We don't need any politicians at this point. They no longer work for the people. They work for their corporate overlords and sell us out and our futures. The constitution says to start a new government when it no longer works for the people.
Engineers do not fund elections. The politicians enjoy private fundraisers in the homes of billionaires, and above all the billionaires want expanded tax loopholes for themselves.
@@markzajac9993 ...and stop pandering to all the "for profit" insurance companies. If we are REQUIRED to carry insurance (by mortgage companies) for homwowners, renters, vehicles as well as for liability purposes. Then the insurance companies (which are licensed & bonded) should be REQUIRED to do more than "take the money and run."
Fully agree. It’s just we’re always short on engineers and there’s a glut of law grads. It also doesn’t help that bureaucracy is something engineers actively try to avoid.
Lawyers should be permenently blocked from holding leadership positions, confining them to give advice only, because people in positions of authority who routinely lie before breakfast is not conducive to a democracy and the Rule of Law. Instead, all we get is the rule of lawyers, which means that nobody is ever held Personally Accountable.
@@neilmckechnie6638 totally agree. The USA needs skilled executives and engineers to fix the nuts and bolts of the country. Thank goodness DOGE is going to start to bring some sanity to federal spending... California desperately needs its own DOGE !
we also don't have competency requirements for voting, perhaps thats why we have people voting based on shit like Gender or Sexual Orientation or Skin Color instead of who is most qualified for the job.
I live in So. Cal. My father was an engineer for the Division of California Water Recourses. Im talking 1950s 1960s, 1970s. It started with the building of the Oroville Dam and carries water throughout the state. We moved every few years as the California aqueduct was built. It brought the Xtra water from the north to the southern parts of the state. It was a huge endeavor and I am proud to have actually seen the difference it made. The year my father died is the year the Oroville Dam had its collapse. It was heartbreaking for him to see the way in which repairs were ignored and the entire aqueduct, including the dams and reservoirs, were left unable to be used. It now breaks my heart to know that our Government has been so greedy and mismanaged that all the work the people back then put in to create a perfect system of water management and getting the water to places that needed it was a waste of time and resources.
Political evil and corruption knows no bounds. Thank you very much for your comment. When conscience-less greed-seeking criminals take over, we all suffer. Evil always prevails over good in this country and I honestly don't know why. I guess the devil will have his way.
Politicians don't like to spend money on maintenance. Their choice: 1) spend money on maintenance, but don't get re-elected. 2) don't spend money on maintenenace, but on new projects. Keep getting re-elected untill the lack in maintenance causes issues. Sadly, the 2e option is the best for politicians. It's a systemic issue, not an issue with politicians themselves.
I drive a water tender for wildland fires in Utah. Pumps for replenishment of water pressure tanks are fine, but when you see an image of a hydrant losing pressure for a fire engine, there is also an incident commander that should be watching resources available, knowing the constraints of a system based on a pre incident plan. This plan will know the flow constraints of a system and should be assigning water tenders to supply engines with water. If you send 20 engines into a neighborhood and the neighborhood water system can only supply a flow rate for 10 engines, the other 10 engines should have been assigned elsewhere, or had tenders to accompany them. Making sure there are water tenders that can cover the whole state rather than upgrading tank pumps for every single neighborhood is a much more cost effective way to fight fires, and that tender can access areas where there are no hydrants too, to offensively fight a wildland fire before structure firefighters need to defensively fight a fire once it enters a neighborhood.
Thank you for the work you do in Utah! My family siblings work on Idaho Forest services and helping emergency fire fighting teams. We are going to get hit soon with an insane fire.With so many people carelessly visiting all our dry forests.
@ , we can have river restoration and municipal water supplies adequate for fighting fires. These two things are not necessarily at odds with each other. Do you know that salmon returning to rivers contributes to forest health? Healthy forests don’t burn catastrophically. When a politician suggests a simple solution, expect it is to manipulate you, not solve a problem.
Good insight. I totally agree. Its not rocket science. But politicians seem to be getting dumber and dumber. Or put in contension for a position were where a dumb person will do exactly the wrong things that lead to destruction. Sort of plausible deniability scenario.
You speak Truth! We were evacuated for 11 days from the Trinity County side of the Carr Fire (July 2018) in the Shasta Trinity National Forrest. In such remote areas the Tender Trucks are the only hope,(along with Chopper Bucket drops). Sometimes the Tender Truck Driver's hear more details than publically released, great source of accurate information 👍
I am a construction superintendent down in San Diego. I specialize in pump stations and treatment plants. San Diego has been supplementing almost every water tower with pump stations to increase pressure, not just gravity. We're also upgrading reservoir pump stations, also building pump stations at reservoirs that don't have. I'm proud to be in San Diego, because after the big fires we had about 10 years ago. Every dollar water departments and districts get, they're upgrading everything that will improve water distribution. I wasnt aware of the dams here that arent being repaired though, which worries me. Because I know a lot of high ups in water districts here. We talk a lot, never mentioned the dams. They were probably told to be quiet about it......
Call me a California hater if you like, IMHO this is what you get when you overpopulate an area that is artificially irrigate a dessert. No tears shed here, you brought it upon yourselves.
@@RiverRatWA57 parts of California is a desert, parts are tropical, parts are rain forest, forest and parts have some of the most fertile soil in the world. California agriculture feeds the entire United States. Over the past decades, environmentalists have forgotten where the veggies they eat come from. They are determined to stop all agriculture and they've found that taking the water away works best. They found out Newsom will do anything for a few dollars. I hope you never have to face the disaster going on in Los Angeles, but chances are you will. Would you like to be blamed for a disaster you didn't cause? Would you like to hear what you've said to Californians as your home burns down or floats away?
@@RiverRatWA57 look at all those folks lugging a half-dozen security animals out of their burning houses! That costs money to feed them daily, that could have been spent on pruning back the overgrowth, especially removing the dead trees and bushes, as well as the dead layers of ember-spewing palm fronds and gaseous eucalyptus trees, horrible choices all in the name of deadly vanity, materialism, and hyper-competitive superficialities over their own dead bodies. All of that to keep up with the now dead Joneses was hardly worth it, but try telling that to all of those superficialist sellouts. I hope the movement to avoid buying insurance policies from companies who insure Californians (wait for it!) “spreads like wildfire.” Take that, listen, learn, and survive, grasshoppers.9
@@RiverRatWA57 Damn! Your comment is the nicest comment ever. Keep it up. Please go tell the same to the people in Phoenix. They’ll really appreciate it. 👍🏼
@@RiverRatWA57 Most places in the US are artificially sustained by something or another and have a certain natural disaster risk level. Wyoming has the threat of another Yellowstone mega eruption and would also be a difficult place to live without cheap, prevalent electricity, for example. You likely benefit from all the Californian's that pay in taxes. Last year, they paid 360 billion in FIT. For comparison, Alabama paid 19 billion. You can take a lot away from that, least of which isn't the fact that CA residents--as dumb as they could be--do more to sustain the rest of us than any other state. And think of the movies? haha.
@@RolandGustafsson how many times do your hands need to burned before you take the hand off the stove, answer?.... Once you stop listening to the lying media who tell you your hand ain't burning
That’s why people need to stop hearing what they say but start seeing what to did or do. Like I can’t even believe some people voted for Kamala. Come on! I didn’t even have to research her online, we had 4 years to see!
@RolandGustafsson the unfortunate part is manytimes there isn't a good option. For example the presidential election this year (and many others) in my opinion was two horrible candidates. You just have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser or the two
@@AJC4866If all the voters cast their vote without choosing, the vote will count as blank (which is completely different from not voting). So if the majority is of blank votes, no president can be chosen, a clear indication of the voters not agreeing with the candidates, and they will have to do another election with different candidates.
@@maxmateush7090 Well I imagine people voted for Kamala because they didn’t want to have their rights taken away under Trump’s presidency bro please open your eyes
@@Handlethis342 um… no. Thats a rather lame statement. Being in charge of water supply and distribution for a city like LA, naturally a drought area, means you have to have specific knowledge and protocols. The fact this was preventable, and all evidence shows it was, and she’s still getting paid three quarters of a million, shows she is 1: incompetent 2: a DEI hire 3: culpable The fact you focus only on accusations she is ‘living the good life’ shows your ignorance on the subject
@@PassengersMusic777 incompetent, DEI hire, and culpable? 🚩 Nice talking points. What facts are you basing preferred conclusions on rather than the feelings in your belly?
@ sounds like your favorite hatertainment outlets are giving you a minority to blame so you feel better for being ignorant on the subject. But please, why don’t you tell the class how exactly Crowley facilitated budget cuts for the fire dept. I’m not sure you realize she is a public’s servant and not a politician but I am sure you believe both your enemies. “Must blame someone for everything!”
@@Handlethis342 you are clearly showing your ignorance. When the fire chief promotes as her main agenda DEI for LGBT and mandates courses, you know where her priorities lie. Stop covering for your politicians and their political appointees who led to this disaster. You have no clue where to begin. Why are you supporting them? Tell me you’re a Democrat without telling me you’re a Democrat
With losses of up to 150 Billion $ dollars, California now has almost lost more money in these 6 isolated fires than what has EVER been spend on preventing it... in All Time. This is SO sad, these fires are SO brutal, but there also seems to be a leadership responsibility talk worth having in the aftermath, for sure !
As much hatred the LA Fire Chief has gotten, it seems clear at this point that she had been trying to sound the alarm about the city not only cutting the LAFD budget but also that their existing funding level was grotesquely insufficient for even their normal call volume. The separate sources from the LA Fire Chief have confirmed reports done in the last few years and found that the city needs an additional 62 fire stations to meet non-crisis call volumes. Theres no way to prove that the additional Fire Fighting resources would have stopped these fires outright, but its pretty clear the city leadership has been openly negligent in its funding of critical services, and any additional resources would have helped at least contain these fires better.
@@jana171 why not get your wealthy oligarchs and the captains of capitalism to step in and help the nation when a disaster hits? They have been very quiet and trying to work out ways of how the tax payer can help them. It's how corporatism works - it's a form of fascisn
Exactly, to once again vote for someone who denies the climate crisis, which is the main reason for the huge fires, is genuinely stupid. Instead, he advocates "drill baby, drill" which will further complicate the situation. It's always easier to blame someone else.
That's somewhat naive. This is a part of the country where corruption is inevitable. Voters often don't _really_ have a choice because either their choices are limited to two corrupt parties, or, the independents have no budget to get themselves known to the general public. Popularity often wins regardless of credentials or affiliations.
My career was in wildfire management, including being a prescribed fire specialist. The chaparral in LA has a frequent wildfire return interval. Some of the areas burning during this incident hadn't burned since the 1960s. So the chaparral was ripe to burn.
In addition, the wind blows every year and we have fires every year. I have survived 2 fires so far in my life. Just waiting for the big earthquake. Have 2 weeks of food and water on hand.
Wildfire may be a misnomer. This was likely arson with 2 credible reports of arson, and 1 credible report of power line arcing. Now I wonder if Trump's threats to the Panamanian people have anything to do with it...
Those of us living here, even those not as expert as you, can see the cycle. I was evacuated in Sylmar just several years ago, and my family was involved with school within the La Tuna Canyon area which burned out (right to the edge of the school!) and yet, NOW is green and shows little evidence of the great fires not so long ago. There absolutely will be wild fires, but there can be absurd, devastating fires, or there can be unfortunate and relatively less bad ones. The way to handle these things is to institute public policy which adheres strenuously to what is CONTROLLABLE, what can be DONE, and not focus upon supposition, anti-human sentiment and unrealistic notions. We can build great water system of over built scale. We can clear dead wood and can build fire breaks. We can elect NOT to build out the more dangerous areas (don't build in the shadow of big dams!). Focus on what is practical.
Every one of these water drop pilots is an absolute hero. i watched hours of the Mandeville Canyon footage yesterday and it was stunning to see the constant coordination of so many different aircraft dropping every few minutes for hours. Incredible.
They are heroes. And I'd bet anything each and every one of them would be glad to see PUBLIC POLICY which would make big fires like this far more rare, far less damaging. In fact I KNOW THIS. . .somehow. It's like soldiers. The real ones don't want war.
Blaming doesn't solve anything. Once the fire has destroyed acreage, blaming is not going to bring homes back or change anything. If there is a benefit to the devastating fire, it would be to learn by mistakes that have been made. It would be easier to understand hearing a government leader made the wrong choice. Rebuilding dams and making repairs, money to train firefighters and fire prevention voted by the public. We need to be open for change for the better. We need to allow residents to protect the biggest investment in their life, their home.
Ex California resident. The worst part for me was that despite the increase in spending for health and services the health and social services are looking like they are doing less and less. They manage to burn tons of cash “managing issues” eg homelessness and they can’t show anything for it.
It will take a decade to build back the mental health (in particular) and drug addiction support systems that are one of the bigger sources of homelessness. What is it that you think the state should do that could be done faster?
As someone who lives in Tarzana, just a couple of miles from where the Palisades fire spread to, I can confirm that the day the fires began, we had insane Santa Ana winds with gusts of upward of 90-100mph. I can also confirm that it's been very dry and there hasn't been any rain for months.
@@CrissaKentavr What kind of idiot makes a comment like yours. Most of the hydrants were empty, and the ones that had water had low pressure since there was ZERO water in the resevoir. Then there is the brainiace governor that would rather see rivers empty into the sea than divert SOME of that water into the resevoir. Honestly do some research, before opening your ignorant mouth.
The "whats happening with shipping" channel pointed out a real problem (he is also a firefighter). When you get a large fire in an urban area, home owner evacuate and when the houses burn down all the water pipes burn and it is as if all houses have all their taps turned on.
Exactly. I just watched it too before this video popped up. Please don't listen to this TwoBitHack guy. He's really one of the worst individuals that really brings nothing substantial to the conversation. No critical thinking but he DOES have his own biases that he wants to insert and use these disasters as proof to get you to believe what he's saying. This guy has a long history of promoting bad science and even worse companies that come close to actual scams. I think even thunderf00t had a video that exposed one of his ridiculous "tech miracle" videos. He's basically just like that other bald buy "undecided with Matt the shill". Uh i hate how much these people get put into my recommended feeds. They really need to just go away.
@@peterbonham5540 I saw that too. I guess the reason they weren’t using the water pump boats & trucks portable pumps is they weren’t trained on them. That seems like negligence. Not by the fire department but by those running the city. People seem to hard time grasping that just because something hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it never will.
@@lizlee5052sure there is blame to put there. But on the other hand you cannot plan for everything possible … especially if you don’t want to pay for it.
I'm a professional EE with 25 years of experience in Semiconductor Development. Our local city council had an opening and I ran for the position. While speaking before council I followed up an older gentleman who was a Civil Engineer with water experience. We both lost out to a Mom and retired cop and lawyer who now sit on our council. Its an uphill battle to try and educate these folks. I now teach at a college and try my hardest to make students love Science and Engineering and to understand how to properly diagnose and solve hard problems. Hopefully they will go out and make a difference. I will keep trying to get into local office but its not easy running on problem solving platform. Even local politics is very divided and partisan.
Controlled burns are done preventatively during green (wet) periods. Brush clearing is done manually where and when burns are inadvisable. Brush control is basic, ongoing maintenance. There's no rational excuse.
You don't understand how mountainous the LA area is. That's the rational excuse against manual brush management is. The canyons that the Palisades fire traveled through is surrounded by the Santa Monica mountains. The mountains that the Eaton fire traveled through, is the San Gabriel Mountains. Manual brush clearing is not possible on mountain slopes. If there's a way to use drones to access to the brushes that grow on these mountains to clear dry brush, it hasn't been developed yet.
@@MrKornnugget It makes sense if you factor in great and corruption. I believe if there was an audit completed we'd find that politicians siphon this money off because there's no accountability. This is why they will never solve the homeless crisis, because it's a huge racket for the States!
As an engineer you should know that designing for the worst possible scenario is not what happens. The main reason is it would be too expensive. Tax payers would pitch a bitch about the cost. Urban planners have been warning about the development in these areas for decades. Fire experts have as well. This disaster was inevitable.
Agree! Getting really sick and tired of all the ppl commenting that "no one knew" and "only in hindsight" as if tons of ppl weren't sounding the alarm for YEARS.
But the Paradise fire should have forced a massive rethink of what needed to be done. After showing the public images from that fire, the politicians could've convinced voters of the need for preparing for more reservoirs..
@ one it just happened so that is not a thing yet. Two people are already talking about rebuilding. They are already talking about doing the same damn thing that got them into this situation.
If only there was a huge saltwater source nearby they could pump water from... that would really help. The salt would be diluted quickly enough that things would grow back and the fires could be extinguished quicker. Or they could just do forest maintenance like the rest of the country...
Thank you so very much for gathering all this research and explaining what happened so clearly! Wow! I’ve seen a lot of videos and nothing has presented it so concisely and clearly. I’m now a subscriber and a fan!🙌🏾
That drone hit the Superscooper on Thursday. Flight operations when the firestorm was first happening were suspended because the winds were too dangerous to fly in.
One thing you forget about the insurance is that California put a limit on how much you can raise the insurance. So insurers started dropping fire insurance or outright stopped providing insurance in California.
Insurance should never have a profit motive. Insurance companies are snakes. They gouge you on premiums and then try to weasel out of any payments when it's time to pay out. Make all types of insurance a public utility.
30:07 a big part of why they’re dropping coverage is the state has limited their ability to increase premiums year to year. This just mathematically means they can’t renew high risk homes, because they’re not legally allowed to charge enough to cover the expected loss. As with most price controls, you wind up creating a worse problem by decreasing supply
The dams removed in this presentation were on the Klamath river. Removed to restore historic salmon migration. They did not provide water outside of the Klamath river drainage (basically steep canyons), certainly not to the canals which ship water south for agriculture where the desert has been turned into industrial scale farms. Locals do not like the dam removals, as they are leaving ugly scars where the reservoirs used to be. Nevertheless, not an issue for southern california firefighting.
Also important to point out is that the dam licensee, PacifiCorp, opted to proceed with removal the 4 dams on the Klamath to avoid costly upgrades necessary for re-licensing. Restoring fish habitat, though a priority for some, was secondary to the decision makers. I don't recall Newsom actively pushing for removal and it had zero impact on fires in LA.
These are all NONSENSE arguments ...its getting HOTTER EVERY DAY, YEAR AFTER YEAR.....CO2 levels won't go down even if we stop all Fossil Fuels for 200 more years so in a Decade the summer daytime Temperatures will be 130-140 Degrees F..................who can live at this temperature !....who is holding the Fossil Fuel industry to account ?
Here’s a thought. How about not emptying the reservoir until you’ve approved a bid. Do not use the reservoir water for any other purpose than fire prevention during the time that you’re waiting for bids to come in.
@robertstwocents that's what we did with Anderson Dam in Morgan Hill (Silicon Valley). The dam was damaged same winter season as Oroville, but it was functional. As soon as the contract was signed (which took awhile) they began the work, not before.
The reservoir is being actively repaired right now, in what is supposed to be the rainy season. This is the problem with getting information from unvetted sources, it's usually inaccurate.
To help you understand the workings of a municipal government let me share this with you. Several years ago back a resident called my department to report a piece of furniture on the public right-of-way that should not be there. The call taker emailed his boss concerning this issue. The bosses supervisor emailed the director of the department and he received that email on Monday morning. So on Monday the director emailed the director of Public Works about the problem. The Public Works director emailed his second in command and asked him to have the furniture removed. The second in command received that email on Tuesday. He emailed the supervisor in charge of the section that does maintenance on the street. That supervisor read that on Wednesday. He emailed the supervisor in direct charge of the maintenance crew. He received that email on Thursday. On Friday the order tricked down to the actual people on the ground and the furniture was removed. This is normal everyday workings of a city government. So the empty basin that needed a cover and took so long does not surprise me at all. I hope this helps you understand how things operate in a city. Yes, the job will be done. You just don’t know when.
@@coffeeisgood102 Yeah, the bureaucracy is so incredibly inefficient. Unfortunately, you can see these processes everywhere, it’s a pain in the ass in every company, which has more than few employees.
@@coffeeisgood102 Excellent breakdown. Taxpayer dollars have to be managed by bureaucracy. Failure to do so will result in taxpayer activists complaining and possible further cuts. It’s seemingly inefficient but every department has its priorities: Police, Healthcare, Water Management, etc. Plus tax cuts. Precarious balancing act.
So the fact that 106 fire engines are broke down ' the city emptied a vital resivuor and the firedepart was 300 firemen understaffed wouldn't have made any difference ??? Got it !
Big, big difference between dropping water and fire retardant. Water without the retardant mixtures is only minimally effective for many reasons - the water turns into spray and is not concentrated nor does it "coat" the vegertation or other surfcaces in contact, as does the fire retardant. Water alone just drains off of surfaces. Think of dish soap with water and the cohesion.
You use a nice physics term "cohesion". Materials all have a coefficient of cohesion. You are right. This has more to do with practical limits on what can be put into the air, how many round trips can be made, how many pilots can fly these craft and how many fires are going at once. It's less a materials science / chemistry thing than a resource management exercise. There are far more helicopters, water scoopers, their related pilot forces than the larger, more complex retardant resources. Boy, I sure wish there was tons more retardant because it seems profoundly effective.
The reservoir being drained for a year over a covering drives me absolutely mad, as someone who lives in LA and has had to evacuate, the negligence is truly breathtaking
negligence would be not making repairs . . . not making the time, not developing a budget for it, or acquiring the funding . . . if there's anyone to blame, consider the source and cause, which actually might be an arsonist . . .or, arsonists . . . but, before we jump to conclusions, let's wait for the results of the investigations and for deeper reporting on it all . . . 🕵️♂️👀
This TOTALLY fixes the water pressure problem! You wouldn't like the tax bill to create a modern fire suppression system to handle a fire of this scale. Oh, and " :) "
@@JL-nb1yc I agree. And I want to add my thanks to Ricky. As a Californian, I’m defensive when I see that us voters deserve this. We are tying to do the best we can with the information we have. Yes, fires and the chances of perfect storms are increasing due to climate changing and major unusual weather swings. It’s also good to know that taking nearly a year to solve a seemingly simple problem because govenment purchasers are forced to 1) get multiple bids 2) Asses the bids 3) have the project get approved or else face consequences from constituents so on an so forth. It sucks that our vulnerability increases with time which allows us to not fight disasters like this with everything that we have to maximize our chances of mitigation.
He didn't have time to go into different political parties. And he's maybe not old enough to remember. California could never balance the budget under Republican Governors. From Reagan to Schwartzenneger. Jerry Brown actually had us with a surplus. So did Newsom the first few years. But he is right. There should be no reason with our high taxes, for these infrastructure issues, not to be fixed. Otherwise, we're just paying for the mild climate and the views. All that said, please be aware, Republicans run things just as bad or worse. They ain't gonna cut your taxes, unless your rich af.
@@anthonyhalkyer2036 Ah yes, the "clmate change" mantra has appeared instead of holding politicians responsible for not FOR CLIMATE CHANGE and the stupid voters who keep voting them in.
@@anthonyhalkyer2036 In sum, perhaps PRACTICAL is the key. To me, even without solving or knowing all, one can find things which are fully controllable to devote actions and resources to. For disasters like this, it's quite usual to see some decisions prior to the event which clearly led to the horror, and yet could have handled things in a practical way. I see people focused upon things which are speculative, are "Pet" movement ideology, as opposed to fiercely objective proposals. Take the water run off and store it? That's not stupid, the run off exists. Storage, is possible, but it costs money. Meanwhile, in the section on financial matters we see hundreds of billions flowing. Could this be POSSIBLE? Where there is a will, there is a way. When the leaders have no desire, there will be no action.
I would love to see more videos on measures, materials, and technologies that can withstand fires in California or hurricanes on the gulf. When we rebuild, what can we do better.
Every new home should be built of fire-resistant materials: cinder block walls; metal trusses; tile roofs. Landscaping should be xeriscaped, and strictly controlled. All rain runoff should be captured in cisterns on-property and/or in-community, and equipped for fire pumping in emergency. All pools should be equipped for emergency pumping. No rebuilding to older standards should be allowed.
That's all good, but there's the little problem of more expensive housing in a state already plagued with a housing crisis. There are no solutions in life, only trade-offs (paraphrasing Dr. Sowell).
But waters not scarce in California. The largest ocean on the planet is adjacent to California. The actual scarce resource in California is integrity, competance, and common sense. And let's be honest, adding a little more a 'toxic masculinity' to the state wouldn't hurt.
water in California is scarce ONLY because of the ineptitude of the politicians making your decisions out there. there's been plenty of time to repair infrastructure that you already have. paying exorbitant sums of money towards homelessness is pure incompetence. cutting of budgets to the fire department in one of the most fire prone areas is pure stupidity. you elect your politicians. they make these decisions for you. either talk up and get them out of office, or make sure they do the job they are elected for. the mayor of LA should face criminal negligence charges she's been more concerned with what's happening in Africa for years instead of the constituents that have elected her. California been underfilling reservoirs for decades due to it not being repaired to deal with its normal operating capacities, that is SHAMEFUL considering the amount of money in that state that is just wasted of inflated positions in government by people that cant even handle doing the base job that they are elected and hired for. corruption is what has led to this, and the wasteful spending just to pump up funds where money can disappear easier into pockets. $150k repair for a single reservoir has led to $150B in damages and loss. 11 months to repair a liner? too much red tape in that state. this is what happens with over regulation. california is proof of that. yes when everything works california is an example to other states in the union, but California's practices and regulation FREQUENTLY breaks down and causes problems further down the line. in most situations, it HAULTS progress.
@@TruthDragon. There are amazing desalination projects operating in places around the world. We face the vast Pacific Ocean, but we squirm with draconian water conservation. Yes, back long ago we had immense aqueduct achievements (my father worked as surveyor on this vast project), but today we LACK WILL to do what we need around water system PUBLIC POLICY.
As a retired public employee, I can tell you, there's a process you have to go through to do anything, back in the pre prop 13 days, they would have staff and resources to just fix it themselves, and if they needed contractors, would have had a company they knew and trusted and just give them a call and get it done, no more, most public agencies have been cut to bare minimum, and they have to go out to bid for everything, and the lowest qualified bidder gets the job, most of the best companies have quit working for public agencies or just gone out of business, the ones that are left, they cut to the bone to get the job and it's difficult to get quality work done in the time frame you need, and the California voters did this, they don't trust public employees to do to job, so you get what you deserve in the end...
You mean the capitalist system of cutting the the public sector into ineptitude therefore destroying public trust in it and making government an apparatus to serve the wealthy? Then yes. It has been a goal for the last 50+ years but really since inception to privatize everything including pubici resources like water. If money can be made somewhere…
Well the administration did this to save money. They don't care about keeping qualified employees in house. They think subcontracting is the answer. That way they aren't responsible if something goes wrong. It's because they're basically stupid when it comes to maintaining infrastructure.
For Chaparral, they controlled it with Bulldozers when I moved here 35 years ago. They cut a huge criss-cross, isolating patches of brush. Then they performed burns of brush in the isolated patches.
The drone strike did not happen in the first hours of the fire. Fixed wing aircraft were grounded on Tuesday into Wednesday because of the wind. The Drone strike occurred on Thursday. While this is a serious and intolerable incident, and had negative impacts on the firefight, characterizing it as hampering operations in the first hours of the devastating Palisades fire is misinformed in the least, to intentionally misleading in the worst. The running out of water is also related to the grounding of aircraft on Tuesday. If the aircraft had not been grounded, their efforts could have, in the least, reduced the demand on the use of fire hydrants to, in the best scenario, limited the speed and size of the fire, again, reducing demand on the water system. As you stated, the winds were exceptional. That was the primary cause of this unprecedented event. As for dam removal at the extreme north end of California, Los Angeles gets almost all it's water from the Owens Valley to the east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, from the Colorado river, and from ground wells. The impact of those dams, or any other dams in California on the west of the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains is negligible. If we repaired all the dams as you have pointed out need repairing, it would not change the ability to fight fires in urban areas as you suggest in saying having a thousand small reservoirs spread across the state. The problem is that the state water systems, fire fighting systems, and HHS systems were designed and built for a state that no longer exists. The issue is the slow change due to climate change. Los Angeles, to begin with, was build in a desert. It's growth was exploded with the bringing of water from the Owens Valley. We now have about 18 Million people living in a desert with little significant local water sources. As for maintaining the lands using prescribed burns, this is a result of a (finally) shifting veiw of land management. The problem, it can be argued, began with the US Forest service adopting the policy of fighting every forest fire in 1935. Also, most of the chaparral is the result of non native species. If you look at historical photos of the areas where these fires occurred, you will see a grassland landscape with few trees and brush. I also found that you finally recognized the major problem being climate change, that it was mentioned almost in passing, to be weak. As for property tax, you neglect the issues surrounding California's tax law that prevent re-assessment of property values, in particularly in regard to commercial properties, that keep property tax revenue artificially low.
@@scottramos7949 It's so annoying when people say that the major issue is global warming. What, if not the global warming, we wouldn't have droughts & wind stop blowing? Well, we are still living through the Ice age. So the temperature would be still rising. Ok, maybe we shouldn't move production to China? They are building the coal plants. Maybe we should build nuclear? Maybe we shouldn't blow up the Russian Gas pipelines, & ship the liquid gas to the EU? Well, maybe we should do all of that, and also bring water down to LA, instead of "Bringing Salmon"? How about the Forest Management? ... If we would just prevent all these fires, you will be way ahead of "saving the environment". Just cut the forest & use it to run your Tesla. Why waste?
Thank you for pointing this out. Many people seem to think that 90-100mph winds on that Tuesday night basically blasting hot embers miles away did not have any factor in these horrific fires. No amount of fire suppression, fire hoses and ground crews could have stopped this. I say to people: try pissing into the wind and see what results they get, this is what the firefighters were dealing with. All planes were grounded. I live near the Altadena area and saw 1st hand the absolutely crazy Santa Ana's that night. I've lived here the better part of 18 years and have NEVER seen them so strong. Trees down EVERYWHERE. Factor no rain since April and hot extremely dry air blasting down from the desert... this is the unfortunate result. I really despise the politization of this incident from people who have no damn clue - it's disgusting!
100% agree with your post and I commented something similar because this video seems so misleading. They had to fight the fire from the sides and from the back and the terrain on the back side is really rough. Tons of misinformation continues to spread because people don't understand how things work.
An 'average' home value of $4,000,000 causes insurance rates for those with homes under $400,000 to increase a LOT. Home values over a certain point should be required to use completely separated insurance. We loved living in California, too. But we couldn't stand what the politicians were doing to the state, so we left - in 1997, and we weren't alone. My family moved to California after my Dad retired from the USAF in 1967. My wife lived there all her life until we moved. California politicians have been ruining the state for a very long time.
I left in 2021. They made it effectively legal to shoplift < $1000, and illegal to have separate boys and girls aisles in toy stores. When they started to seriously consider taxing people *after* they left the state, it was the last straw.
@@barryon8706 CA tried to tax my retirement account after I left. That reaffirmed that I made the correct decision. Sacramento collects some weird politicians.
I don't understand how more expensive homes makes insurance on cheaper homes higher? You pay based on the cost to rebuild or the value of your house, right?
@@smileymbb1 The insurance companies are in business for making a profit. If they have to pay out on a 20 Million dollar home, they have to increase everybody's rates.
To fight fire, you need water. It doesnt matter how it started. It's how the authorities responded and the failures of these authorities to fight the fire
The fire hydrants are built to use a few at a time to keep the pressure up. If you try to open almost all of them at the same time, you won't possibly get enough pressure. For that, you need giant mechanical pumps.
@@MatsAtheist Yes, and I'd suggest that if a real estate development or its customers INSIST upon building in areas prone to fire, then you simply MUST build out this far more ROBUST set of water systems. Just like we built this vast set of flood control channels all over the place. We figured out this was a flood prone place, thus we said - Okay, we will have to deal with this problem. Today not as much "dealing with it" is going on.
I'm no fire expert and here in Michigan we have a much different topography and climate but every spring here people control burn their fields for a couple reasons, it helps control the tick population and it also helps prevent grass fires that could become forest fires.
Prayers for all of those affected by this disaster. Losing a home is devastating, and entire communities have been lost. What residents can do is step up to run for local offices. So many smart people there, I’m sure you can create better governance. People’s hard earned money should not be wasted like that. We have the same problems here in NJ.
America needs to learn how to build houses using concrete, cement and other materials that aren't instantly flammable. The westernized tofu dreg used today (cardboard, plastic and wood) is a housefire waiting to happen, especially in an area prone to wildfires, which California very much is! Better houses that can withstand more, won't stop fires from happening, but it could mean fewer houses being completely lost, and fewer houses feeding a fire. Yes, homes would still be heavily affected by smoke, but you can hopefully sanitize places that's been damaged by smoke and maybe replace some furniture, something that's likely in a sense easier than having to completely rebuild an entire property... Just look at that mansion that was the last house standing in one neighborhood. THAT type of construction is what should be the building standard for both residential housing and businesses alike!
My brother had the real estate section of the Honolulu Star Bulletin as his duty. He was a big fan of fully concrete construction residential. A situation like this may mean it has to be redone as to electrical and plumbing, but the building survives, gets cleaned and continues to function as a residence.
There is always 100 mph winds in Southern California, enough for semi trucks to flipover on the interstate 10, and the 210, like toys. This happens almost every year, near the interstate 15. The winds come in from the area known as the Cajon Pass. Very powerul winds.
The blame lies in the fact that there are too many houses in areas like this, whether it’s LA hills or Oakland. Hilly residential areas with narrow roads and dry westerly winds, it’s not a matter of if, but when. 😢
Victim blaming? I'm a former firefighter and engineer, this comment is wrong. Ricky is correct. Prevention s the key. This area has known risks that are not new and were not managed. Plenty of warnings for years and observed incidents proving the warnings correct. A bit too late after the fires start because there is a point where the fire creates it's own mirco-climate that makes stopping impossible and all you can do is what we call surround and drown. But you can't without water. An LA firefighter said we've been just lucky for years because the weather changed but one day our luck will run out.
Blowing up four dams may not have affected the fire outcome, but doing so clearly shows the mentality of CA politicians who want to peserve nature at all costs, including human lives and human civilization. By the way, those dams provided green energy to tens of thousands of homes.
Those dams were removed by the request of the local populations, after years of planning. Are you saying that CA politicians shouldn't listen to their constituents? Also, the amount of renewable power those tiny hydro dams produced is in the noise compared to California's renewable generation. Barely 169MW. What does this say about you?
I would humbly like to offer a perspective on the northern dams. The people who live here held many meetings with the representatives of PG&E (and of Warren Buffet) who wanted to remove the dams rather than continue to maintain them. The people where I live voted to keep the dams. Many of the members of the community supporting the dams were engineers and provided the bulk of research and contract information showing outcomes and legal requirements being ignored by the “removal” organization. Fish ladders and shutes were explored but I heard that PG&E did not want to continue maintenance. I don’t know the facts on that, because I thought there was newly passed legislation supporting water projects. There was also discussion of additional construction at the mouth of the Klamath to direct some of fresh water via an enclosed culvert to the south, rather than letting all of it run to the sea. In summary I want to say that the reason the northern California water has come into discussion is for several reasons: 1) A pattern is seen throughout the state of California that reflects poor leadership and judgment; 2) We have fires in far north California too and relied recently on the Klamath for fighting the Klamath Fire; 3) local people including some natives were on both sides of the issue, and as I say, we voted to keep the Copco Dam and were ignored; 4) the locals have tales of the days before the dams were constructed of the Klamath in summer being called “stinking creek,” or some such name because it could be walked across and was stagnant. So, lastly I will say that 5) if we need water during summer fire season, I wonder if the planes will be able to drop buckets in and retrieve water as they have done in recent years? And 6) will the Salmon be able to traverse the stream during their seasonal run?
I'd wonder about you claim, the mentality is one of trying to restore, where possible, a bit of nature. I see nothing wrong with this. - Dams reach an age where they become risks, needing expensive repairs. The video suggested it's a shame to see all that fresh water going to the sea. Well, isn't that what it's supposed to do. The mighty Colorado river now dries up before it even reaches the sea. Humanity needs to stop putting some much demand on nature, whether rivers, forests, the oceans or indeed the very air we breathe. I believe California has quite an excess of sunshine, solar power could well provide a better alternative to dams.
I live in Los Angeles. I left my house in Culver City at 4am on Wednesday morning on my way to the Burbank airport for a 7:30 flight. As I got on the 10 East I could see the massive orange glow from the palisades. I didn't smell smoke until I cot to the Crenshaw exit. By the time I got downtown by dodger stadium it was raining ash and thick heavy smoke. It was so surreal I'll never forget it. Shutting down the grid is the only way you would have prevented this.
Fire hydrants that were perfectly adequate for decades should have been replaced? Hindsight is always 20/20 but self-important _holes will claim they always knew.
"I think you have completely missed the mark. If you feel the need to blame someone you can blame the last 50 years of poor urban planning." So instead of blaming people in power currently that doesn't do their job, you want to spread the blame thing on unspecified people in the past? I wonder who have missed the mark here.
Or really the fact that SoCal is the allure of paradise but is absolutely not the environment for mass civilization no matter how much you think you can alter and control the natural landscape. LA is a prime example of the arrogance of manifest destiny and human arrogance. Building a massive city in a place so susceptible natural disasters but hey weather good.
Infastructure is tricky to implement, in countries like Switzerland and Finland who are always preparing for the “worst case scenario”, the population is willing to pay for systems and infasructure that are designed to handle the worst. We in North America want the very best that we can get… for NO MONEY. The added cost to the tax payer, to build a worst case scenario infrastructure would cause the villagers to riot.
Have a look at Zermatt and the floods they had in the summer of 2024. Worse than the summer of 2023. All that rain you are missing in Cali is going elsewhere. Valencia got a years rain in 8 hours. People can either try to take political advantage or do something. Time and tide wait for no man.
@@randyterpstra-carignan2767 Choices have been made as to how taxpayer money is spent. Primary roles of government is provision of adequate police and fire service, disaster preparedness and basic infrastructure like water.
It's a lot easier with a homogeneous society, everyone is on the same page so things can get done. That's not happening here, half the country doesn't even know what bathroom to use
Infrastructure. Hard to cover fully, especially in So Cal. You probably are not fully aware of the hundreds of miles of concrete lined channels that constitute the Los Angeles County Flood Control District. Maps are available upon internet search. After horrible floods in L.A. in the late 1930's the Army Corps of Engineers together with the County and city built a gigantic set of water handling channels which move immense amounts of storm surge water out of the L.A. basin and into the sea. Many of us would like to see substantial storage of some of this run off which is massive during the rainy episodes. These channels are fifteen feet deep, run all over this huge city scape, and during storms the depth is seven or eight feet and runs along at 35 to 45 mph. People or animals fall in and die, their bodies washed out to sea. It's huge.
In the United States it happens after disaster, keep in mind the United States is relatively new with California being the newest of the new. Other cities have had thousands of years to figure out what happens. For example even in California San Francisco has underground cisterns all across the city and two different types of fire systems. The system was extremely expensive to build but it was built after the Great quake when most of the city burned down. So you learn your lessons as you go.
Forgot to cover how the forestry department had there funding cut decades ago. They used to clear out the under growth to help keep these fires from getting out of control
Other states do controlled burns on grasslands every year. Controlled burns are not just for forests. Fire breaks, which California stopped doing in the 1980’s is how you mainly control wildland fires in forests
@@Drew-P-Bllz That's a pretty harsh accusation. This content creator did NO Such Thing. He even invited for comments from so-called more knowledgeable folks about fire this disastrous.
I think you should show video of what a firestorm really looks like. There is not a lot you can do in those conditions. Yes, to all you said though. We need more firefighters, working reservoirs, less politics and more people that want to solve problems. Wish you'd do a video on sortition.
It didn't matter how much water pressure or how many white straight male fire fighters you had, that wasn't going to be stopped.. It really wouldn't have mattered how much forest management, or raking of the forest you did, you weren't stopping it. . Like a hurricane, you weren't stopping this.. Just because there are people labeled as "Fire Fighters" doesn't mean they can fight all fires, especially all at once.
@Brian... Fire starts from tiny ember, it doesn't get big like in videos at once. It is a copout mentality of let it burn by itself. Too big to handle. 😅😅😅
I think you are massively underplaying the impact of close to Cat 1 hurricane winds have on the situation. The fire /wind combo across a large front is making this like a blowtorch going across the land. No amount of water was going to slow that down. The reality is that sometimes mother nature reminds us all of who is really in charge. Drought + high winds + spark is a deadly combination and at this scale no amount of preparation would've stopped it.
Very true. There is no fighting a fire like this in those conditions. The only thing that could have minimized the damage is if there were less houses in those area or at least ones with with better fire-proofing. But under such conditions when planes or helicopters couldn't even take off no amount of available water or equipment is going to make a difference.
It turns out this is my lifelong area of expertise. They are "worth" billions BECAUSE their businesses are VALUED (stock market or other estimate) in billions. They own the things, so they have this assigned value. In order to OBTAIN FUNDS, they need to sell off part of their business (if public, they would sell shares), and that is very highly limited. Gates is not going to suddenly sell all his Microsoft shares. Can't be done. Won't happen.
I’m a volunteer Firefighter in Oklahoma. We have lots of wildland fires due to pasture fires, fields catching on fire during harvest and so on. Prescribed control burns are essential. One, it burns off fuel. Two, it saves livestock and property. Three, the grass grows greener due to the carbon and ash which is a type of fertilizer. Four, this provides natural fire breaks. Some farmers keep the grass mowed around the fields or disc it under to help with this. Lastly and most importantly, it saves lives. As far as the water issue, that’s your government officials. Close to 50% of your income goes to the state. People can’t afford a home and work there. So they live in the streets. Where is this money going? Politicians are more worried about staying in power and lining their pockets then the people. They cut police and fire to fund their costly and profitable to them projects. They sent almost half their fire apparatus to Ukraine without a plan to replace these $3-$700k equipment. They have electric fire trucks now I heard. Do you think they can stay in the fight as long as this fire has been going and power been out? I can fill a tank of diesel faster than I can wait on that drying to charge. Stop compromising your public safety with your green agenda and improper handling of funds. You can start by not electing the same people over and over again. You put a paper clip in an electric socket and get shocked, why repeat it? It’s lunacy. If it doesn’t work, try something different. No more politicians getting paid under the table to pass laws and funds to crooked corporations and people. You know I can get my meds so much cheaper overseas than in the USA? Make laws to cap the cost of prescriptions. There are things than can be done to fix all of this. Vote in people who can’t be bought and have good moral standings. Someone that can “git’er done” without a payout.
Growing up in Northern California, prescribed burns were done on wild grasses/chapparal brush all the time. You setup a fire break and do it on days which were low risk. We even had a field trip as kids to watch CalFire do it. The facts are that Newsome cut CalFire's budget even after he promised to perform prescribed burns... California's own audit showed that the state only performed 11% of the targeted burns.
Yes, the drone operator needs to be made example of. When a fire emergency is declared, all drones should immediately be banned. Those who continue to fly the drones should be charged with more severe punishment than looters.
Considering all the unidentified drone activity in cities across the country for the last month and actually years… no agencies taking responsibility yet no action taken by our government to stop them… that wasn’t a normal civilian drone strike on that plane… that had to have been very large to do that much damage!!
Here in Sweden drones with cameras on them have been banned unless you have a special permit, that in itself have made drones less common overall as most people wanted to fly them to get video footage or pictures of an area. The reason camera drones got banned unless having special permit? Concerns about people's personal integrity as it was feared drones were used to spy on or stalk people...
@@ReyOfLightDoes Sweden have any freedoms where you don’t have to ask the government for permission? Banning stuff for safety or claimed safety is a dark road to travel down.
@@Jennifermcintyre Drone strikes are ludicrously rare. Bird strikes are far more frequent. We are not scouring the skies for all birds. Flying is super dangerous. I guess few people have reasoned that all out yet.
@@badass1g sadly preventative measures aren’t important to people until it’s too late. Too many “nothing’s going to happen” people that don’t compare the cost of prevention to the value of what’s at stake. The replacement cost of the stuff doesn’t include the value of lives lost, neighborhood communities that are broken and the business and jobs that won’t come back anytime soon.
I heard in another report : 2014..Californians voted on putting billions of dollars towards building New Reservoirs, and Not One Reservoir is Completed, 10 yrs later.
To my understanding only Space X can land rockets this way. But, I get it HUMANS can do these things. Ancient Rome had vast water projects, as did ancient Cambodia, Egypt. Humans can do amazing things when huge amounts of willpower are focused upon those things. There will be those who claim it's not possible, but usually these things are possible, they just take immense will and effort.
24:23 Are these numbers correct? 114 billion $ for 188000 people is ~610000$ per person and year. that is ~ 10 times the average US income. Where is that money going if the people are living in tents?
According to his spreadsheet it's the total amount for health and human services. This encompasses: Health care Mental health Public health Substance use disorder services Income assistance Social services Assistance to people with disabilities
6:00 yes the drones have impacted flights, but these aircraft also have maximum safe wind speeds. High winds make the very low passes dangerous, as well as create waves making water pickup dangerous to impossible. 12:00 Im really glad to see you discuss the lack or water without sensationalizing. Yes the reservoir was empty because of a minor issue which is maddening. But it seems like the issue most news has missed is that they ran out of water *pressure*. And yes, engineering and money could solve this in the future. 27:00 San Francisco has two water systems, both with fire hydrants. One that connects to houses, businesses, and white hydrants. And another redundant and independent system that only has water storage, pumps, and red fire hydrants. More expensive than just 1 set of fire hydrants, but people demanded it after their big fire. The second system also has the ability to pump directly from the ocean, and to cut off sections that have leaks (like water main breaks during the big earthquake)
Been a subscriber and lover of your stuff for a while now. This was a really great unbiased logical look at the situation. Glad you’re ok and praying for all those who’ve lost or are in the path 🙏 It’s just unimaginable.
Not unbiased. For example: The budget cut story has been debunked. Ricky should be embarrassed to be still repeating it. "The City Council approved the firefighter raises in November, adding more than $53 million in additional salary costs. By then, the council had also signed off on $58 million for new firetrucks and other department purchases. Once those two line items were added, the fire department’s operating budget actually grew by more than 7% compared to the prior fiscal year, according to the city’s financial analysts." LA Times There was no budget cut.
How many swimming pools are there in The Palisades and how much water is contained in those pools? These could be a source of fire fighting water. With the water situation being critical, were steps taken to restrict water use?
Think about that for a second. How would you actually implement that course of action. Let's see, you would have to have a least one fire hose and VERY high pressure pump along with large generator (power is out in a fire) to support that pump plus risk the trucks and firefighters (at least 3) to transport that equipment. They would have to deploy all this equipment, meaning set up that pump and generator, unravel the hoses (ever handle an actual fire hose? it's not exactly watering your lawn) and stand and face the ungodly massive firestorm moving with 100mph winds for the total of less than 5 minutes that that pool would actual last at the pump rate needed to move any water through that hose. You could build trucks that simplify this action but that would still be resources better spent elsewhere. All this would do is put firefighters in harms way for no real effect.
@@rickyal9810 I don't agree. Fire trucks already have pumps. There are now stories of homeowners who invested in generators and pumps to use their pool water for fire protection. Organizing preparation is one role of government. It's called disaster preparedness.
@@rickyal9810 The locations of all swimming pools can be mapped look at Google Maps). Fire fighters and incident commanders can have access to this info as they plan their attacks and/or preventative measures. We should be open minded and objective about solutions, even ones that may present challenges to implement.
@@royrunyon1286 Then are you saying they were already perfectly capable of enacting this idea and chose not to or didn't occur to them? I believe if it was that simple the firefighters would have, or maybe they did in some cases.
@@royrunyon1286Fire pumpers designed to use hydrants frequently can’t use standing water. It takes a different hose and pump design - which rural fire engines frequently have. A knowledge of where the water is is however essential.
Some of the worst & deadliest California wildfires occurred in OCT, NOV, & DEC. Thomas fire December 2017 (Ventura, Santa Barbara) Inaja fire November 1956 (San Diego) Loop fire November 1966 (Los Angeles) Camp fire November 2018 (Town of Paradise destroyed) Many occurred in October. So not just summer. Regardless of when they occur, you MUST be prepared in every possible manner. You can't stop them from happening.....but there are numerous things that can & need to be done to mitigate the damage and loss of life.
Santa Ana's do happen in January sometimes, but we've usually had a few rains by now. This is one of the longest stretches with no rain, that I can remember, and I've lived in SoCal for 62 years. Combined with some of the strongest winds. It is scary right now because we aren't done yet.
Actually there have been some, mostly with Santa Ana conditions. I know of none that equaled this utter disaster, but I have had to evacuate from Sylmar back years ago. I had to deal with issues around 2018 Malibu fire, and was associated with the La Tuna area fire via our sons' private school there. Bad fires are to be expected in Los Angeles.
Lots of pre-positioning happened before the fires. 65 local government fire engines, 7 water tenders, 7 helicopters, 9 dozers and more than 105 specialized personnel in Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties. CAL FIRE firefighting resources were relocated from Northern California into Southern California, including 45 additional fire engines and six additional hand crews to Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties. And Canada and Mexico, as well as other states' firefighters, were called in. This isn't one of your better researched videos. Generally, I really find them high quality, but this one less so.
High quality? I've always found him to be "pop" science that is mostly a veneer of science without actual substance. No one should listen to this TwoBitHack guy. He's really one of the worst individuals that really brings nothing substantial to the conversation. No critical thinking but he DOES have his own biases that he wants to insert and use these disasters as proof to get you to believe what he's saying. This guy has a long history of promoting bad science and even worse companies that come close to actual scams. I think even thunderf00t had a video that exposed one of his ridiculous "tech miracle" videos. He's basically just like that other bald buy "undecided with Matt the shill". I hate how much these people get put into my recommended feeds. They really need to just go away.
He is human, and not perfect. And he obviously was sick and had very little time to prepare. As more information comes out, hopefully he will post a follow up to clarify places that didn't turn out to match the real time-lines. At least he did get the Northern CA dam thing right.
@@christaylor4786 well it's not just one single thing. It's the whole narrative behind it. He presents the events like they were something that was easily preventable but for the neglicence or ineptitude of Calfornian politicians. But that whole thing is complete hogwash. If you were to speak with scholars and experts in wildfire control and management, they'd tell you how lots of things all came together to set a scene that made these fires more of an inevitability than any one person's fault. To have prevented this, a lot of things would have been needed to be implemented, but doing so was always an uphill battle. Sometimes, as sad as it is, you need horrible things like this to happen first, before people will agree to make the necessary changes and investments. Voters are JUST as much to blame as politicians are, we're all to blame as a society. There's a lot more to it, but it's not something easily explained in a youtube comment.
Hey buddy! I was born in California. But raised in Ohio. Did 6 years submarine duty in San Deigo. You got this down! Exactly what you say is needed! Keep up your good work!!!! God bless 2 but Davinchi!
Put in 10,000 litre water tanks on every private property. In Australia ,most country shires there's a $1,700 fine for not doing fire breaks this year. Farms get inspected.
Interesting, except that Australia has suffered some of the worst wildfires in recorded history. Another climate change event from another country in denial.
@@johnrday2023 Typical duma$$ response. Of course the USA is not Australia. Suggested preventative action is to observe how other communities solve problems and - if it is possible - to adapt those solutions to your own local area. Right now areas of LA are starting to look like Somalia. Every avenue that could improve or prevent should be considered. But you can't fix stupid.
@xge555 look at the maps befor the fire. I'd say routhly 20% of houses have swimming pools with a lot more than 10m³ water. Why they didn't chuck in apump and set up a couple of garden sprinklers is another issue.
A proper intelligent engineer (or similar in other fields) running for political office wouldn't get elected. I think people vote looking at very short term and not longer term, so all they want to see is less taxes and more money on their pockets...
Regarding insurance companies, if a insurance company drops you for purpose of "its too expensive to cover damages in your area", it should be mandatory that company refunds you all the money you have paid them over the years, because effectively this is theft. They promised a service and you paid for it then they were like "nah im not providing that service, but thank you for paying for it!"
Wrong. - You bought insurance for a particular period of time. When that time is over you are free to quit, as they are. The main reason insurance companies have dropped people in CA is that the GOVERNMENT mandates the price of the insurance, but does NOT change the price of rebuilding houses.
@@jocelynbey5944 Exactly, Californias horrific construction cost and permitting nightmares are the reason insurance companies are feeing as fast as they can. It cost on average 400 to 500 dollars a square foot to build new homes in Southern California then add in the permit fees of around 100,000 bucks. That's astronomical costs and if the insurance company can't raise the rates of the area they would go bankrupt in one season. Its simple math, now instead of complaining follow their lead and get out before its to late. California is a mess and will destroy itself in stupidity.
People were insured and they covered them for that time period. The money paid in went to others already, salaries and people they had to pay claims out to, and some profit left over - for the service they provided. Iow what you paid in was already spent. I suppose they could had just insured you again but raised your premium but state lawmakers cap that. It's not like they're pulling the money out of the air - it comes from the all the people paying in, and so it's just a gamble on the insurance company's part, the Issue is you're asking someone to pay out billions of dollars on a risk with an extremely high chance to happen. Obviously they want to take in money, to make money, but when the risk of having to pay money out is becoming closer if not more than the money coming in of course they'll quit. Wouldn't you?
@@tommack9395 The property insurance should have a carryover of funds year to year. The funds to recover do not magically form in one year. If you do not understand that you are ill informed. Insurance companies pulling out is theft.
Every time it was brought to vote on increasing about a buddy for firefighters and equipments the Republicans voted against them and so they didn’t pass if it doesn’t get voted for that there’s nobody to proceed with by the equipment. That’s why we didn’t have as much money as we have been requested.
If you want to do a great science episode, you can try and explain what happened meteorologically because this has never happened before in Calif. There have been dozens of fires in those hills since my family settled there in the 40's and many have occurred during Santa Ana's and droughts. In Pasadena/Altadena, I don't think any fire has ever gone below Loma Alta Drive which is a few blocks from the hills. Let alone 3 miles into the city. During Santa Ana's. the steep mountains and lack of long canyons block the Santa Ana's from impacting Altadena. Just look at the wind forecasts for the two events they are predicting this week. Pasadena has the lowest winds projected by far in all of Socal. I recall driving through 60 mph sustained winds south of Cajon Pass in Cucamonga where every truck on I-10 was flipped over, but can't ever remember getting anything above 30 mph in Pasadena. There were 50 mph winds a couple times during winter storms, but not from Santa Ana's. How the heck did 98 mph winds occur? One of the LA meteorologists on Tuesday night mentioned a "mountain wave". But he was predicting gusts only up to 50 mph in the SG Valley. Was this event so incredibly enormous that it managed to push a massive column of air OVER the mountains instead of just through the canyons as is normal? If not, how can we explain why the winds were moving from east to west? The canyon that opens into the Arroyo Seco does get higher winds during Santa Ana's, but usually causes the wind during Santa Ana's to blow lightly to the East in Pasadena. This is why I didn't think to tell my brother that he needed to evacuate when I saw where it started, but he and his best friends that lived a mile away ended up losing everything. The reason why this is so scary is that between this, the Cameron Peak fire in 2020 that moved 20 miles in a single day and the Boulder fire in 2021, I don't think there is a square inch of land west of the Mississippi that is safe from fire now that the winds have gone to a new extreme.
This is important, cause there are many anomalies that are not characteristic of normal brush and forest fires. They seemed to some degree planned. Then grew on there own. 😊
My wife taught for 12 years and now an assistant principal. We aren’t in CA. I 100% agree there is a lot of bureaucracy issues in schools. I would say in our particular situation we actually don’t have enough principals (our school) to facilitate teachers. There is a lot of savings that can be made but there needs to be some sort of value add system to make sure you’re not just cutting to cut. How much of that 54 billion is paid out in pension. A lot of money spent in perpetuity without adding value to the education system.
You want to take away peoples pensions? How very Marxian of you. They don't "provide any value" any more huh? Labour camps for them I guess....? And you think schools need more pricipals? Schools needs less principals that are better at thier job. You could have a massive senior leadership team, if they are useless the school will fall apart because of terrible policies and massive waste.
You can have our $106,000 a year vice principal that was taken out of the school in handcuffs and is now working "Down Town" at the superintendents office and is in charge of laminating.. They even got rid of the part time girl making 12 grand a year so he could still make his $106k.
@ChryskylodonInstitute I heard it's size of Manhattan, or even more by now. I hate football field comparisons, but Americans are bad with math, so that's the only visual reference for them.
Great video. Used to live in LA 40 years ago. Seeing this wild fire took over so many homeowners properties and lives is devastating. Praying God have mercy for LA and CA 🙏
The reason is that the oils in eucalyptus cause them to burn fast and at high temperatures. No one is still planting eucalyptus. Perhaps it is wise to remove the millions of legacy trees that were planted decades ago, but like most of these things…who will pay for it, in a society where short term gain is way more important than long term consequences.
Eucalyptus is oily, thus its ample fuel. Most people know this, and most will not now plant new Eucalyptus. The do use this as wind break out in rural farms and ranches. The burn characteristic there is not as consequential. They make really bad suburban trees.
❤ Outstanding work again. I follow an insane number of (mostly) excellent small-scale youtubers like you, and this is up there - if not THE most impressive video i can recall in years in terms of timely information. Big thanks too to the established journalists who you’ve relied on for much of the original research. And on top of an excellent vid last week re jeju air crash.
As a 68 year resident of CA I couldn’t agree more with your message. Sure the climate is changing but this is nothing new for CA. Not being better prepared is politically inexcusable. Thank you for putting this out there in the way you did.
I am Civil Engineering Contractor, we specialize in water systems. All utility companies by rule of thumb have back-up pumps, especially if you're servicing communities on higher elevation.
About half that 220 billion went into crooked peoples pockets. Salaries and bonuses to people in obscene numbers who do nothing close to warrant the money they are given by their friends. I like the original idea George Washington had: cap government employee salaries to low levels (and no bonuses or compensation outside of salary allowed), below the average salary level for the country/city/state, so that the only people who want the job are those that are not in it for the money. Its not a perfect solution, but its a far better one than we have now where they are only in it to for the money
@@allangibson8494 If no bonuses or other compensation outside of salary is allowed, then a yearly financial check by a computer program for government employees would easily root out anyone taking bribes.
That happens regardless though. Possibly worse with higher wages. If the job attracts people who just want money they will be more likely to accept bribes.
@ Low wages make bribes endemic and accepted. That’s what a “tip” is - it’s a bribe for service. The bigger the bribe the more the rules get stretched. Donald Trump offered to eliminate the EPA if the oil companies gave him one billion dollars. I wonder what Elon Musk got for his $240 Million. The SEC investigation into fraud around his acquisition of Twitter dropped?
Returning to a 2016 budget is asking for a ~25% reduction in spending, because things costs ~25% more today than they did 10 years ago. That seems pretty unreasonable. If you do this, you will have many more problems than $160k water reservoir liners not fixed the next day. Also, California has over a $4T GDP. Yes, $200B sounds like a lot. But California is basically a country, smaller in size than really only the US and China, and on par with Japan and Germany. You have to compare their budget with countries, not states.
Coming from Europe, even given budget available the tax take in California is way too low, public infrastructure investment is neglected including water supply, non existent public transport, massive lack of low cost housing and the homeless situation all needs more money .. Plus, why build homes out of wood with inflammable bitumen roofs in a fire risk area?
I am a 56 years old San Diegan living in Mission Valley. I have lived here for over 45 years. We are guilty of this catastrophe because we have voted for this to happen.
It's funny that people are so political now, they think voting could have prevented a wildfire. There was no rain and 80mph winds. No amount of voting can prevent that.
Good video explaining the details. As a Canadian thank you for pointing out the aid offered from Canada. I’m not looking for a pat on the back for Canada, just glad that some Americans recognize we value our neighborly relationship. Your incoming President has pissed off a lot of Canadians with his insults and threats, but we will look past his pettiness and continue to be there in any way we can for L.A. I understand we are sending two more of those planes to assist plus fire fighters from other provinces. We can sympathize having lost some communities in the past few years to forest fires. Hang in there L.A. As for the controlled burns, we in Canada are involving our indigenous people more in our planning, they have for centuries lived with fire and have knowledge on this very topic. Indigenous people are not afraid of fire, in fact they embrace it as a way of life and have learned how to treat it as a tool.
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Politicians don't need to be engineers, they just need to listen to engineers.
Too many environmentalists in their ears (and pockets) telling them the engineers are wrong.
We don't need any politicians at this point. They no longer work for the people. They work for their corporate overlords and sell us out and our futures. The constitution says to start a new government when it no longer works for the people.
Engineers do not fund elections. The politicians enjoy private fundraisers in the homes of billionaires, and above all the billionaires want expanded tax loopholes for themselves.
@@markzajac9993 ...and stop pandering to all the "for profit" insurance companies. If we are REQUIRED to carry insurance (by mortgage companies) for homwowners, renters, vehicles as well as for liability purposes. Then the insurance companies (which are licensed & bonded) should be REQUIRED to do more than "take the money and run."
engineers dont loby , polticians are doing what they are there to do no mather the side, who pays them more is who they listen
Need more engineers, less lawyers in government that is in my opinion the primary reason for poor management with catastrophic consequences.
California residents are the problem. They continually cast their ballots based on emotion not logic.
Fully agree. It’s just we’re always short on engineers and there’s a glut of law grads. It also doesn’t help that bureaucracy is something engineers actively try to avoid.
Lawyers should be permenently blocked from holding leadership positions, confining them to give advice only, because people in positions of authority who routinely lie before breakfast is not conducive to a democracy and the Rule of Law. Instead, all we get is the rule of lawyers, which means that nobody is ever held Personally Accountable.
Ricky Rules! he'd be the best leader!!!
@@neilmckechnie6638 totally agree. The USA needs skilled executives and engineers to fix the nuts and bolts of the country. Thank goodness DOGE is going to start to bring some sanity to federal spending... California desperately needs its own DOGE !
You need to pass a competency test to get a driver's license. But no show of competency is required to be a politician.
In the running for "won the internet". Very good.
I have posted many times that there should be a minimum IQ requirement for getting on a ballot. Say 105
@@larryschweitzer4904 political puppets are usually COMPROMISED. The whole whole story can be told via the acronym MICE 😎
the constitution has something to say about this.
we also don't have competency requirements for voting, perhaps thats why we have people voting based on shit like Gender or Sexual Orientation or Skin Color instead of who is most qualified for the job.
I live in So. Cal. My father was an engineer for the Division of California Water Recourses. Im talking 1950s 1960s, 1970s. It started with the building of the Oroville Dam and carries water throughout the state. We moved every few years as the California aqueduct was built. It brought the Xtra water from the north to the southern parts of the state. It was a huge endeavor and I am proud to have actually seen the difference it made. The year my father died is the year the Oroville Dam had its collapse. It was heartbreaking for him to see the way in which repairs were ignored and the entire aqueduct, including the dams and reservoirs, were left unable to be used. It now breaks my heart to know that our Government has been so greedy and mismanaged that all the work the people back then put in to create a perfect system of water management and getting the water to places that needed it was a waste of time and resources.
Political evil and corruption knows no bounds. Thank you very much for your comment. When conscience-less greed-seeking criminals take over, we all suffer.
Evil always prevails over good in this country and I honestly don't know why. I guess the devil will have his way.
In the end, goodness always wins because love is stronger than hate. Evil collapses in on itself.
@@monicaballyurban5786 There is no end to corruption that is the cause of mismanagement.
@@monicaballyurban5786
Optimisms is a temporary feeling until reality hits your head in a personal way. Sigh.
Politicians don't like to spend money on maintenance.
Their choice:
1) spend money on maintenance, but don't get re-elected.
2) don't spend money on maintenenace, but on new projects. Keep getting re-elected untill the lack in maintenance causes issues.
Sadly, the 2e option is the best for politicians.
It's a systemic issue, not an issue with politicians themselves.
I drive a water tender for wildland fires in Utah. Pumps for replenishment of water pressure tanks are fine, but when you see an image of a hydrant losing pressure for a fire engine, there is also an incident commander that should be watching resources available, knowing the constraints of a system based on a pre incident plan. This plan will know the flow constraints of a system and should be assigning water tenders to supply engines with water. If you send 20 engines into a neighborhood and the neighborhood water system can only supply a flow rate for 10 engines, the other 10 engines should have been assigned elsewhere, or had tenders to accompany them.
Making sure there are water tenders that can cover the whole state rather than upgrading tank pumps for every single neighborhood is a much more cost effective way to fight fires, and that tender can access areas where there are no hydrants too, to offensively fight a wildland fire before structure firefighters need to defensively fight a fire once it enters a neighborhood.
Thank you for the work you do in Utah! My family siblings work on Idaho Forest services and helping emergency fire fighting teams.
We are going to get hit soon with an insane fire.With so many people carelessly visiting all our dry forests.
Great video! 100%!
@ , we can have river restoration and municipal water supplies adequate for fighting fires. These two things are not necessarily at odds with each other. Do you know that salmon returning to rivers contributes to forest health? Healthy forests don’t burn catastrophically. When a politician suggests a simple solution, expect it is to manipulate you, not solve a problem.
Good insight. I totally agree. Its not rocket science.
But politicians seem to be getting dumber and dumber.
Or put in contension for a position were where a dumb person will do exactly the wrong things that lead to destruction. Sort of plausible deniability scenario.
You speak Truth! We were evacuated for 11 days from the Trinity County side of the Carr Fire (July 2018) in the Shasta Trinity National Forrest. In such remote areas the Tender Trucks are the only hope,(along with Chopper Bucket drops).
Sometimes the Tender Truck Driver's hear more details than publically released, great source of accurate information 👍
I am a construction superintendent down in San Diego. I specialize in pump stations and treatment plants. San Diego has been supplementing almost every water tower with pump stations to increase pressure, not just gravity. We're also upgrading reservoir pump stations, also building pump stations at reservoirs that don't have. I'm proud to be in San Diego, because after the big fires we had about 10 years ago. Every dollar water departments and districts get, they're upgrading everything that will improve water distribution. I wasnt aware of the dams here that arent being repaired though, which worries me. Because I know a lot of high ups in water districts here. We talk a lot, never mentioned the dams. They were probably told to be quiet about it......
Call me a California hater if you like, IMHO this is what you get when you overpopulate an area that is artificially irrigate a dessert.
No tears shed here, you brought it upon yourselves.
@@RiverRatWA57 parts of California is a desert, parts are tropical, parts are rain forest, forest and parts have some of the most fertile soil in the world.
California agriculture feeds the entire United States. Over the past decades, environmentalists have forgotten where the veggies they eat come from. They are determined to stop all agriculture and they've found that taking the water away works best. They found out Newsom will do anything for a few dollars.
I hope you never have to face the disaster going on in Los Angeles, but chances are you will. Would you like to be blamed for a disaster you didn't cause? Would you like to hear what you've said to Californians as your home burns down or floats away?
@@RiverRatWA57 look at all those folks lugging a half-dozen security animals out of their burning houses! That costs money to feed them daily, that could have been spent on pruning back the overgrowth, especially removing the dead trees and bushes, as well as the dead layers of ember-spewing palm fronds and gaseous eucalyptus trees, horrible choices all in the name of deadly vanity, materialism, and hyper-competitive superficialities over their own dead bodies. All of that to keep up with the now dead Joneses was hardly worth it, but try telling that to all of those superficialist sellouts. I hope the movement to avoid buying insurance policies from companies who insure Californians (wait for it!) “spreads like wildfire.” Take that, listen, learn, and survive, grasshoppers.9
@@RiverRatWA57 Damn! Your comment is the nicest comment ever. Keep it up. Please go tell the same to the people in Phoenix. They’ll really appreciate it. 👍🏼
@@RiverRatWA57 Most places in the US are artificially sustained by something or another and have a certain natural disaster risk level. Wyoming has the threat of another Yellowstone mega eruption and would also be a difficult place to live without cheap, prevalent electricity, for example. You likely benefit from all the Californian's that pay in taxes. Last year, they paid 360 billion in FIT. For comparison, Alabama paid 19 billion. You can take a lot away from that, least of which isn't the fact that CA residents--as dumb as they could be--do more to sustain the rest of us than any other state. And think of the movies? haha.
People don’t understand how to recognize good leadership. How can we teach this? People voting based on smooth talking and not actual leadership.
@@RolandGustafsson how many times do your hands need to burned before you take the hand off the stove, answer?....
Once you stop listening to the lying media who tell you your hand ain't burning
That’s why people need to stop hearing what they say but start seeing what to did or do. Like I can’t even believe some people voted for Kamala. Come on! I didn’t even have to research her online, we had 4 years to see!
@RolandGustafsson the unfortunate part is manytimes there isn't a good option. For example the presidential election this year (and many others) in my opinion was two horrible candidates. You just have to hold your nose and vote for the lesser or the two
@@AJC4866If all the voters cast their vote without choosing, the vote will count as blank (which is completely different from not voting). So if the majority is of blank votes, no president can be chosen, a clear indication of the voters not agreeing with the candidates, and they will have to do another election with different candidates.
@@maxmateush7090 Well I imagine people voted for Kamala because they didn’t want to have their rights taken away under Trump’s presidency bro please open your eyes
Maybe the lady that's making 750,000 a year to ensure hydrants have water should be investigated
Investigate her because she makes a good living?? So based on your logic, every millionaire should be investigated??
@@Handlethis342 um… no. Thats a rather lame statement. Being in charge of water supply and distribution for a city like LA, naturally a drought area, means you have to have specific knowledge and protocols. The fact this was preventable, and all evidence shows it was, and she’s still getting paid three quarters of a million, shows she is
1: incompetent
2: a DEI hire
3: culpable
The fact you focus only on accusations she is ‘living the good life’ shows your ignorance on the subject
@@PassengersMusic777 incompetent, DEI hire, and culpable? 🚩
Nice talking points. What facts are you basing preferred conclusions on rather than the feelings in your belly?
@ sounds like your favorite hatertainment outlets are giving you a minority to blame so you feel better for being ignorant on the subject.
But please, why don’t you tell the class how exactly Crowley facilitated budget cuts for the fire dept.
I’m not sure you realize she is a public’s servant and not a politician but I am sure you believe both your enemies. “Must blame someone for everything!”
@@Handlethis342 you are clearly showing your ignorance. When the fire chief promotes as her main agenda DEI for LGBT and mandates courses, you know where her priorities lie. Stop covering for your politicians and their political appointees who led to this disaster. You have no clue where to begin. Why are you supporting them? Tell me you’re a Democrat without telling me you’re a Democrat
With losses of up to 150 Billion $ dollars, California now has almost lost more money in these 6 isolated fires than what has EVER been spend on preventing it... in All Time.
This is SO sad, these fires are SO brutal, but there also seems to be a leadership responsibility talk worth having in the aftermath, for sure !
Unfortunately it's hard to convince taxpayers with taxation rate increases.
CLifornozns got what they voted for, bad politicians with bad priorities.
As much hatred the LA Fire Chief has gotten, it seems clear at this point that she had been trying to sound the alarm about the city not only cutting the LAFD budget but also that their existing funding level was grotesquely insufficient for even their normal call volume. The separate sources from the LA Fire Chief have confirmed reports done in the last few years and found that the city needs an additional 62 fire stations to meet non-crisis call volumes. Theres no way to prove that the additional Fire Fighting resources would have stopped these fires outright, but its pretty clear the city leadership has been openly negligent in its funding of critical services, and any additional resources would have helped at least contain these fires better.
@@jana171 why not get your wealthy oligarchs and the captains of capitalism to step in and help the nation when a disaster hits? They have been very quiet and trying to work out ways of how the tax payer can help them. It's how corporatism works - it's a form of fascisn
Now that the residents are homeless, Newsom and Bass will actually care
At the end of the day the blame lands on the voter.
Votes have consequences.
1000% that elections are compromised either by illegals voting or creative counting
Exactly, to once again vote for someone who denies the climate crisis, which is the main reason for the huge fires, is genuinely stupid. Instead, he advocates "drill baby, drill" which will further complicate the situation. It's always easier to blame someone else.
That's somewhat naive. This is a part of the country where corruption is inevitable. Voters often don't _really_ have a choice because either their choices are limited to two corrupt parties, or, the independents have no budget to get themselves known to the general public. Popularity often wins regardless of credentials or affiliations.
@MatsPhoto What's ironic is the same policies you claim are the right thing to do, are the exact policies that got Cali in the position they're in.
Nah. This country is rotten to the Core. Blaming is b s
My career was in wildfire management, including being a prescribed fire specialist. The chaparral in LA has a frequent wildfire return interval. Some of the areas burning during this incident hadn't burned since the 1960s. So the chaparral was ripe to burn.
For someone who says they're an expert, that!s flippant and doesn't count hand clearing efforts.
In addition, the wind blows every year and we have fires every year. I have survived 2 fires so far in my life.
Just waiting for the big earthquake. Have 2 weeks of food and water on hand.
Wildfire may be a misnomer. This was likely arson with 2 credible reports of arson, and 1 credible report of power line arcing. Now I wonder if Trump's threats to the Panamanian people have anything to do with it...
Those of us living here, even those not as expert as you, can see the cycle. I was evacuated in Sylmar just several years ago, and my family was involved with school within the La Tuna Canyon area which burned out (right to the edge of the school!) and yet, NOW is green and shows little evidence of the great fires not so long ago.
There absolutely will be wild fires, but there can be absurd, devastating fires, or there can be unfortunate and relatively less bad ones. The way to handle these things is to institute public policy which adheres strenuously to what is CONTROLLABLE, what can be DONE, and not focus upon supposition, anti-human sentiment and unrealistic notions. We can build great water system of over built scale. We can clear dead wood and can build fire breaks. We can elect NOT to build out the more dangerous areas (don't build in the shadow of big dams!). Focus on what is practical.
I bet the Harris administration would have at least heard you out.
Just want to say great video. It’s non biased, factual, and genuine. We need more people like you in this world. Thank you.
Every one of these water drop pilots is an absolute hero. i watched hours of the Mandeville Canyon footage yesterday and it was stunning to see the constant coordination of so many different aircraft dropping every few minutes for hours. Incredible.
@@wattage2007 Hello. Yes those Air Firefighters are outstanding!!!
I was watching on the foreflight app and it was insane. They were flying so close to each other stacked up at tight altitudes. Mind blowing.
They are heroes. And I'd bet anything each and every one of them would be glad to see PUBLIC POLICY which would make big fires like this far more rare, far less damaging. In fact I KNOW THIS. . .somehow. It's like soldiers. The real ones don't want war.
Blaming doesn't solve anything. Once the fire has destroyed acreage, blaming is not going to bring homes back or change anything. If there is a benefit to the devastating fire, it would be to learn by mistakes that have been made.
It would be easier to understand hearing a government leader made the wrong choice. Rebuilding dams and making repairs, money to train firefighters and fire prevention voted by the public. We need to be open for change for the better. We need to allow residents to protect the biggest investment in their life, their home.
@@luannnapier6255 A word salad of non-sequiturs. Ram your word salad, if people aren’t blamed (and if necessary prosecuted) then it’ll keep happening.
Ex California resident. The worst part for me was that despite the increase in spending for health and services the health and social services are looking like they are doing less and less. They manage to burn tons of cash “managing issues” eg homelessness and they can’t show anything for it.
It's the same with increase in educational spending. Less students, higher budgets, and the outcome is less and less.
The politician's in that state are all corrupt money-laundering criminals.
This is not true. California has better health and health services than the average IS states.
It will take a decade to build back the mental health (in particular) and drug addiction support systems that are one of the bigger sources of homelessness. What is it that you think the state should do that could be done faster?
@@junkerzn7312 jail for high/intoxicated in public. Some people just need a break from their addiction.
Having that reservoir empty, for so long, is downright criminal..
It is out of fire season and this wind event has never happened in recorded history. One more time, RECORDED HISTORY.
@@TekniCaliSpeakin Wouldbe nice to capture some of that RECORD BREAKING rainfall last year huh
Downright "intentional"
Amen I Agree Completely.
@@dean_l33 Every single other reservoir was full, did you expect them to never do maintenance on something that holds millions of gallons of water?
As someone who lives in Tarzana, just a couple of miles from where the Palisades fire spread to, I can confirm that the day the fires began, we had insane Santa Ana winds with gusts of upward of 90-100mph.
I can also confirm that it's been very dry and there hasn't been any rain for months.
Don't have money to repair a 130k reservoir cover? Ok, now you pay 150 billion!
What idiot thinks a reservoir change the amount of rain or wind?
It wasn't the limiting factor on the hydrants.
@@CrissaKentavr
117 million-gallon water storage is much better than three 1 million-gallon tanks.
It didn't help @@CrissaKentavr
@@CrissaKentavr What kind of idiot makes a comment like yours. Most of the hydrants were empty, and the ones that had water had low pressure since there was ZERO water in the resevoir. Then there is the brainiace governor that would rather see rivers empty into the sea than divert SOME of that water into the resevoir. Honestly do some research, before opening your ignorant mouth.
And even 130k for such repair seems way bloated
The "whats happening with shipping" channel pointed out a real problem (he is also a firefighter). When you get a large fire in an urban area, home owner evacuate and when the houses burn down all the water pipes burn and it is as if all houses have all their taps turned on.
Sounds like there’s a need for some sort of auto-shutoff function like what we have on gas valves for earthquakes.
Another point is the understandable behaviour of people before they evacuate. Setting up sprinklers, hosing down buildings or lawns
Exactly. I just watched it too before this video popped up. Please don't listen to this TwoBitHack guy. He's really one of the worst individuals that really brings nothing substantial to the conversation. No critical thinking but he DOES have his own biases that he wants to insert and use these disasters as proof to get you to believe what he's saying. This guy has a long history of promoting bad science and even worse companies that come close to actual scams. I think even thunderf00t had a video that exposed one of his ridiculous "tech miracle" videos. He's basically just like that other bald buy "undecided with Matt the shill". Uh i hate how much these people get put into my recommended feeds. They really need to just go away.
@@peterbonham5540
I saw that too. I guess the reason they weren’t using the water pump boats & trucks portable pumps is they weren’t trained on them. That seems like negligence. Not by the fire department but by those running the city.
People seem to hard time grasping that just because something hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it never will.
@@lizlee5052sure there is blame to put there. But on the other hand you cannot plan for everything possible … especially if you don’t want to pay for it.
I'm a professional EE with 25 years of experience in Semiconductor Development. Our local city council had an opening and I ran for the position. While speaking before council I followed up an older gentleman who was a Civil Engineer with water experience. We both lost out to a Mom and retired cop and lawyer who now sit on our council. Its an uphill battle to try and educate these folks. I now teach at a college and try my hardest to make students love Science and Engineering and to understand how to properly diagnose and solve hard problems. Hopefully they will go out and make a difference. I will keep trying to get into local office but its not easy running on problem solving platform. Even local politics is very divided and partisan.
They are teaching DEI, critical race theory, and woke LBGTQ Crap that do s not help anyone or society. This is what happens.😮
Thank you for your service and efforts. Don't give up!!!
@@timganstrom1907 What he said. Don't give up.
Never quit!
A HUGE THANK YOU FOR PUTTING THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE FIGHTING THIS FIRE!!!
Controlled burns are done preventatively during green (wet) periods. Brush clearing is done manually where and when burns are inadvisable. Brush control is basic, ongoing maintenance.
There's no rational excuse.
in cali we do controlled burns in summer too,
The first people to do controlled burns to keep forests healthy are the indigenous tribes of Canada 🇨🇦.
Controlled burns are not natural. Leave natural areas be. Stop moving next to natural areas then trying to treat them like your property
You don't understand how mountainous the LA area is. That's the rational excuse against manual brush management is. The canyons that the Palisades fire traveled through is surrounded by the Santa Monica mountains. The mountains that the Eaton fire traveled through, is the San Gabriel Mountains. Manual brush clearing is not possible on mountain slopes. If there's a way to use drones to access to the brushes that grow on these mountains to clear dry brush, it hasn't been developed yet.
@ born and raised in California. I know how rugged it is. Yet folks keep moving there.
By some rough math based on your numbers, that means the State is spending $606,000 per homeless person per year. Please make that make sense.
@@MrKornnugget It makes sense if you factor in great and corruption. I believe if there was an audit completed we'd find that politicians siphon this money off because there's no accountability. This is why they will never solve the homeless crisis, because it's a huge racket for the States!
The entire health and human services budget does not go to the homeless. He misled us on that one.
. . . and are still homeless, alcohol and drug addicted, no re-habilitation . . . by design?
@@1beinghe misled on a few different things.
For that money they could put every single one of them in an apartment and add some for their support (councelling etc)
As an engineer you should know that designing for the worst possible scenario is not what happens. The main reason is it would be too expensive. Tax payers would pitch a bitch about the cost.
Urban planners have been warning about the development in these areas for decades. Fire experts have as well. This disaster was inevitable.
Agree! Getting really sick and tired of all the ppl commenting that "no one knew" and "only in hindsight" as if tons of ppl weren't sounding the alarm for YEARS.
But the Paradise fire should have forced a massive rethink of what needed to be done. After showing the public images from that fire, the politicians could've convinced voters of the need for preparing for more reservoirs..
@ one it just happened so that is not a thing yet. Two people are already talking about rebuilding. They are already talking about doing the same damn thing that got them into this situation.
If only there was a huge saltwater source nearby they could pump water from... that would really help. The salt would be diluted quickly enough that things would grow back and the fires could be extinguished quicker. Or they could just do forest maintenance like the rest of the country...
@@VoiceTotheEndsOfTheEarth More reservoirs isn't going to solve the too many people in all the wrong places problem.
Thank you so very much for gathering all this research and explaining what happened so clearly! Wow! I’ve seen a lot of videos and nothing has presented it so concisely and clearly. I’m now a subscriber and a fan!🙌🏾
That drone hit the Superscooper on Thursday. Flight operations when the firestorm was first happening were suspended because the winds were too dangerous to fly in.
I wish I received all my information this way. The whole story, clear and concise.
Good job. You do your homework.
Subscribed.
One thing you forget about the insurance is that California put a limit on how much you can raise the insurance. So insurers started dropping fire insurance or outright stopped providing insurance in California.
That's a very important point.
Insurance should never have a profit motive. Insurance companies are snakes. They gouge you on premiums and then try to weasel out of any payments when it's time to pay out. Make all types of insurance a public utility.
30:07 a big part of why they’re dropping coverage is the state has limited their ability to increase premiums year to year. This just mathematically means they can’t renew high risk homes, because they’re not legally allowed to charge enough to cover the expected loss. As with most price controls, you wind up creating a worse problem by decreasing supply
The dams removed in this presentation were on the Klamath river. Removed to restore historic salmon migration. They did not provide water outside of the Klamath river drainage (basically steep canyons), certainly not to the canals which ship water south for agriculture where the desert has been turned into industrial scale farms. Locals do not like the dam removals, as they are leaving ugly scars where the reservoirs used to be. Nevertheless, not an issue for southern california firefighting.
Also important to point out is that the dam licensee, PacifiCorp, opted to proceed with removal the 4 dams on the Klamath to avoid costly upgrades necessary for re-licensing. Restoring fish habitat, though a priority for some, was secondary to the decision makers. I don't recall Newsom actively pushing for removal and it had zero impact on fires in LA.
These are all NONSENSE arguments ...its getting HOTTER EVERY DAY, YEAR AFTER YEAR.....CO2 levels won't go down even if we stop all Fossil Fuels for 200 more years
so in a Decade the summer daytime Temperatures will be 130-140 Degrees F..................who can live at this temperature !....who is holding the Fossil Fuel industry to account ?
Here’s a thought. How about not emptying the reservoir until you’ve approved a bid. Do not use the reservoir water for any other purpose than fire prevention during the time that you’re waiting for bids to come in.
The reservoir was contaminating the DRINKING WATER supply.
Epidemics killed more people than fires ever have.
Good thinking. Get out of this PUBLIC POLICY meeting, because you're too PRACTICAL. LOL (kidding!).
@robertstwocents that's what we did with Anderson Dam in Morgan Hill (Silicon Valley). The dam was damaged same winter season as Oroville, but it was functional. As soon as the contract was signed (which took awhile) they began the work, not before.
@@blingauntiemy brother lives there, that is a well run town
The reservoir is being actively repaired right now, in what is supposed to be the rainy season. This is the problem with getting information from unvetted sources, it's usually inaccurate.
To help you understand the workings of a municipal government let me share this with you. Several years ago back a resident called my department to report a piece of furniture on the public right-of-way that should not be there. The call taker emailed his boss concerning this issue. The bosses supervisor emailed the director of the department and he received that email on Monday morning. So on Monday the director emailed the director of Public Works about the problem. The Public Works director emailed his second in command and asked him to have the furniture removed. The second in command received that email on Tuesday. He emailed the supervisor in charge of the section that does maintenance on the street. That supervisor read that on Wednesday. He emailed the supervisor in direct charge of the maintenance crew. He received that email on Thursday. On Friday the order tricked down to the actual people on the ground and the furniture was removed. This is normal everyday workings of a city government. So the empty basin that needed a cover and took so long does not surprise me at all. I hope this helps you understand how things operate in a city. Yes, the job will be done. You just don’t know when.
@@coffeeisgood102 Yeah, the bureaucracy is so incredibly inefficient. Unfortunately, you can see these processes everywhere, it’s a pain in the ass in every company, which has more than few employees.
And that's why change is needed. Chain should have been 3 people. Call taker, manager, to public works.
No reason for it to go through so many people.
Too many layers of management, this is why Amazon so efficient, only 3 layers total
@@coffeeisgood102 Excellent breakdown. Taxpayer dollars have to be managed by bureaucracy. Failure to do so will result in taxpayer activists complaining and possible further cuts. It’s seemingly inefficient but every department has its priorities: Police, Healthcare, Water Management, etc. Plus tax cuts. Precarious balancing act.
To many cheifs and not enough Indians
So the fact that 106 fire engines are broke down ' the city emptied a vital resivuor and the firedepart was 300 firemen understaffed wouldn't have made any difference ??? Got it !
Big, big difference between dropping water and fire retardant. Water without the retardant mixtures is only minimally effective for many reasons - the water turns into spray and is not concentrated nor does it "coat" the vegertation or other surfcaces in contact, as does the fire retardant. Water alone just drains off of surfaces. Think of dish soap with water and the cohesion.
You use a nice physics term "cohesion". Materials all have a coefficient of cohesion. You are right. This has more to do with practical limits on what can be put into the air, how many round trips can be made, how many pilots can fly these craft and how many fires are going at once. It's less a materials science / chemistry thing than a resource management exercise. There are far more helicopters, water scoopers, their related pilot forces than the larger, more complex retardant resources. Boy, I sure wish there was tons more retardant because it seems profoundly effective.
The CL-415 has foaming agent tanks that add to each drop and can make 6.9 drops per hour.
The reservoir being drained for a year over a covering drives me absolutely mad, as someone who lives in LA and has had to evacuate, the negligence is truly breathtaking
@@Itsmarkyoung and is a reservoir being empty due to maintenance à consolation.
negligence would be not making repairs . . . not making the time, not developing a budget for it, or acquiring the funding . . . if there's anyone to blame, consider the source and cause, which actually might be an arsonist . . .or, arsonists . . . but, before we jump to conclusions, let's wait for the results of the investigations and for deeper reporting on it all . . . 🕵️♂️👀
@ it shouldn’t take a year to repair a cover on a critical water reserve :)
This TOTALLY fixes the water pressure problem! You wouldn't like the tax bill to create a modern fire suppression system to handle a fire of this scale. Oh, and " :) "
@ if we consolidated all the excess spending he mentioned it would be possible “ :)))))”
Glad to see a reasonable objective analysis of the situation.
DOING THE RIGHT THING will NEVER matter when the majority of California voters cast their ballots based on emotion rather than logic.
@@JL-nb1yc I agree. And I want to add my thanks to Ricky. As a Californian, I’m defensive when I see that us voters deserve this. We are tying to do the best we can with the information we have. Yes, fires and the chances of perfect storms are increasing due to climate changing and major unusual weather swings. It’s also good to know that taking nearly a year to solve a seemingly simple problem because govenment purchasers are forced to 1) get multiple bids 2) Asses the bids 3) have the project get approved or else face consequences from constituents so on an so forth. It sucks that our vulnerability increases with time which allows us to not fight disasters like this with everything that we have to maximize our chances of mitigation.
He didn't have time to go into different political parties. And he's maybe not old enough to remember. California could never balance the budget under Republican Governors. From Reagan to Schwartzenneger. Jerry Brown actually had us with a surplus. So did Newsom the first few years. But he is right. There should be no reason with our high taxes, for these infrastructure issues, not to be fixed. Otherwise, we're just paying for the mild climate and the views. All that said, please be aware, Republicans run things just as bad or worse. They ain't gonna cut your taxes, unless your rich af.
@@anthonyhalkyer2036 Ah yes, the "clmate change" mantra has appeared instead of holding politicians responsible for not FOR CLIMATE CHANGE and the stupid voters who keep voting them in.
@@anthonyhalkyer2036 In sum, perhaps PRACTICAL is the key. To me, even without solving or knowing all, one can find things which are fully controllable to devote actions and resources to. For disasters like this, it's quite usual to see some decisions prior to the event which clearly led to the horror, and yet could have handled things in a practical way. I see people focused upon things which are speculative, are "Pet" movement ideology, as opposed to fiercely objective proposals. Take the water run off and store it? That's not stupid, the run off exists. Storage, is possible, but it costs money. Meanwhile, in the section on financial matters we see hundreds of billions flowing. Could this be POSSIBLE? Where there is a will, there is a way. When the leaders have no desire, there will be no action.
I would love to see more videos on measures, materials, and technologies that can withstand fires in California or hurricanes on the gulf. When we rebuild, what can we do better.
Every new home should be built of fire-resistant materials: cinder block walls; metal trusses; tile roofs. Landscaping should be xeriscaped, and strictly controlled. All rain runoff should be captured in cisterns on-property and/or in-community, and equipped for fire pumping in emergency. All pools should be equipped for emergency pumping. No rebuilding to older standards should be allowed.
Gee that sounds like a lot of regulation. That's exactly what Republicans would like to get rid of
@joeatwood1346 at the very least make the walls out of hempcrete not cinder block
In an area prone to strong earthquakes? Bricks are a no go.
That's all good, but there's the little problem of more expensive housing in a state already plagued with a housing crisis. There are no solutions in life, only trade-offs (paraphrasing Dr. Sowell).
@@jabbathespudExactly. Bricks and blocks fall over in earthquakes. Easily too, I've seen it.
Water is a precious resource in California, and it is scarce mainly because of human actions/decisions.
But waters not scarce in California. The largest ocean on the planet is adjacent to California. The actual scarce resource in California is integrity, competance, and common sense. And let's be honest, adding a little more a 'toxic masculinity' to the state wouldn't hurt.
And farts are a smelly gas that causes stampedes in crowded places, specially when they are of the SBD types.
water in California is scarce ONLY because of the ineptitude of the politicians making your decisions out there. there's been plenty of time to repair infrastructure that you already have. paying exorbitant sums of money towards homelessness is pure incompetence. cutting of budgets to the fire department in one of the most fire prone areas is pure stupidity. you elect your politicians. they make these decisions for you. either talk up and get them out of office, or make sure they do the job they are elected for. the mayor of LA should face criminal negligence charges she's been more concerned with what's happening in Africa for years instead of the constituents that have elected her. California been underfilling reservoirs for decades due to it not being repaired to deal with its normal operating capacities, that is SHAMEFUL considering the amount of money in that state that is just wasted of inflated positions in government by people that cant even handle doing the base job that they are elected and hired for. corruption is what has led to this, and the wasteful spending just to pump up funds where money can disappear easier into pockets. $150k repair for a single reservoir has led to $150B in damages and loss. 11 months to repair a liner? too much red tape in that state. this is what happens with over regulation. california is proof of that. yes when everything works california is an example to other states in the union, but California's practices and regulation FREQUENTLY breaks down and causes problems further down the line. in most situations, it HAULTS progress.
@@TruthDragon.Moving water UPHILL hundreds of feet takes equipment that simply isn’t available…
@@TruthDragon. There are amazing desalination projects operating in places around the world. We face the vast Pacific Ocean, but we squirm with draconian water conservation. Yes, back long ago we had immense aqueduct achievements (my father worked as surveyor on this vast project), but today we LACK WILL to do what we need around water system PUBLIC POLICY.
As a retired public employee, I can tell you, there's a process you have to go through to do anything, back in the pre prop 13 days, they would have staff and resources to just fix it themselves, and if they needed contractors, would have had a company they knew and trusted and just give them a call and get it done, no more, most public agencies have been cut to bare minimum, and they have to go out to bid for everything, and the lowest qualified bidder gets the job, most of the best companies have quit working for public agencies or just gone out of business, the ones that are left, they cut to the bone to get the job and it's difficult to get quality work done in the time frame you need, and the California voters did this, they don't trust public employees to do to job, so you get what you deserve in the end...
I don't think you are allowed to say things like that. 😶
@mnrick1960 telling the truth in 2025??!! Yeah, they're probably coming for me... 😳
You mean the capitalist system of cutting the the public sector into ineptitude therefore destroying public trust in it and making government an apparatus to serve the wealthy? Then yes. It has been a goal for the last 50+ years but really since inception to privatize everything including pubici resources like water. If money can be made somewhere…
Well the administration did this to save money. They don't care about keeping qualified employees in house. They think subcontracting is the answer. That way they aren't responsible if something goes wrong. It's because they're basically stupid when it comes to maintaining infrastructure.
For Chaparral, they controlled it with Bulldozers when I moved here 35 years ago. They cut a huge criss-cross, isolating patches of brush. Then they performed burns of brush in the isolated patches.
The drone strike did not happen in the first hours of the fire. Fixed wing aircraft were grounded on Tuesday into Wednesday because of the wind. The Drone strike occurred on Thursday. While this is a serious and intolerable incident, and had negative impacts on the firefight, characterizing it as hampering operations in the first hours of the devastating Palisades fire is misinformed in the least, to intentionally misleading in the worst. The running out of water is also related to the grounding of aircraft on Tuesday. If the aircraft had not been grounded, their efforts could have, in the least, reduced the demand on the use of fire hydrants to, in the best scenario, limited the speed and size of the fire, again, reducing demand on the water system. As you stated, the winds were exceptional. That was the primary cause of this unprecedented event. As for dam removal at the extreme north end of California, Los Angeles gets almost all it's water from the Owens Valley to the east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, from the Colorado river, and from ground wells. The impact of those dams, or any other dams in California on the west of the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains is negligible. If we repaired all the dams as you have pointed out need repairing, it would not change the ability to fight fires in urban areas as you suggest in saying having a thousand small reservoirs spread across the state. The problem is that the state water systems, fire fighting systems, and HHS systems were designed and built for a state that no longer exists. The issue is the slow change due to climate change. Los Angeles, to begin with, was build in a desert. It's growth was exploded with the bringing of water from the Owens Valley. We now have about 18 Million people living in a desert with little significant local water sources. As for maintaining the lands using prescribed burns, this is a result of a (finally) shifting veiw of land management. The problem, it can be argued, began with the US Forest service adopting the policy of fighting every forest fire in 1935. Also, most of the chaparral is the result of non native species. If you look at historical photos of the areas where these fires occurred, you will see a grassland landscape with few trees and brush. I also found that you finally recognized the major problem being climate change, that it was mentioned almost in passing, to be weak. As for property tax, you neglect the issues surrounding California's tax law that prevent re-assessment of property values, in particularly in regard to commercial properties, that keep property tax revenue artificially low.
@@scottramos7949
It's so annoying when people say that the major issue is global warming.
What, if not the global warming, we wouldn't have droughts & wind stop blowing?
Well, we are still living through the Ice age. So the temperature would be still rising.
Ok, maybe we shouldn't move production to China? They are building the coal plants.
Maybe we should build nuclear?
Maybe we shouldn't blow up the Russian Gas pipelines, & ship the liquid gas to the EU?
Well, maybe we should do all of that, and also bring water down to LA, instead of "Bringing Salmon"?
How about the Forest Management?
...
If we would just prevent all these fires, you will be way ahead of "saving the environment".
Just cut the forest & use it to run your Tesla.
Why waste?
Thank you for pointing this out. Many people seem to think that 90-100mph winds on that Tuesday night basically blasting hot embers miles away did not have any factor in these horrific fires. No amount of fire suppression, fire hoses and ground crews could have stopped this. I say to people: try pissing into the wind and see what results they get, this is what the firefighters were dealing with. All planes were grounded. I live near the Altadena area and saw 1st hand the absolutely crazy Santa Ana's that night. I've lived here the better part of 18 years and have NEVER seen them so strong. Trees down EVERYWHERE. Factor no rain since April and hot extremely dry air blasting down from the desert... this is the unfortunate result. I really despise the politization of this incident from people who have no damn clue - it's disgusting!
@@voodoouttYou are both right to speak out here!
100% agree with your post and I commented something similar because this video seems so misleading. They had to fight the fire from the sides and from the back and the terrain on the back side is really rough. Tons of misinformation continues to spread because people don't understand how things work.
@@scottramos7949 thank you!!! I couldn’t have said it better myself.
An 'average' home value of $4,000,000 causes insurance rates for those with homes under $400,000 to increase a LOT. Home values over a certain point should be required to use completely separated insurance.
We loved living in California, too. But we couldn't stand what the politicians were doing to the state, so we left - in 1997, and we weren't alone. My family moved to California after my Dad retired from the USAF in 1967. My wife lived there all her life until we moved. California politicians have been ruining the state for a very long time.
💯🎯
I left in 2021. They made it effectively legal to shoplift < $1000, and illegal to have separate boys and girls aisles in toy stores. When they started to seriously consider taxing people *after* they left the state, it was the last straw.
@@barryon8706 CA tried to tax my retirement account after I left. That reaffirmed that I made the correct decision. Sacramento collects some weird politicians.
I don't understand how more expensive homes makes insurance on cheaper homes higher? You pay based on the cost to rebuild or the value of your house, right?
@@smileymbb1 The insurance companies are in business for making a profit. If they have to pay out on a 20 Million dollar home, they have to increase everybody's rates.
To fight fire, you need water.
It doesnt matter how it started. It's how the authorities responded and the failures of these authorities to fight the fire
The fire hydrants are built to use a few at a time to keep the pressure up. If you try to open almost all of them at the same time, you won't possibly get enough pressure. For that, you need giant mechanical pumps.
@@MatsAtheist Yes, and I'd suggest that if a real estate development or its customers INSIST upon building in areas prone to fire, then you simply MUST build out this far more ROBUST set of water systems. Just like we built this vast set of flood control channels all over the place. We figured out this was a flood prone place, thus we said - Okay, we will have to deal with this problem. Today not as much "dealing with it" is going on.
I mean, it does kind of matter how it started.
I'm no fire expert and here in Michigan we have a much different topography and climate but every spring here people control burn their fields for a couple reasons, it helps control the tick population and it also helps prevent grass fires that could become forest fires.
Prayers for all of those affected by this disaster. Losing a home is devastating, and entire communities have been lost. What residents can do is step up to run for local offices. So many smart people there, I’m sure you can create better governance. People’s hard earned money should not be wasted like that. We have the same problems here in NJ.
prayers don't do anything
Now we just need to find a candidate that can control the wind..
America needs to learn how to build houses using concrete, cement and other materials that aren't instantly flammable. The westernized tofu dreg used today (cardboard, plastic and wood) is a housefire waiting to happen, especially in an area prone to wildfires, which California very much is!
Better houses that can withstand more, won't stop fires from happening, but it could mean fewer houses being completely lost, and fewer houses feeding a fire. Yes, homes would still be heavily affected by smoke, but you can hopefully sanitize places that's been damaged by smoke and maybe replace some furniture, something that's likely in a sense easier than having to completely rebuild an entire property... Just look at that mansion that was the last house standing in one neighborhood. THAT type of construction is what should be the building standard for both residential housing and businesses alike!
In South America most houses are built of concrete and they rarely have destructive fires. They don’t usually have fire insurance…
A building needs to flex to survive an earthquake.
My brother had the real estate section of the Honolulu Star Bulletin as his duty. He was a big fan of fully concrete construction residential. A situation like this may mean it has to be redone as to electrical and plumbing, but the building survives, gets cleaned and continues to function as a residence.
@dj_fity unless... it's structure is below the quaking earth. Then it's about... compressive strength again. Just an idea💡
@Tom_Bee_ Like in a mound? Yes I have seen a video on the benefits of underground houses for heating and cooling.
Thank you so much for the info I like how you break down all the info
And what's really happening.
There is always 100 mph winds in Southern California, enough for semi trucks to flipover on the interstate 10, and the 210, like toys. This happens almost every year, near the interstate 15.
The winds come in from the area known as the Cajon Pass. Very powerul winds.
This is bloody awful, absolutely heartbreaking! My heart goes out to all affected. Sending best wishes from Australia, our thoughts are with you 🇦🇺.
@@FutureSystem738 thank you! - from a California Aussie
@@FutureSystem738 thank you from Los Angeles.
The blame lies in the fact that there are too many houses in areas like this, whether it’s LA hills or Oakland.
Hilly residential areas with narrow roads and dry westerly winds, it’s not a matter of if, but when. 😢
Victim blaming? I'm a former firefighter and engineer, this comment is wrong. Ricky is correct. Prevention s the key. This area has known risks that are not new and were not managed. Plenty of warnings for years and observed incidents proving the warnings correct. A bit too late after the fires start because there is a point where the fire creates it's own mirco-climate that makes stopping impossible and all you can do is what we call surround and drown. But you can't without water. An LA firefighter said we've been just lucky for years because the weather changed but one day our luck will run out.
Blowing up four dams may not have affected the fire outcome, but doing so clearly shows the mentality of CA politicians who want to peserve nature at all costs, including human lives and human civilization. By the way, those dams provided green energy to tens of thousands of homes.
Those dams were removed by the request of the local populations, after years of planning. Are you saying that CA politicians shouldn't listen to their constituents? Also, the amount of renewable power those tiny hydro dams produced is in the noise compared to California's renewable generation. Barely 169MW.
What does this say about you?
I would humbly like to offer a perspective on the northern dams. The people who live here held many meetings with the representatives of PG&E (and of Warren Buffet) who wanted to remove the dams rather than continue to maintain them. The people where I live voted to keep the dams. Many of the members of the community supporting the dams were engineers and provided the bulk of research and contract information showing outcomes and legal requirements being ignored by the “removal” organization. Fish ladders and shutes were explored but I heard that PG&E did not want to continue maintenance. I don’t know the facts on that, because I thought there was newly passed legislation supporting water projects. There was also discussion of additional construction at the mouth of the Klamath to direct some of fresh water via an enclosed culvert to the south, rather than letting all of it run to the sea.
In summary I want to say that the reason the northern California water has come into discussion is for several reasons: 1) A pattern is seen throughout the state of California that reflects poor leadership and judgment; 2) We have fires in far north California too and relied recently on the Klamath for fighting the Klamath Fire; 3) local people including some natives were on both sides of the issue, and as I say, we voted to keep the Copco Dam and were ignored; 4) the locals have tales of the days before the dams were constructed of the Klamath in summer being called “stinking creek,” or some such name because it could be walked across and was stagnant. So, lastly I will say that 5) if we need water during summer fire season, I wonder if the planes will be able to drop buckets in and retrieve water as they have done in recent years? And 6) will the Salmon be able to traverse the stream during their seasonal run?
@@junkerzn7312 i live up there, nobody here was asking for removal of those, especially the people that had lakefront property on Copco
I'd wonder about you claim, the mentality is one of trying to restore, where possible, a bit of nature. I see nothing wrong with this. - Dams reach an age where they become risks, needing expensive repairs. The video suggested it's a shame to see all that fresh water going to the sea. Well, isn't that what it's supposed to do. The mighty Colorado river now dries up before it even reaches the sea. Humanity needs to stop putting some much demand on nature, whether rivers, forests, the oceans or indeed the very air we breathe. I believe California has quite an excess of sunshine, solar power could well provide a better alternative to dams.
I live in Los Angeles. I left my house in Culver City at 4am on Wednesday morning on my way to the Burbank airport for a 7:30 flight. As I got on the 10 East I could see the massive orange glow from the palisades. I didn't smell smoke until I cot to the Crenshaw exit. By the time I got downtown by dodger stadium it was raining ash and thick heavy smoke. It was so surreal I'll never forget it. Shutting down the grid is the only way you would have prevented this.
If you cannot manage a fire hydrant, you should not be in office.
Fire hydrants that were perfectly adequate for decades should have been replaced? Hindsight is always 20/20 but self-important _holes will claim they always knew.
ha hahahahahahahahahahaha nice one
Not many will be in office.
I think you have completely missed the mark. If you feel the need to blame someone you can blame the last 50 years of poor urban planning.
Uh Los Angeles has plans that have 15 minutes cities in place by 2028. Do some research.
100%. I don't understand why we as a country are allergic to long term planning and infrastructure
"I think you have completely missed the mark. If you feel the need to blame someone you can blame the last 50 years of poor urban planning."
So instead of blaming people in power currently that doesn't do their job, you want to spread the blame thing on unspecified people in the past? I wonder who have missed the mark here.
@@yourcrazybear im guessing you weren't exactly part of the "talented and gifted" group of pupils back when you were in school, were you?
Or really the fact that SoCal is the allure of paradise but is absolutely not the environment for mass civilization no matter how much you think you can alter and control the natural landscape. LA is a prime example of the arrogance of manifest destiny and human arrogance. Building a massive city in a place so susceptible natural disasters but hey weather good.
Infastructure is tricky to implement, in countries like Switzerland and Finland who are always preparing for the “worst case scenario”, the population is willing to pay for systems and infasructure that are designed to handle the worst. We in North America want the very best that we can get… for NO MONEY. The added cost to the tax payer, to build a worst case scenario infrastructure would cause the villagers to riot.
Have a look at Zermatt and the floods they had in the summer of 2024. Worse than the summer of 2023. All that rain you are missing in Cali is going elsewhere. Valencia got a years rain in 8 hours. People can either try to take political advantage or do something. Time and tide wait for no man.
@@randyterpstra-carignan2767 Choices have been made as to how taxpayer money is spent. Primary roles of government is provision of adequate police and fire service, disaster preparedness and basic infrastructure like water.
It's a lot easier with a homogeneous society, everyone is on the same page so things can get done. That's not happening here, half the country doesn't even know what bathroom to use
Infrastructure. Hard to cover fully, especially in So Cal. You probably are not fully aware of the hundreds of miles of concrete lined channels that constitute the Los Angeles County Flood Control District. Maps are available upon internet search. After horrible floods in L.A. in the late 1930's the Army Corps of Engineers together with the County and city built a gigantic set of water handling channels which move immense amounts of storm surge water out of the L.A. basin and into the sea. Many of us would like to see substantial storage of some of this run off which is massive during the rainy episodes. These channels are fifteen feet deep, run all over this huge city scape, and during storms the depth is seven or eight feet and runs along at 35 to 45 mph. People or animals fall in and die, their bodies washed out to sea. It's huge.
In the United States it happens after disaster, keep in mind the United States is relatively new with California being the newest of the new. Other cities have had thousands of years to figure out what happens. For example even in California San Francisco has underground cisterns all across the city and two different types of fire systems. The system was extremely expensive to build but it was built after the Great quake when most of the city burned down. So you learn your lessons as you go.
Forgot to cover how the forestry department had there funding cut decades ago. They used to clear out the under growth to help keep these fires from getting out of control
Other states do controlled burns on grasslands every year. Controlled burns are not just for forests. Fire breaks, which California stopped doing in the 1980’s is how you mainly control wildland fires in forests
The host of this video is a prime example of not taking accountability for their lib values that caused this disaster
@@Drew-P-Bllz
That's a pretty harsh accusation. This content creator did NO Such Thing. He even invited for comments from so-called more knowledgeable folks about fire this disastrous.
I think you should show video of what a firestorm really looks like. There is not a lot you can do in those conditions. Yes, to all you said though. We need more firefighters, working reservoirs, less politics and more people that want to solve problems. Wish you'd do a video on sortition.
It didn't matter how much water pressure or how many white straight male fire fighters you had, that wasn't going to be stopped.. It really wouldn't have mattered how much forest management, or raking of the forest you did, you weren't stopping it.
.
Like a hurricane, you weren't stopping this.. Just because there are people labeled as "Fire Fighters" doesn't mean they can fight all fires, especially all at once.
@Brian...
Fire starts from tiny ember, it doesn't get big like in videos at once. It is a copout mentality of let it burn by itself. Too big to handle. 😅😅😅
@@bobw53jrma
It is preventive measures that should be annually done year in and out.
We don't discuss after the fire gets big n uncontrollable.
I think you are massively underplaying the impact of close to Cat 1 hurricane winds have on the situation. The fire /wind combo across a large front is making this like a blowtorch going across the land. No amount of water was going to slow that down. The reality is that sometimes mother nature reminds us all of who is really in charge. Drought + high winds + spark is a deadly combination and at this scale no amount of preparation would've stopped it.
@robsomething4435 I needs fuel fire. Try that in Europe. We have bricks houses. No matter the wind
Very true. There is no fighting a fire like this in those conditions. The only thing that could have minimized the damage is if there were less houses in those area or at least ones with with better fire-proofing. But under such conditions when planes or helicopters couldn't even take off no amount of available water or equipment is going to make a difference.
@@cristianion2056brick houses in earthquake zones. Brilliant
@@cristianion2056 Europe doesn't have earthquakes like California does either.
Prevention won’t have helped? How do you know? SoCal needs preventative measures and we don’t have nearly enough.
MAN what a great and comprehensive analysis. thanks and I wish all the best for all of you struggling with the aftermath.
Wow all the information I was looking for in one video. 🙌🏻 great job
Too bad at least half of it is misinformation pulled from Twitter instead of real sources.
There are 197 billionaires in California. Just saying
So you want 197 billionaires to leave, Elon and Bazo left….just saying
Why should billionaires bail out corrupt loser freeloader socialists?
Sonething is broken. Just saying.
Billionaires don't have wealth in cash
It turns out this is my lifelong area of expertise. They are "worth" billions BECAUSE their businesses are VALUED (stock market or other estimate) in billions. They own the things, so they have this assigned value. In order to OBTAIN FUNDS, they need to sell off part of their business (if public, they would sell shares), and that is very highly limited. Gates is not going to suddenly sell all his Microsoft shares. Can't be done. Won't happen.
I’m a volunteer Firefighter in Oklahoma. We have lots of wildland fires due to pasture fires, fields catching on fire during harvest and so on. Prescribed control burns are essential. One, it burns off fuel. Two, it saves livestock and property. Three, the grass grows greener due to the carbon and ash which is a type of fertilizer. Four, this provides natural fire breaks. Some farmers keep the grass mowed around the fields or disc it under to help with this. Lastly and most importantly, it saves lives.
As far as the water issue, that’s your government officials. Close to 50% of your income goes to the state. People can’t afford a home and work there. So they live in the streets. Where is this money going? Politicians are more worried about staying in power and lining their pockets then the people. They cut police and fire to fund their costly and profitable to them projects. They sent almost half their fire apparatus to Ukraine without a plan to replace these $3-$700k equipment. They have electric fire trucks now I heard. Do you think they can stay in the fight as long as this fire has been going and power been out? I can fill a tank of diesel faster than I can wait on that drying to charge. Stop compromising your public safety with your green agenda and improper handling of funds. You can start by not electing the same people over and over again. You put a paper clip in an electric socket and get shocked, why repeat it? It’s lunacy. If it doesn’t work, try something different. No more politicians getting paid under the table to pass laws and funds to crooked corporations and people. You know I can get my meds so much cheaper overseas than in the USA? Make laws to cap the cost of prescriptions. There are things than can be done to fix all of this. Vote in people who can’t be bought and have good moral standings. Someone that can “git’er done” without a payout.
Growing up in Northern California, prescribed burns were done on wild grasses/chapparal brush all the time. You setup a fire break and do it on days which were low risk. We even had a field trip as kids to watch CalFire do it. The facts are that Newsome cut CalFire's budget even after he promised to perform prescribed burns... California's own audit showed that the state only performed 11% of the targeted burns.
Yes, the drone operator needs to be made example of. When a fire emergency is declared, all drones should immediately be banned. Those who continue to fly the drones should be charged with more severe punishment than looters.
Considering all the unidentified drone activity in cities across the country for the last month and actually years… no agencies taking responsibility yet no action taken by our government to stop them… that wasn’t a normal civilian drone strike on that plane… that had to have been very large to do that much damage!!
Here in Sweden drones with cameras on them have been banned unless you have a special permit, that in itself have made drones less common overall as most people wanted to fly them to get video footage or pictures of an area. The reason camera drones got banned unless having special permit? Concerns about people's personal integrity as it was feared drones were used to spy on or stalk people...
@@ReyOfLightDoes Sweden have any freedoms where you don’t have to ask the government for permission? Banning stuff for safety or claimed safety is a dark road to travel down.
@@Jennifermcintyre You underestimate the forces involved. A bird strike can do similar damage.
@@Jennifermcintyre Drone strikes are ludicrously rare. Bird strikes are far more frequent. We are not scouring the skies for all birds. Flying is super dangerous. I guess few people have reasoned that all out yet.
So we can land rockets in reverse but we can’t find a way to have water ready for a known fire prone state? 💀
Musk was driven out.
@@badass1g sadly preventative measures aren’t important to people until it’s too late. Too many “nothing’s going to happen” people that don’t compare the cost of prevention to the value of what’s at stake. The replacement cost of the stuff doesn’t include the value of lives lost, neighborhood communities that are broken and the business and jobs that won’t come back anytime soon.
I heard in another report :
2014..Californians voted on putting billions of dollars towards building New Reservoirs,
and Not One Reservoir is Completed, 10 yrs later.
To my understanding only Space X can land rockets this way. But, I get it HUMANS can do these things. Ancient Rome had vast water projects, as did ancient Cambodia, Egypt. Humans can do amazing things when huge amounts of willpower are focused upon those things. There will be those who claim it's not possible, but usually these things are possible, they just take immense will and effort.
Don't forget how US turned down Bill Gates a trial for dealing w a pandemic. Ooof.
24:23 Are these numbers correct? 114 billion $ for 188000 people is ~610000$ per person and year. that is ~ 10 times the average US income. Where is that money going if the people are living in tents?
Perhaps Newsom can answer that question to all.
According to his spreadsheet it's the total amount for health and human services.
This encompasses:
Health care
Mental health
Public health
Substance use disorder services
Income assistance
Social services
Assistance to people with disabilities
6:00 yes the drones have impacted flights, but these aircraft also have maximum safe wind speeds. High winds make the very low passes dangerous, as well as create waves making water pickup dangerous to impossible.
12:00 Im really glad to see you discuss the lack or water without sensationalizing. Yes the reservoir was empty because of a minor issue which is maddening. But it seems like the issue most news has missed is that they ran out of water *pressure*. And yes, engineering and money could solve this in the future.
27:00 San Francisco has two water systems, both with fire hydrants. One that connects to houses, businesses, and white hydrants. And another redundant and independent system that only has water storage, pumps, and red fire hydrants. More expensive than just 1 set of fire hydrants, but people demanded it after their big fire. The second system also has the ability to pump directly from the ocean, and to cut off sections that have leaks (like water main breaks during the big earthquake)
Been a subscriber and lover of your stuff for a while now. This was a really great unbiased logical look at the situation. Glad you’re ok and praying for all those who’ve lost or are in the path 🙏 It’s just unimaginable.
Not unbiased. For example: The budget cut story has been debunked. Ricky should be embarrassed to be still repeating it.
"The City Council approved the firefighter raises in November, adding more than $53 million in additional salary costs. By then, the council had also signed off on $58 million for new firetrucks and other department purchases.
Once those two line items were added, the fire department’s operating budget actually grew by more than 7% compared to the prior fiscal year, according to the city’s financial analysts." LA Times
There was no budget cut.
@@jasonk125 Glad you could alert us that if we simply pay firefighters dramatically more these kinds of thing can entirely be ended. Thanks.
How many swimming pools are there in The Palisades and how much water is contained in those pools? These could be a source of fire fighting water. With the water situation being critical, were steps taken to restrict water use?
Think about that for a second. How would you actually implement that course of action. Let's see, you would have to have a least one fire hose and VERY high pressure pump along with large generator (power is out in a fire) to support that pump plus risk the trucks and firefighters (at least 3) to transport that equipment. They would have to deploy all this equipment, meaning set up that pump and generator, unravel the hoses (ever handle an actual fire hose? it's not exactly watering your lawn) and stand and face the ungodly massive firestorm moving with 100mph winds for the total of less than 5 minutes that that pool would actual last at the pump rate needed to move any water through that hose. You could build trucks that simplify this action but that would still be resources better spent elsewhere.
All this would do is put firefighters in harms way for no real effect.
@@rickyal9810 I don't agree. Fire trucks already have pumps. There are now stories of homeowners who invested in generators and pumps to use their pool water for fire protection. Organizing preparation is one role of government. It's called disaster preparedness.
@@rickyal9810 The locations of all swimming pools can be mapped look at Google Maps). Fire fighters and incident commanders can have access to this info as they plan their attacks and/or preventative measures. We should be open minded and objective about solutions, even ones that may present challenges to implement.
@@royrunyon1286 Then are you saying they were already perfectly capable of enacting this idea and chose not to or didn't occur to them? I believe if it was that simple the firefighters would have, or maybe they did in some cases.
@@royrunyon1286Fire pumpers designed to use hydrants frequently can’t use standing water. It takes a different hose and pump design - which rural fire engines frequently have. A knowledge of where the water is is however essential.
That reservoir NEVER should have been offline during our fire season.
@@mitchellsmith4601 I thought fire season was summer, not winter?
Its January.
Isn't summer fire season not winter.
To Mitchells' point, the reservoir WAS empty all throughout the fire season (last one). It's been out for an entire year.
I read that the reservoir was offline for 1 year.
Your video is one of the most insightful ones I’ve seen out there. Much credit to you! Thank you!
Everyone is always such an expert and knows everything. Lol.
Yep! Everyone today is an armchair expert.
This is one of the few times a California wildfire happened during the dead of WINTER. It’s super common during hot dry summers.
Some of the worst & deadliest California wildfires occurred in OCT, NOV, & DEC.
Thomas fire December 2017 (Ventura, Santa Barbara)
Inaja fire November 1956 (San Diego)
Loop fire November 1966 (Los Angeles)
Camp fire November 2018 (Town of Paradise destroyed)
Many occurred in October.
So not just summer.
Regardless of when they occur, you MUST be prepared in every possible manner. You can't stop them from happening.....but there are numerous things that can & need to be done to mitigate the damage and loss of life.
Santa Ana's do happen in January sometimes, but we've usually had a few rains by now. This is one of the longest stretches with no rain, that I can remember, and I've lived in SoCal for 62 years. Combined with some of the strongest winds. It is scary right now because we aren't done yet.
obviously this dude doesnt live anywhere near Cali... Santa Anna season is in the winter..
The Santa Ana winds blow the hardest in December and January. Every year. Where are you getting your information?
Actually there have been some, mostly with Santa Ana conditions. I know of none that equaled this utter disaster, but I have had to evacuate from Sylmar back years ago. I had to deal with issues around 2018 Malibu fire, and was associated with the La Tuna area fire via our sons' private school there. Bad fires are to be expected in Los Angeles.
Lots of pre-positioning happened before the fires. 65 local government fire engines, 7 water tenders, 7 helicopters, 9 dozers and more than 105 specialized personnel in Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties. CAL FIRE firefighting resources were relocated from Northern California into Southern California, including 45 additional fire engines and six additional hand crews to Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties. And Canada and Mexico, as well as other states' firefighters, were called in.
This isn't one of your better researched videos. Generally, I really find them high quality, but this one less so.
High quality? I've always found him to be "pop" science that is mostly a veneer of science without actual substance. No one should listen to this TwoBitHack guy. He's really one of the worst individuals that really brings nothing substantial to the conversation. No critical thinking but he DOES have his own biases that he wants to insert and use these disasters as proof to get you to believe what he's saying. This guy has a long history of promoting bad science and even worse companies that come close to actual scams. I think even thunderf00t had a video that exposed one of his ridiculous "tech miracle" videos. He's basically just like that other bald buy "undecided with Matt the shill". I hate how much these people get put into my recommended feeds. They really need to just go away.
He is human, and not perfect. And he obviously was sick and had very little time to prepare. As more information comes out, hopefully he will post a follow up to clarify places that didn't turn out to match the real time-lines. At least he did get the Northern CA dam thing right.
What exactly is he saying that is so wrong? You didn't say....
@@christaylor4786 well it's not just one single thing. It's the whole narrative behind it. He presents the events like they were something that was easily preventable but for the neglicence or ineptitude of Calfornian politicians. But that whole thing is complete hogwash. If you were to speak with scholars and experts in wildfire control and management, they'd tell you how lots of things all came together to set a scene that made these fires more of an inevitability than any one person's fault. To have prevented this, a lot of things would have been needed to be implemented, but doing so was always an uphill battle. Sometimes, as sad as it is, you need horrible things like this to happen first, before people will agree to make the necessary changes and investments. Voters are JUST as much to blame as politicians are, we're all to blame as a society. There's a lot more to it, but it's not something easily explained in a youtube comment.
Hey buddy! I was born in California. But raised in Ohio. Did 6 years submarine duty in San Deigo. You got this down! Exactly what you say is needed! Keep up your good work!!!! God bless 2 but Davinchi!
Bit. Lol
Put in 10,000 litre water tanks on every private property. In Australia ,most country shires there's a $1,700 fine for not doing fire breaks this year. Farms get inspected.
This is not Australia ! And Not too many farms in Palisades area !!!
Interesting, except that Australia has suffered some of the worst wildfires in recorded history. Another climate change event from another country in denial.
@@johnrday2023
Typical duma$$ response.
Of course the USA is not Australia.
Suggested preventative action is to observe how other communities solve problems and - if it is possible - to adapt those solutions to your own local area.
Right now areas of LA are starting to look like Somalia.
Every avenue that could improve or prevent should be considered.
But you can't fix stupid.
@xge555 look at the maps befor the fire. I'd say routhly 20% of houses have swimming pools with a lot more than 10m³ water. Why they didn't chuck in apump and set up a couple of garden sprinklers is another issue.
@@johnrday2023 swimming pools, more capacity, and fun to have in these climates. And quite a few houses have them already.
A proper intelligent engineer (or similar in other fields) running for political office wouldn't get elected. I think people vote looking at very short term and not longer term, so all they want to see is less taxes and more money on their pockets...
I missed where Californians have less taxes and more money.
Regarding insurance companies, if a insurance company drops you for purpose of "its too expensive to cover damages in your area", it should be mandatory that company refunds you all the money you have paid them over the years, because effectively this is theft.
They promised a service and you paid for it then they were like "nah im not providing that service, but thank you for paying for it!"
Wrong. - You bought insurance for a particular period of time. When that time is over you are free to quit, as they are. The main reason insurance companies have dropped people in CA is that the GOVERNMENT mandates the price of the insurance, but does NOT change the price of rebuilding houses.
@@jocelynbey5944 Exactly, Californias horrific construction cost and permitting nightmares are the reason insurance companies are feeing as fast as they can. It cost on average 400 to 500 dollars a square foot to build new homes in Southern California then add in the permit fees of around 100,000 bucks. That's astronomical costs and if the insurance company can't raise the rates of the area they would go bankrupt in one season. Its simple math, now instead of complaining follow their lead and get out before its to late. California is a mess and will destroy itself in stupidity.
People were insured and they covered them for that time period. The money paid in went to others already, salaries and people they had to pay claims out to, and some profit left over - for the service they provided. Iow what you paid in was already spent. I suppose they could had just insured you again but raised your premium but state lawmakers cap that.
It's not like they're pulling the money out of the air - it comes from the all the people paying in, and so it's just a gamble on the insurance company's part, the Issue is you're asking someone to pay out billions of dollars on a risk with an extremely high chance to happen.
Obviously they want to take in money, to make money, but when the risk of having to pay money out is becoming closer if not more than the money coming in of course they'll quit. Wouldn't you?
@@tommack9395 The property insurance should have a carryover of funds year to year. The funds to recover do not magically form in one year. If you do not understand that you are ill informed. Insurance companies pulling out is theft.
Every time it was brought to vote on increasing about a buddy for firefighters and equipments the Republicans voted against them and so they didn’t pass if it doesn’t get voted for that there’s nobody to proceed with by the equipment. That’s why we didn’t have as much money as we have been requested.
If you want to do a great science episode, you can try and explain what happened meteorologically because this has never happened before in Calif. There have been dozens of fires in those hills since my family settled there in the 40's and many have occurred during Santa Ana's and droughts. In Pasadena/Altadena, I don't think any fire has ever gone below Loma Alta Drive which is a few blocks from the hills. Let alone 3 miles into the city. During Santa Ana's. the steep mountains and lack of long canyons block the Santa Ana's from impacting Altadena. Just look at the wind forecasts for the two events they are predicting this week. Pasadena has the lowest winds projected by far in all of Socal.
I recall driving through 60 mph sustained winds south of Cajon Pass in Cucamonga where every truck on I-10 was flipped over, but can't ever remember getting anything above 30 mph in Pasadena. There were 50 mph winds a couple times during winter storms, but not from Santa Ana's. How the heck did 98 mph winds occur? One of the LA meteorologists on Tuesday night mentioned a "mountain wave". But he was predicting gusts only up to 50 mph in the SG Valley. Was this event so incredibly enormous that it managed to push a massive column of air OVER the mountains instead of just through the canyons as is normal? If not, how can we explain why the winds were moving from east to west? The canyon that opens into the Arroyo Seco does get higher winds during Santa Ana's, but usually causes the wind during Santa Ana's to blow lightly to the East in Pasadena. This is why I didn't think to tell my brother that he needed to evacuate when I saw where it started, but he and his best friends that lived a mile away ended up losing everything.
The reason why this is so scary is that between this, the Cameron Peak fire in 2020 that moved 20 miles in a single day and the Boulder fire in 2021, I don't think there is a square inch of land west of the Mississippi that is safe from fire now that the winds have gone to a new extreme.
Bel Air fire in the 60's
This is important, cause there are many anomalies that are not characteristic of normal brush and forest fires. They seemed to some degree planned. Then grew on there own. 😊
My wife taught for 12 years and now an assistant principal. We aren’t in CA. I 100% agree there is a lot of bureaucracy issues in schools. I would say in our particular situation we actually don’t have enough principals (our school) to facilitate teachers.
There is a lot of savings that can be made but there needs to be some sort of value add system to make sure you’re not just cutting to cut.
How much of that 54 billion is paid out in pension. A lot of money spent in perpetuity without adding value to the education system.
You want to take away peoples pensions?
How very Marxian of you. They don't "provide any value" any more huh?
Labour camps for them I guess....?
And you think schools need more pricipals? Schools needs less principals that are better at thier job. You could have a massive senior leadership team, if they are useless the school will fall apart because of terrible policies and massive waste.
You can have our $106,000 a year vice principal that was taken out of the school in handcuffs and is now working "Down Town" at the superintendents office and is in charge of laminating.. They even got rid of the part time girl making 12 grand a year so he could still make his $106k.
28k football fields doesn't put anything in perspective. you can imagine that, it's simply too much
@ChryskylodonInstitute I heard it's size of Manhattan, or even more by now. I hate football field comparisons, but Americans are bad with math, so that's the only visual reference for them.
@@citizenoftheearth6 Like a square area, by driving 5 miles then turn right and drive 5 miles.
@@citizenoftheearth6 yeah, I've heard it too - Manhattan is a good comparison, easy to understand
@@ChryskylodonInstitute Football fields are fine. Many Americans haven’t been to NYC. It’s 2,500 miles away.
@billsmith5109 Comparing the size of the fire to NYC makes more sense than saying twice the size of San Diego.
Very comprehensive report. I may have to listen again. Thank you!
California needs to build smarter and that means building houses that are basically fireproof or fire resistant. The materials are available now.
Yes, out of titanium.
Ok you must be 10 years old. How about prevent massive fires, you know to prevent large amounts of co2 that apparently is the end of the world..
I liked your "more engineers in politics" comment!
By far the best review of this cluster F, your a treasure, keep up the good work.
Great video. Used to live in LA 40 years ago. Seeing this wild fire took over so many homeowners properties and lives is devastating.
Praying God have mercy for LA and CA 🙏
Eucalyptus trees should be illegal in California. Look up their burn characteristics.
I've seen that mentioned several times. I will look that up because I know nothing about them.
The reason is that the oils in eucalyptus cause them to burn fast and at high temperatures.
No one is still planting eucalyptus. Perhaps it is wise to remove the millions of legacy trees that were planted decades ago, but like most of these things…who will pay for it, in a society where short term gain is way more important than long term consequences.
The natural environment is a "chaparral" look that up also please.
Chaparral makes eucalyptus look positively fire proof.
Eucalyptus is oily, thus its ample fuel. Most people know this, and most will not now plant new Eucalyptus. The do use this as wind break out in rural farms and ranches. The burn characteristic there is not as consequential. They make really bad suburban trees.
❤ Outstanding work again.
I follow an insane number of (mostly) excellent small-scale youtubers like you, and this is up there - if not THE most impressive video i can recall in years in terms of timely information.
Big thanks too to the established journalists who you’ve relied on for much of the original research.
And on top of an excellent vid last week re jeju air crash.
As a 68 year resident of CA I couldn’t agree more with your message. Sure the climate is changing but this is nothing new for CA. Not being better prepared is politically inexcusable. Thank you for putting this out there in the way you did.
I am Civil Engineering Contractor, we specialize in water systems. All utility companies by rule of thumb have back-up pumps, especially if you're servicing communities on higher elevation.
About half that 220 billion went into crooked peoples pockets. Salaries and bonuses to people in obscene numbers who do nothing close to warrant the money they are given by their friends.
I like the original idea George Washington had: cap government employee salaries to low levels (and no bonuses or compensation outside of salary allowed), below the average salary level for the country/city/state, so that the only people who want the job are those that are not in it for the money. Its not a perfect solution, but its a far better one than we have now where they are only in it to for the money
Capping public services salaries means who pays the biggest bribes gets the services. It makes corruption EXPECTED. Tips have similar effects.
@@allangibson8494 If no bonuses or other compensation outside of salary is allowed, then a yearly financial check by a computer program for government employees would easily root out anyone taking bribes.
That happens regardless though. Possibly worse with higher wages. If the job attracts people who just want money they will be more likely to accept bribes.
@ Low wages make bribes endemic and accepted. That’s what a “tip” is - it’s a bribe for service.
The bigger the bribe the more the rules get stretched.
Donald Trump offered to eliminate the EPA if the oil companies gave him one billion dollars.
I wonder what Elon Musk got for his $240 Million. The SEC investigation into fraud around his acquisition of Twitter dropped?
Returning to a 2016 budget is asking for a ~25% reduction in spending, because things costs ~25% more today than they did 10 years ago. That seems pretty unreasonable. If you do this, you will have many more problems than $160k water reservoir liners not fixed the next day.
Also, California has over a $4T GDP. Yes, $200B sounds like a lot. But California is basically a country, smaller in size than really only the US and China, and on par with Japan and Germany. You have to compare their budget with countries, not states.
A real person reporting news!
Great channel!!!
Coming from Europe, even given budget available the tax take in California is way too low, public infrastructure investment is neglected including water supply, non existent public transport, massive lack of low cost housing and the homeless situation all needs more money ..
Plus, why build homes out of wood with inflammable bitumen roofs in a fire risk area?
Because MMMMmmmmuuurriiiccaaaAA!
@@T-o-m-s Hmm Murica is why such flimy homes cost 4 mil . But the wood is because earthquakes and bitumen roofs idk , maybe storms
I am a 56 years old San Diegan living in Mission Valley.
I have lived here for over 45 years.
We are guilty of this catastrophe because we have voted for this to happen.
It's funny that people are so political now, they think voting could have prevented a wildfire. There was no rain and 80mph winds. No amount of voting can prevent that.
I remember being in the Barona fire and another two years later.
Good video explaining the details. As a Canadian thank you for pointing out the aid offered from Canada. I’m not looking for a pat on the back for Canada, just glad that some Americans recognize we value our neighborly relationship. Your incoming President has pissed off a lot of Canadians with his insults and threats, but we will look past his pettiness and continue to be there in any way we can for L.A. I understand we are sending two more of those planes to assist plus fire fighters from other provinces. We can sympathize having lost some communities in the past few years to forest fires. Hang in there L.A. As for the controlled burns, we in Canada are involving our indigenous people more in our planning, they have for centuries lived with fire and have knowledge on this very topic. Indigenous people are not afraid of fire, in fact they embrace it as a way of life and have learned how to treat it as a tool.
Thank you for your great information. I will share in hopes to make the changes we need in California.