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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.544s | source | bottom
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tobyhinloopen ◴[] No.42734903[source]
American, living in area prone to natural disasters: "Is the WHOLE WORLD becoming uninsurable?"

The answer is obviously "no" since there are other parts of the world that don't live on a hurricane highway nor build houses made from firewood in an area prone to wildfires.

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chillfox ◴[] No.42737687[source]
It’s possible that solve the hurricane problems with proper building regulations and lower the risk of huge wildfires with controlled burning. But the US as always prefers to pretend that there’s nothing to be done when other parts of the world has figured it out.

We have cyclones here similar to the hurricanes in the US and usually it just blows over some trees maybe causes a power outage. The absolute worst I have experienced was 3 days without power. I have never seen a house destroyed by a cyclone here.

As for wildfires, they do unfortunately claim a few houses most years.

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1. marcosdumay ◴[] No.42737964[source]
It's so interesting to see the people in awe of that "fire hurricane" video in L.A....

We had a way more intense drought than they in my city last year (theirs are not that intense). We also had 50 km/h winds. We also had higher temperatures... And all of those to levels that we never saw before. Also, we have more trees in our cities. We had new "fire hurricane" videos every week (normally, every other year somebody films one).

And we had to evacuate dozens of homes, luckily no one was destroyed and people could return 2 months later.

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2. taeric ◴[] No.42738003[source]
It rather blunts your point when 50km/h winds are a far cry from 160km/h winds.

Specifically, I'm now questioning if your drought was actually more intense. Not exactly sure how you measure that one.

3. vantassell ◴[] No.42738582[source]
You’re comparing apples to oranges.

A Santa Ana wind is extremely dry and this one hit 100kmh (not 50). And it hasn’t really rained for 8 months (since May 2024). And we had a very wet winter last year, so there’s extra growth to fuel any fire. And finally, there’s 10 million people live in LA County, it’s a target rich space.

Please let me know where else is having the same sort of fire without destroying homes.

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4. marcosdumay ◴[] No.42739992[source]
The 50 km/h was sustained, not peak, but ok, I don't think we reached 100.

We have 7 million people living around, and yeah, only 6 months without a single drop of rain (19X days, where I don't remember what X was). Fire often destroys some homes, we got luck last year.

5. ewhanley ◴[] No.42741581[source]
It's not a competition. Both can be sights that people view in awe. Are you "Four Yorkshiremen-ing" wildfires?
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6. marcosdumay ◴[] No.42743360[source]
Look, the annual fire disasters in California are not a normal thing.

If people just point out it's not normal, people complain that nowhere else has fire so nobody else understands the problem. If people point out similar places, looks like it's "Four Yorkshiremen-ing" (whatever that is). So, yeah, let it keep burning, whatever.