I have spent the day riveted to coverage of the Los Angeles County wildfires using, due to the miracle of the internet, the same news sources I would have used when still a resident there.  The morning was consumed with concern.  My wife and I were the wake-up call for many of our old friends, neighbors and loved ones as the mandatory evacuation zones crept into our old neighborhood and, due to the time zone difference, we knew before they did and wanted to make sure they got to safety.  But as the day has worn on, their homes, and especially they, seem safe and anger has begun to predominate my emotional state – particularly as I have listened to California officialdom pat itself on the back, act as if they have it all well in hand and blame global warming.

As the day has worn on, many have begun to point out the various policies that have grossly amplified the damage from this fire – a fact I first noted last night as the fires were just taking hold.  Geraghty said it best in today’s Jolt:

Finally, no one should operate under the illusion that the right government policy can stop wildfires. But better government policies and decisions can mitigate the damage of wildfires, and worse policies can exacerbate the damage.

Lots has been made by many particularly the brush clearing policies – actually that lack of brush clearing policies, meaning brush is never cleared.  The death of control burns is largely attributable to air pollution policy.  They do not wish to produce the particulate pollution that is smoke.

But it occurs me that these fires are producing as much smoke as the control burns would have, probably more given that their rapid nature produces less thorough combustion resulting in more particulate matter.  Moreover, since these fires, as opposed to control burns, include homes, their contents, other sorts of buildings and their contents plus automobiles and their contents that a great deal more than merely smoke is being released – serious toxins.

Oh yeah, this is much better for the environment.

But if you really want to watch my hackles start to rise, remind me of this story:

As wildfires raged across Los Angeles on Tuesday, crews battling the Palisades blaze faced an additional burden: Scores of fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had little to no water flowing out.

“The hydrants are down,” said one firefighter in internal radio communications.

“Water supply just dropped,” said another.

By 3 a.m. Wednesday, all water storage tanks in the Palisades area “went dry,” diminishing the flow of water from hydrants in higher elevations, said Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the city’s utility.

“We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades. We pushed the system to the extreme,” Quiñones said Wednesday morning. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”

“Tremendous demand” – yeah, but also entirely foreseeable demand.  Here is the thing.  In the four decades I was a resident of Southern California the population roughly tripled – but there was not any additional water infrastructure built in that time.  In fact, Los Angeles has been busy repairing its old, dilapidated water infrastructure, which was routinely breaking and flooding major streets, rather than building more.  Of course, the fire demand overwhelmed the system – the system was already stretched well beyond its design capabilities.

So just to make this abundantly clear…Air resources had to be grounded due to the wind conditions and the darkness – leaving only the ground-based response which relies on fire hydrants that ran dry because the freaking authorities could not be bothered to maintain the system as the area grew and grew and grew.  That’s pretty doggone close to Nero fiddling territory.

My wife and I are blessed.  While leaving California for retirement certainly improved our financial situation we could have easily stayed.  Our move was an economic boon, but not an economic necessity.  The thing that most heavily motivated us to leave was our concern about what seemed impending disaster (here, it would seem, it is) and the leadership of the state that we knew could not mount the kind of rapid and sound response we had lived through after the  Northridge earthquake.  I should feel like crowing about our prophetic capabilities right now, but I don’t.  I am just immensely sad and angry.

Here’s a prediction – many of those fancy “elites” that reside in Pacific Palisades will not rebuild – they’ll take their insurance money and settle somewhere a bit more reliable.  They just lost their last excuse to stay put.  To stay at this juncture would be madness.