Los Angeles wildfires
Speechless. It's covered elsewhere far better than I could ever hope to do. Suzanne, from SoCal, knows people whose houses have been leveled, life's work lost.
2. The disinformation about why the wildfires started is similar to the disinformation the Murdoch media pushes in Australia to discredit climate change theories.
3. I didn't understand high winds til I came to Utah. Sometimes we experience ongoing winds of 70mph or more. In fire conditions this spreads embers beyond firebreaks, and also significantly speeds spread.
4. Yes, areas prone to fire, and/or difficult to respond to, should not be built upon.
posted by Richard Layman @ 7:30 AM&Permanent Link
15 Comments:
1. A lot of the disaster porn pictures are showing subdivisions. This was a true fire storm -- 100 MPH winds will do that. But in terms of changing where to build, these locations would seem relatively safe -- unless you want to go an ban most settlement patterns in the west.
2. Even with the firestorm, you can see true fire prevention was not taking place in building codes. Easy to do. Concrete walls. No windows. Metal roof. given the reasons why people move to LA that does seem like it won't be popular, and we'll continue to use wood and lot of fenestrations.
3. Your writing goes along with Mike Davis - in particular "let Malibu Burn" https://jacobin.com/2018/12/california-fires-let-malibu-burn-mike-davis-interview
The US midwest used to have a lot of forest fires; cutting down the trees solved the problem. Perhaps we need more golf courses which are basically giant fire breaks. Not where Mike Davis would end up.
(The idea of preserving the entire Malibu hillside as a park is a nice one, and one that was lost by Olmstead.)
Was listening to music for the first time in a long time. The music video for Malibu by Hole had tons of fire imagery.
2. I also forgot a point, of Trump as divider in chief.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1hxzgh4/this_house_remained_intact_while_the_neighborhood/
pulled from bloomberg article "These Homes Withstood the LA Fires. Architects Explain Why"
any taste coming back>
Oh yeah. I'm actually at a point where I think I can live a life into my 80s. While I was hospitalized in November it was determined my heart ejection fraction was 3x better than in June. Fluky reasons why I had to be hospitalized. Otherwise I was near a positive peak.
With intermittent problems likely over 20 years...
Taste improvements since late November. I am eating more. Gained about 10 pounds over 2 months so I'm 133. My target is at least 150.
But I still have fears about foods. The cough is still an issue, and it can go into reaching mode. But we went to an all you can eat sushi place a couple weeks ago and I ate a fair amount. The cooked wasn't so great, but the raw was quite decent.
I've said this before, get a GI to to an endoscopy to check for ulcer or obstruction. The throwing up is not normal.
Glad to hear some taste is coming back.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/los-angeles-shouldnt-rebuild-the-same-way-after-wildfires.html
Los Angeles Shouldn’t Rebuild the Same Way Again
1/13/25
LA Wildfires Push California Insurance Market to Its Limit
1/10/25, Bloomberg
https://archive.ph/vFUyr#selection-1259.0-1259.58
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/11/altadena-california-fires-climate-change-00197658
‘Half the Country’s Thinking Magically’: California Fire Victims Grapple with the Political Paralysis Over Climate Change
Off topic. Link through a scholar.google.com search on Gregory Shill
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/til-2022-0008/html
(Separately, he has an article about how the legal structure of society has been created to force automobility.)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-13/los-angeles-wildfires-why-these-homes-didn-t-burn
WRT this, it reiterates your points about building codes. Similarly, post Hurricane code changes in South Florida.
Long story. Endoscopy in the works. Suzanne was apoplectic doing it before Xmas out of her belief that sedation for a procedure in May led to my chf relapse.
Los Angeles Is Being Crushed Under the Weight of Inaction
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/opinion/los-angeles-fires.html
Lack of accountability on the part of elected officials because of the size of LA County. Lack of sense of urgency.
An unstated premise though is that this scale and type of fire was addressable, if they only planned better.
Actually that's true, but it would mean not building to begin with in many of the places that caught fire.
It's the end case of financialization.
The loss of life has been low given the scope.
Number of properties lost also high, but the problem is they are each worth over $2m.
(again, insurance won't cover land, just the structure, so it might be less)
Does anyone care? Everyone gets a check, nobody complains or does anything to fix the problem.
Granted the size may put a few insurance companies out of business, and in any case everyone in the state of California will be paying a lot more for home insurance next year.
You're at the point where you know your body and the reaction better than any medical provider.
That said, for a scope the anesthetic is different - more makes you compliant and loopy and doesn't knock you out. I asked my dad about that as well, he suggested a chest cat with contrast agents to see if there is blockages or masses. Might be easier if you don't want to do procedure. Worth asking about.
Thanks for this.
https://mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2025/01/47-years-later-the-palisades-disappeared-overnight
Post a Comment
<< Home