’t going to come from state funds.

I live in a different western state where some neighborhoods have buried lines and most do not. Our city utility provider began burying lines in the early 2000s and abandoned the effort in our specific neighborhood after completing just two streets due to the infrastructure challenges they encountered. In other neighborhoods it is moving along but definitely not quickly- it’s literally a decades-long, patchwork effort. It would probably take a century to bury the lines just in Pacific Palisades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why aren’t fire mitigation systems installed as part of the public works systems, developments or private homes? Large water guns to create a barrier or cover a neighborhood?

I don't really understand what you have in mind - like a continuous spray? Water isn't unlimited - hydrants in some of these areas are already running dry as firefighters use them. And any active system would presumably require power and somebody to man it. Plus spraying water in 100 mpg gusts probably not effective.

I know this kind of fire is unfamiliar to east coasters, I'm not mocking. But it's much bigger and faster than you are imagining. You're basically asking why Florida doesn't have some kind of pump to keep hurricanes out.

As with hurricanes, there are new building methods that help. Burying the power lines would be a huge help, but that's expensive and CA allowed it's power utility to be privatized. This is really a story of climate change + bad infrastructure decisions.

Have you ever seen crop irrigation systems, they implement rotating water cannons to cover large swaths of land. Install some of these and only turn them on when a fire is happening and a neighborhood is in danger. It’s not a complex idea.

LOL asking someone from CA if they've seen a crop sprinkler. Uh, yes, I have.
I tried to nicely explain already, but it's clear you are not familiar with fires, the terrain, or the water or electricity situation. But sure, you solved it, good job.

Would help if there were multiple roads in and out of a location, which there weren’t

CA here in the Bay Area. I’ve only been here 8 years and it’s shocking how the fire risk map has changed. We looked at several houses and were very careful to avoid high or moderate fire risk. We ended up buying a house that was north of major highway and in a more urban/suburban neighborhood than one in a neighborhood closer to the foothills because DH really wanted to be able to walk to Starbucks and restaurants. Even though the other neighborhood was low fire risk 8 years ago, this changed to moderate and then high. Insurance rates went through the roof, The houses still sell way above asking because they are in the same good school district , have pretty views and inventory is really low. There hasn’t been a fire yet but IMO it only takes one.

What has changed is that it is much hotter in the summer. The weeds in California are crazy. It requires an enormous amount of work to get rid of them. The regrowth when it rains is almost overnight. The weather is more extreme so it’s a cycle of vegetation skyrocketing up, and then drying out creating a lot of fuel. The winds are faster so the embers travel further. With the added fuel, the fires burn hotter and larger,

Anonymous wrote:Santa Monica is being evacuated!

Friend’s daughter who lives in Santa Monica was doing one of those weather-brag posts on Instagram when the snow came through here. Completely tone-deaf. Hope she will be ok

This fire is so devastating precisely because these neighborhoods *haven't* burned before. This is more like the Long Island neighborhoods washed out by Hurricane Sandy than the South Florida mansions that have been rebuilt multiple times post multiple hurricanes. At some point, you can't not build or live everywhere that might be prone to some kind of natural disaster but hasn't actually experienced one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the waste of resources is jaw dropping.

With the budget surplus they could have been burying power lines, but I guess there were more important priorities to squander the money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

Indeed, the waste of resources is jaw dropping.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

This is your wet dream isn't it. Blame the left for everything that has happened there including natural disasters.

Stupid. There were disasters in the past when California had many Republican governors and there were many. If you omit Jerry Brown and his father, most governors until Brown's second term and Newsom were Republicans. Schwarzenegger, Deukmejian, Wilson, Reagan, for instance. Fires and floods and earthquakes recur.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These homes start at $2.5M and go up rapidly from there. I bet most of these folks were self-insured.

This represents a huge, extremely wealthy chunk of the Los Angeles county tax base. Lots of families with young kids. It's as if a wild fire completely destroyed CCMD and adjacent neighborhoods in upper NW DC.

This disaster will upend Los Angeles's budget - lots of costs to clean up but also lots of these people will move away. It will only be partially rebuilt, likely with multi-family housing. The entire area will be rebuilt much differently.

Californian here. I think it’s entirely possible that the state turns deep red politically. There is already a lot of anger at the left simmering under the surface.

This is your wet dream isn't it. Blame the left for everything that has happened there including natural disasters.

It's naive to think certain decisions and policies didn't make this situation much worse than it could have been. They knew damn well the risks of wild fires and did little to prevent them.

How the F does one prevent wild fires? Like just wave a magic wand? I mean - this is what stupid means - wildfires don't exist because of humans. They happen whether we are around or not. You can't prevent wild + fire. What you do is you accept them. You figure out how to manage your expectations around them happening - what your plan is when they occur. They will occur and reoccur and there is not a DAMN thing a human being can do to prevent them from occurring! Like - how do you prevent to sun from rising or ocean tides?? Ugh.

Ask PG&E maybe they can give you a clue.

This. Power lines cause most of these fires. I saw one start as I was driving. A power line dropped onto the side of a hill, sparked and a fire started instantly and started spreading.

This happened right in front of my house a few years ago (and I am not in CA or a fire county) I happened to be looking at the wind out the window, and I saw my neighbor's tree touch power lines and spark and catch fire. So I was able to call immediately. It can happen so fast.

Anonymous wrote:This situation is why it's not helpful to mock people or make light of those who live in areas hit by disasters. To lose your home and belongings is disatrous and heartbreaking for anyone, regardless of income level.

Yeah, we are only allowed to do that if you live in one of the Carolinas or Florida.

Anonymous wrote:this is devastating. We lived through the Marshall fire in CO 3 years ago which was horrific and only a fraction of the scale of this. My heart aches for everyone impacted.

+1

The people of CA better hope they get resources and money from Biden asap because we all know that once Trump is in there, he ain't giving sh!t to CA.