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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
482 points spking | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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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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gibsonf1 ◴[] No.42738455[source]
A key issue in the LA fires was bad management at all levels of government that could have prevented an order of magnitude of the damage (If procedures from the past were followed).
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vantassell ◴[] No.42738771[source]
You’re a fire management expert? What did LA do wrong?
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gibsonf1 ◴[] No.42738991[source]
1. Santa Ynez Reservoir right above Palisades was empty for the past year, depriving fire hydrants of water. (State incompetence)

2. La City defunded fire department removing 100 fire trucks from service due to maintenance. (City Incompetence)

3 Severe fire warnings reported days in advance of the fire. Rather than take precautions and position fire trucks and equipment etc as was done in the past, the Mayor flew off to Ghana. (City Incompetence, Fire Department incompetence (but partly because of cut budget)

4. Forest maintenance has been stopped. (State incompetence)

Competent management is needed or even worse can be expected in future.

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electrondood ◴[] No.42739159[source]
re: point #1, the fire command team captain himself refuted this disinformation in an interview with Musk.

I don't know about the other three offhand, but it's absurd to claim that state and local governments in California are somehow not taking fire risk seriously. Do you seriously think that the state that has annual wildfire season just happens to be "incompetent" when it comes to preparing for wildfires?

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gibsonf1 ◴[] No.42740109[source]
How does the statement of "not taking fire risk seriously" explain the fact that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was and still is empty, and is a primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants, or that the mayor defunded the fire department and left for Ghana after getting extreme fire danger warnings?[1]

Because Santa Ynez was empty (for the past year), water was supplied from downhill water sources and the pressure needed dropped off to the point there was no longer any water out of the hydrants.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Palisades,+Los+Ang...

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1. kristjansson ◴[] No.42745447[source]
> [1]

Look, it's known that reservoir was empty, but it's a covered reservoir. You're looking at the the _cover_. That image tells you nothing about the state of the reservoir at the time.

> primary uphill source of water for those fire hydrants

was 3x 1M gallon water tanks. Hydrants were gravity fed until the tanks ran out (8-15 hours into the firefight), at which point water tankers supplied responding companies.