How do you get water up to high elevations in order to fight fires? Answer: build big water tanks even higher up. This is what Los Angeles does, and its network of tanks includes three million-gallon tanks near Pacific Palisades, site of the worst of LA's massive wildfires.
The tanks were all filled last week, but the Pacific Palisades fire was so big—enormously bigger than any previous fire in the area—that they ran out of water yesterday. Rick Caruso (yes, him again) is apoplectic:
Caruso, a former DWP commissioner, blasted the city for infrastructure that struggled to meet firefighting demands.
“There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” Caruso said with exasperation. Through Tuesday night, he expressed similar criticism in a series of live interviews with local TV stations. “The firefighters are there [in the neighborhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. ... It should never happen.”
This got me curious. Before today, has Caruso ever mentioned anything about these tanks? Did he ever push for more of them, or for them to be bigger?
As near as I can tell, no. In fact, I can't find any evidence that anyone ever uttered a peep about the tanks or showed the slightest concern about them. After all, they've never run dry before and this is hardly the first fire to hit the Palisades. But now? Suddenly everyone is an expert in water tankology.
The infrastructure was designed to handle a high percentage of fires. This fire was exceptional, up to 90 mph wind, low humidity, very little rain since Oct 1 (downtownLA 0.26"; LAX, which better represents Pacific Palisades, 0.04"). Normally it's 3.5" by now. The fire was enormous and spread very fast.
If Caruso wants infrastructure to handle 100% of the fires, then it should be built AND PAID FOR WITH TAXES.
It's the pugilistic style in American politics. There has to be some way that a disaster is about the wrongheaded idiocy of one's opponent(s) because politics is a (blood) sport.
I have to admit, I do find it disturbing how intensely Fox News world has focused on political blame. I guess it's just what they do. I don't expect them to talk about climate change or the actual reasons we have once-in-a-lifetime disasters across the U.S. so many times in a lifetime. But I would have imagined there was a little room for at least the pious, pseudostatesmanlike thoughts and prayers for the victims. Instead it seems it's straight to politics and out for blood from the first to the last, although they can't agree on which Democrats to blame for what exactly.
One can't read the comments on MAGA websites without concluding that American society is irretrievably broken. The "best" comment at the New York Post isn't about the fires at all; it's a resentful rehash of the whining about FEMA's response to the floods in South Carolina and of course Biden and his DemonRats don't care about THOSE victims.
Karen Bass is copping lots of blame for cutting the Fire Dept's budget for 2024-25 by a wopping 2%. It doesn't matter that the cuts have barely had a chance to affect anything, or that they were so small. No, she cut the spending to have more for the "illegals", so it's all her fault.
The core dysfunction in US politics is that MAGA people live in a make-believe world of myths and lies. Anything that doesn't conform to the predetermined narrative is rejected as "fake news". There is consequently no shared epistemological framework in which any good faith conversations can occur.
+1
I agree. Maybe everybody should be wearing their six shoooters and let it be done. It might be bloody, but at least the legislative log jam will be loosened up.
I expect our know-it-all president elect to pipe in any minute with his opinion and remind us again that his uncle was a scientist at MIT.
He already has. "Newscum" caused the disaster by refusing for years to pipe millions of gallons of water from the north of the state to the dry south because he wanted to save a useless fish.
If it hasn't already happened, all of the western states are going to adjust codes to reflect a new reality of continuous high fire risk zones. Within these zones, it won't be surprising if roofs and exterior walls are no longer allowed to just be non-combustible; they'll all have at least a 1-hour fire rating requirement and residential sprinklers without exceptions.
This is the cost of our new normal.
I'm surprised insurance companies haven't insisted on this to get a policy--though I suppose they might feel if it comes to that, they should just leave the market.
They are. Insurers are leaving the state in droves, just like Texas and Florida.
Not being able to get insurance is going to impact home prices at some point.
We're assuming we'll need to self insure our next house and are planning accordingly.
I work with one such insurance company and they are adjusting by offering the well-to-do policies that are not the traditional (and regulated) homeowners packages. Not as good as what they had but not nothing. Those who can't afford these new fangled policies are - as usual - out of luck.
And it's truly an indictment of the system. Probably what everybody thought insurance was for, pooling monies so that when disaster strikes suffering can be eased and rebuilding begin, is a complete hoax. It was a revenue stream for Capital.
Uh, no. Insurance has never been for pooling monies so that when disaster strikes suffering can be eased and rebuilding begin. It's pooling of monies when a low probability adverse event that is independent of other low probability adverse events occurs, so that suffering can be eased and rebuilding can begin.
If most people think that insurance was designed to do the former, it's because most people never get any education on what risk pooling is.
It is crucial for the events insured against to be both law probability and independent of each other. This allows premiums to be used to make whole those that have been unlucky.
If adverse events are common, then you cannot spread the risk. Too much of a single customer's premiums must be allocated to that customer's need to be made whole rather than be pooled to provide coverage for everyone. Buying insurance is always a negative expected value. You are spending a bit more money to protect yourself from being hit by an event that you couldn't pay for in full.
The adverse events need to be independent because actuarial models don't work if they aren't. If an adverse event happening to one policy holder means that it is more likely that the same adverse event to affect other policy holders, then you haven't reduced the likelihood that the adverse event is financially catastrophic. It just means that it is the insurance company that is holding that risk.
They can use reinsurance to reduce this risk, but increased probability of adverse events also makes this less effective.
As climate change makes various adverse events more common, the insurance model stops working. The insurers have a couple of options, none of which are good for the system. They can massively raise premiums to cover these risks created by the breakdown in the actuarial models. They can lobby to have the government involved in protecting against risk. Or, they can exit the markets most exposed to systemic risk, leaving only insurers that are undercapitalized and likely to go bust and not pay out on policies when the crisis happens.
This will also make it a lot harder to buy a house. Mortgage issuers insist on mortgaged houses having a homeowner's policy because the vast majority of people who take out a mortgage couldn't replace their house if it gets destroyed. When the policyholder walks away from a destroyed house, the mortgage company is left holding a property worth far less than the money that they are owed. That's not a viable business model. Without insurance, buying a house will largely become possible only for those who are wealthy enough that they could replace their house if it burned down and don't really need a mortgage, though they might take one out for tax or liquidity reasons.
So, no. Insurance is not just a revenue stream for capital.
In a normal house fire, the fire department shuts off the electricity, gas, and I would guess the water. In a wildfire situation, that can get a bit harder and broken pipes will make the situation worse.
The water towers do get refilled--as long and the pumping stations stay online.
You're right, people shouldn't complain unless the said something before the fire. And any discussion now should include possible viable solutions. You'll need, what, 4 times the capacity (more?)--and a place to put the tanks? Other options?
Also, the water tanks aren't intended to supply all of the water needed. They're meant to increase low water pressure during periods of heavy usage by releasing supplemental water that takes advantage of the gravitational potential energy created by storing water at a higher elevation than the rest of the system. In almost all circumstances, there is a daily cycle, and when the high usage is over, you create more potential energy by pumping water back into the towers.
No water storage infrastructure in the world has the capacity to be the primary source of water for days on end, even when there isn't a fire to fight.
This. With the exception of drafting, actually sucking water from a supply that is relatively still, the firefighters there already understand that they need to husband their water and especially because they are elevated. Not only steady supply but gravity needs to be overcome.
The Palisades was a beautiful jewel suspended by a string next to a fireplace, only a matter of time.
Mr. Caruso is a private citizen. Why was he even talked to at all on TV compared to any other citizen in the same situation?
What's amazing is people who deny climate change and at the same time demand immediate mitigation of the extreme weather events that take place because of it. LA is lucky it even has water to fight fires given a drought has been going on since May of 2024.
Caruso was a DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND POWER COMMISSIONER -- the article says "a former DWP Commissioner" -- in the past, and he is criticizing the Mayor?????
If the water supply is inadequate (and it never before has had such a tremendous load) then HE directly bears some of the responsibility for not planning enough surge capacity.
What a DICK!
+1
Responsibility is always someone else's problem. Everyone plays the blame game! Even if there's no blame to be had.