California Fires - Politics of Blame & Trump water claims

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An Offline L.A. Water Reservoir Has Repeatedly Needed Repairs​

Officials are investigating why the Santa Ynez Reservoir is offline and empty, as firefighters try to contain the nearby Pacific Palisades blaze​


GIFT LINK —> https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate...04?st=dBhcpA&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

“… California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered an independent investigation of LADWP’s response to the blazes, saying the reports of problems with water pressure in some local fire hydrants and the water supply from the Santa Ynez Reservoir “are deeply troubling to me and the community.”

… The reservoir’s condition is emerging as one potential problem area but isn’t the only one. The water problems in Pacific Palisades probably stemmed from the way the community’s water system was designed, said Dave Pedersen, general manager of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in nearby Calabasas. Water tanks situated above the homes there were likely drawn down because so many fire engines were tapping into the hydrants, he said, adding he doesn’t have direct information on that.

Like most communities in hilly terrain surrounding the Los Angeles Basin, the tanks in Pacific Palisades use gravity to feed water to homes during the day and are refilled at night with pumps, he said. But with so many fire engines tapping into hydrants during the fire, the tanks were probably drawn down and couldn’t automatically refill quickly—leaving dry hydrants, Pedersen said.

… Many of the water systems on the outskirts of Los Angeles were put in place in the 1960s and 1970s when catastrophic wildfires, made worse by drought and climate change, were a less significant threat.

“A public water system isn’t designed to fight a wildfire,” Pedersen said, adding that the investments and upgrades needed to achieve that would be costly and challenging to achieve. …”
 
rodoheel said:
This is an article I felt was helpful to provide context about the fires, including by making clear how different from other previous wildfires this particular situation was - such that some experts say we should be thinking of it more as an urban fire problem than a wildfire problem:

slate.com

This Isn’t About Wildfires Anymore

The great urban fire has returned.
slate.com slate.com

Trump and others have predictably rushed to fit these fires into the paradigm of previous (mostly rural) California wildfires, but it really just doesn't fit here.
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And, as usual, the problem is that Trump's vivid lies - vastly amplified and spread by the now powerful right-wing propaganda machine that sprawls across legacy and social media networks - is what most people hear, not the truth in articles like this. And to date the truth and the people spreading it about many topics are simply overwhelmed by the ability of lies and false information and fringe theories to spread like a plague all over social media and legacy media. Whenever I get on social media I'm struck by how many people still believe Trump (and other Republican's) lies about Biden & FEMA deliberately not helping Republican areas in western NC following Helene and FEMA giving more money to illegal immigrants than to Helene victims. It's still pervasive, and not even our government, apparently, has any idea of how to stop it or overcome it.
 
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Mulberry Heel said:
Whenever I get on social media I'm struck by how many people still believe Trump (and other Republican's) lies about Biden & FEMA deliberately not helping Republican areas in western NC following Helene and FEMA giving more money to illegal immigrants than to Helene victims. It's still pervasive, and not even our government, apparently, has any idea of how to stop it or overcome it.
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They believe what they want to believe.

Deep down, every MAGA is a both-sider. They know their guy is a disaster. So they have to seize on lies about the other side. They have to pretend that liberals are terrible people who hate America, since that's who they support.
 
nycfan said:
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You re-post a lot of things (without comment) from Twitter and TruthSocial that come straight out of Trump’s or other MAGA’s (metaphorical) mouths.

I just wanted to point that out in case there were some uninformed posters who thought you only post things from left-wing media.
 
nycfan said:

the tanks in Pacific Palisades use gravity to feed water to homes during the day and are refilled at night with pumps, he said. But with so many fire engines tapping into hydrants during the fire, the tanks were probably drawn down and couldn’t automatically refill quickly—leaving dry hydrants, Pedersen said.​


… Many of the water systems on the outskirts of Los Angeles were put in place in the 1960s and 1970s when catastrophic wildfires, made worse by drought and climate change, were a less significant threat.

“A public water system isn’t designed to fight a wildfire,” Pedersen said, adding that the investments and upgrades needed to achieve that would be costly and challenging to achieve. …”
Click to expand...
This is why I kept asking the board jabronis if they understood gravity. They apparently do not.
 
rodoheel said:
This is an article I felt was helpful to provide context about the fires, including by making clear how different from other previous wildfires this particular situation was - such that some experts say we should be thinking of it more as an urban fire problem than a wildfire problem:

slate.com

This Isn’t About Wildfires Anymore

The great urban fire has returned.
slate.com slate.com
Click to expand...
Interesting article. Architecture is certainly an answer, but it takes a long time to rotate housing stock. I want to learn more about how Tokyo constructed their fire break ring of 13-story apartments in a band around the city. I imagine that attempting that in the US will cause significant eminent domain conflicts.

As an aside, this issue is the perfect rebuttal to libertarianism. You can build a fire-safe house and manage the land impeccably. But if your neighbors don't do the same, your efforts are likely in vain. This is why you need regulatory structures.
 
Huh? said:
As an aside, this issue is the perfect rebuttal to libertarianism. You can build a fire-safe house and manage the land impeccably. But if your neighbors don't do the same, your efforts are likely in vain. This is why you need regulatory structures.
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This is an instance of the more general problem that libertarianism has no answer for: externalities. Positive or negative.
 
Instead of sending disaster relief aid to California, should Congress just pass a law that refunds to the State of California all federal revenues received from California that are in excess of federal expenditures in California? Surely this is the sort of fair, equitable, and commonsense solutions that the GOP champions.
ETA: The most recent data I could find, 2022, California sent $83 billion more to the federal government than it received back. I guess Republicans really do believe, "From them that has to them that needs."
Link: Balance of Payments Portal | Rockefeller Institute of Government
We self-reliant paragons of virtue in deep red North Carolina, only received a paltry $53B more from the Feds than we pay in. Our stalwart patriots in the NCGA should demand, demand I say, that this ill-gotten $53B be stripped from NC and forthwith, forthwith I say, sent to our brothers and sisters in need in California.
 
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“… Trump says he does not think his administration should give California any federal funds until the state “lets water flow down into there from the north to the south.”

The Trump team has been attacking California Gov. Gavin Newsom over his response to the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, citing Newsom’s legal challenge in 2020 to a Trump plan to send more water from Northern California to farmers. Newsom at the time said he wanted to protect ecosystems in the region.

Trump’s criticism lacks evidence. Experts have said there is no connection between water kept in the north of the state and the spread of wildfires in southern California or the challenge of responding to the fires. …”

 
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