Firefighting by Kristen

Wardrobe by Karen and Gavin

The Nile does not in fact flow through Los Angeles. This may come as a surprise to many given how much denial is happening regarding the fires there. [For good coverage of the inland Altadena fire Chris Bray here on substack has articles

A Very Brief Update on the California Fires

]

One of the fascinating things that we are learning as the fires burn down large swathes of very expensive houses is that the LAFD is run by lesbians called Kristen.

Now, in principle, I have no objection to fire departments run by people called Kristen as long as they are also competent. Sadly that seems to not be the case in LA. Top Kristen started off her career impressively:

Crowley took the firefighters' exam in 1998 and placed among the top 50 scores out of 16,000 applicants, according to the department. During her 22 years at the LAFD, she rose through the ranks as firefighter, firefighter paramedic, engineer, fire inspector, captain I, captain II, battalion chief, assistant chief, fire marshal and deputy chief.

So, while she certainly used the DIE buzzword bingo to get her position at the top, she may not be totally useless at fighting fires. Fighting fires and managing large organizations are of course two different things, though, and certainly it seems like her original focus on becoming top Kristen was not exactly putting out fires:

"Our efforts will be maximized by making sure diversity is celebrated and valued, and that equity and inclusion are intertwined into every policy, procedure and practice."

Still she shows a certain amount of comeptence at the bureaucracy game - she managed to put on record last month that the recent funding cut of $17.6M would impact the ability to fight wildfires

Now there’s clearly a ton of ass-covering and pre-emptive blameshifting in that memo and, as Newsweek points out in an amusing factcheck, that $17.6M is about 2% of the LA FD budget

The adopted budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year increased the amount for the fire department to $819,637,423, according to a summary on the city administrative officer's website. That meant the department's funding saw a decrease of $17,553,814

What Newsweek fails to say is that if the Kristens had cut DIE programs and other similar junk they could easily have found the money to replace the $17.6M cut. But that would be unpossible! still I'm quite impressed that she managed the back-stab in advance.

The 7Ps of disaster prevention

(Piss poor prior preparation prevents proper performance)

Not that this bureaucratic maneuvering helps the unfortunate residents who no longer have houses. What would have helped them is sufficient planning so that the fire department didn’t run out of water and things like controlled burns and brush removal to get rid of flamable stuff.

Regarding water, I’m not clear on the status of existing dams in the LA basin, but I do know that:

The last major reservoir built in California was New Melones Lake in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties. It was complete in 1979 and has a capacity up to 2.4 million acre-feet.

I also know, because I wrote about it last year, that the not very distant Lake Hodges Dam, which has excitingly dangerous cracks, is being rebuilt at a speed barely faster than that of an arthritic snail. I would be extemely unsurprised to learn that LA area dams built at about the same time are in equally poor state and repairs are proceeding at more or less the same snail-like pace (Update: I was correct - see update2 below).

[Update: relatedly there’s this from LibsofToktok:

FUN FACT

In 2014 California voters passed Prop 1 which directed billions of dollars for infrastructure to build water storage and reservoirs.

Over 10 years later and not a single reservoir has been completed yet.

This seems to be correct, I do recall Prop 1 passing because I lived in Carlsbad at the time and, see link above, no dams have been built since 1979.

Also (Update2) according to the LA Times the Santa Ynez reservoir in Pacific Palisades was emptied at least two years ago and not refilled because no one repaired the cover over the top:

A large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the Los Angeles water supply system was out of use when a ferocious wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures nearby.

Officials told The Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades.

]

Of course that’s where our friend Gavin fails to stand up. Indeed Governor Newscum is extremely butthurt that OrangeManBad is blaming him for failing to do his job. This Xitter thread points out that Gavin is, in fact, very much to blame:

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other regulatory policies limit the ability of local government and fire management services to clear dead trees and vegetation. (This is a big deal and prevents much of the controlled burns we desperately need.) Multiple bills, including AB 2330, AB 1951, and AB 2639 were rejected by the democrat-controlled Legislature or vetoed by the Governor that would have exempted wildfire prevention projects from CEQA and other permitting issues.

Other legislation, including SB 1003, would have provided CEQA exemptions for utility undergrounding projects, as power lines that are not adequately cleared of debris present major wildfire risks. These bills also failed to reach the Governor’s desk.

Still, at least, Newscum is able to make coherent sentences. The DEI Karen (literally) who is mayor of LA is not able to meet even that low bar.

Needless to say neither they, nor anyone else in authority, is going to point out that the likely source of the fires are homeless encampments. In fact if you read articles like this one at USA Today you would have no idea of that potential cause:

Lightning is the most common natural cause of wildfires. In higher elevations lightning sometimes strikes dry vegetation, which sparks a fire that can easily become uncontrollable, particularly when fueled by dry winds.

In cities with roads near wildlife, such as in Southern California, it is very common for vehicles to unknowingly ignite a fire, Luca Carmignani, a Fire Advisor from the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, previously told USA TODAY.

“For example, you have a truck with a train that drags on the road and generates sparks,” Carmignani said. “Or you have like a catalytic converter, there are different ways that cars and trucks can start a fire from the road.”

Strong winds can cause power lines to move, which may generate sparks that eventually land on dry fuel such as grass or vegetation, Carmignani said. He added that unextinguished campfires are also a prevalent human cause of wildfires.

Only right at the end, after lightning, a link mentioning climate change, sparks from vehicles and power lines do we get a mention that campfires can be a problem. And we note that the identities of the campers who light these fires is left obscure. Clearly it’s the fault of the boy scouts!

So California’s politicians are busy blaming climate change and OrangeManBad rather than their own policies. They may come to regret this.

We Can’t Rebuild Them

The first thing we note is that California’s housing insurance market is approximately as well managed and fiscally sound as the city of Chicago, or possibly Haiti. Back before these recent fires, the major insurers were making credible threats about leaving the entire state because they were unable to make a profit.

State Farm, the largest insurer in the state announced it would not write policies for any new customers back in May 2023. Allstate followed about a week later and then Farmers Insurance announced they were capping the number of new policies they would write. Hartford Financial Services Group and USAA also pulled back.

Then in April of this year, State Farm canceled 72,000 policies including around 1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades. State Farm's president wrote to California's Insurance Commissioner to say this was necessary to prevent the company from going out of business.

To stop that the legislature allowed them to pass on reinsurance costs:

California has introduced new regulations aimed at easing the state's home insurance crisis, but it will mean Americans will pay more.

The new rules, released Monday by the California Department of Insurance, allow providers to pass the cost of reinsurance on to policyholders.

Reinsurance is effectively the insurance taken out by insurers. It transfers some of the risk so that no company has too much exposure to a potential catastrophe.

The cost of reinsurance has boomed in recent years, due to the increased risk of natural disasters in the state.

This, in part, is why insurers have been pulling out of the state, and regulators hope the reform will make the market more attractive to home insurers.

Earlier this year, State Farm gave the state an ultimatum - threatening to ax cover if it did not allow the insurer to raise home insurance rates for millions.

This will be the first time that insurers have been able to pass on the cost to consumers in California, which is a common practice in all other states.

This may not be enough. The reason is that California has an insurer of last resort - the FAIR plan - which is funded by… all the insurers in the state. Worse, the ritzy mansions that have just gone up in smoke are likely to put intense pressure on the FAIR plan and bankrupt it, which was not exactly in rosy health before these recent fires

Insurers, you can be pretty sure, are going to tell the state government that either the state bails the plan out or the insurers bail the state for good. Sadly for California, the state’s finances are not in good shape. A couple of years ago the state had a healthy tax surplus but recently it’s looking at about a $70B deficit. The current LA fires are likely to cause insurance claims in the $10B+ range (and that number could rise significantly if additional expensive property in Hollywood burns) so even though insurers will be able to pay some of that, you can be pretty sure they won’t be paying it all and the state could easily see a 10% rise in its deficit if it has to bail out the insurers and/or burned out residents.

Furthermore insurance premiums in the future in California are going to rise very very high unless the prospect of devastating wildfires are reduced. My back of the envelope actuarial calculation suggests that for insurers to make a profit they will need annual premiums of 5-10% of the replacement cost for the properties they insure. There are a lot of $1 Million+ homes in Central/Southern coastal California that are absolutely in that kind of fire risk - the southern part of the state is, let’s face it, a natural desert that is only green thanks to water from elsewhere. How many owners of these homes can afford home insurance payments of $5000-$10000 / month? This particularly applies to the lucky people who bought a quarter century or more ago and are now retired as well as those who bought recently based on little money down and a mortgage that has gone up thanks to rising interest rates.

This probably means that California property prices are going to crash good and hard because there’s going to be a lot of people who have to move to somewhere affordable. That of course means all their jobs are going to move. And that means doom spiral as more and more people have fewer and fewer prospects in California.

And let’s not forget that, as this rant points out, California’s greeny bureaucracy is going to make rebuilding even more fun than it otherwise would be:

Epic Adam Carolla rant from a hotel after the LA wildfires forced to evacuate from his home, where he predicts Hollywood leftists will be so frustrated by the rebuild effort that they will not vote Democrat:

"You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all voted for Gavin Newsom, and now you fucking get what you get. now that your house is on fire. So here's what's going to happen. All these people who are deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild, and they're going to get the 28 year old bitch from the Coastal Commission telling them to go fuck off and then they're going to vote for Trump or whoever's Trumpian next. When they start getting the regulation, they're going to go nuts. And when they start running into the bureaucracy and the red tape, they're going to start going nuts and they're going to vote for Rick Caruso next time. They're going to find out they're going to get bit by their own snake. They're going to convert. I am telling you, these are the bluest people on the planet and they're going to be fucking rip shit pissed when the City and the Coastal Commission tell them to fuck off. We're going to have to restructure the whole thing because we can't have nine angry lesbians controlling everything that goes on in Malibu, the Palisades and Santa monica."

This is why Californians pay the highest taxes: So that their government can completely fail them in their time of need.

I’m not sure whether California can dig itself out of the hole it is in. I am pretty sure that a lot of Californians are now bankrupt and homeless and there is no magic money tree that can fix that. If Biden were still in power, it is probable that somehow the federal government would bail the state out. With Trump as president and the Republicans running Congress that seems unlikely.

One bonus from this is that immigrants (legal and illegal) in California are likely to self-deport as the state collapses because housing costs affect them too. If insurance premiums rise the way I predict above rents are going to go up everywhere which will make a lot of the illegal workers unable to make money. These people will leave. H1-B visa holders and foreign ‘students’ on F1s will also face financial presssure to leave. Fake F1s who are outsourcing the actual work to people back home are not going to be able to afford to live on their illegal earnings, just as with other ‘traditional’ illegals. H1-Bs, although theoretically better off, are likely to join the regular US residents who cannot afford housing in California either. You can be 100% sure that the consultancy companies (and google) that employ them will not be giving them the ~50% payrises they will need to afford California housing with the new insurance rates. So since H1-Bs are tied to the employer they’ll sell up what they can and quit.

I guess we’ll find out just how many jobs in California needed a lowly paid foreigner to do them when lowly paid foreigners can no longer afford to live in the state to do them.