cahwyguy | Post-Disaster Armchair Quarterbacking

When a ship sinks, the rats come pouring out. When a disaster happens, predictably, the armchair quarterbacks come out, with all the reasons they think the disaster happened — even before the victims have time to regroup. Further, in the Trumpworld of today, these folks want someone to blame, and they want that someone to be a Democratic politician, a Democratic theory, a Democratic policy, because we all know that liberals are responsible for all the problems in this world, and if Trump and his conservative ilk were in charge, we’d live in a world of unicorns and guns, and there wouldn’t be any problems.

Geeze, and they think the liberals are smoking something.

This post is MY place to respond to these folks, all in one place. I’m going to collect links and such here so I can find them again. But there are some a key points to be considered above all: Mother Nature is a bitch, sometimes.

Suppose there were no water supply problems. OK, but there was still no good way to get the water on the fire. The winds were so high and the smoke was so dense that water-dropping apperatii couldn’t fly and drop, and there were areas that hand crews could not reach.

Suppose there were no people supply problems. Fine, but at some point, additional people do not help. There were areas of this fire that can not be reached by firefighters. Strong winds pick up those embers and ignite new fires.

We build our disaster response systems for the anticipated disasters, plus a little bit more. The scope of the winds and the firestorm were far more than has been seen in the last 200 years. The system was not built to anticipate that (nor to have the number of fires in the short amount of time that we have had). Further, were we to build a system for the exceptional disaster, it would sit unused and we would then complain about the cost. To put this another way: We build for an earthquake in the 6-7 range. If we got a 10.0, we would be screwed. To put it another way: No one designed the twin towers to be resistant to commercial aircraft flying into them, because that wasn’t in the threat model. Sustained winds of the strength seen Monday and Tuesday, combined with this long of a dry season (normally, we have had some rain by January), is not something we face often.

So let’s look at some of the complaints:

The hydrants ran dry. This was a complaint from Rick Caruso the night of the fires — the issue was low water pressure in the upper reaches of the Palisades. There was a good fact-check on this from LAist. Yes, there was low water pressure. However, it wasn’t due to mismanagement. The states’ reservoirs were not low. Reservoir levels for state reservoirs are at or above normal for this time of year, and recent releases would not have had an impact. There are 3 over 1million gallon water tanks used to feed the Palisades, and those were full before the fires. However, there was significant draw on those tanks fighting the fire, and they could not refill in time to maintain water pressure. There was one reservoir (city) that was empty for maintenance: there was a crack in the lid, meaning the water was not suitable for drinking and thus couldn’t be used in the system. That happens, and in normal times isn’t a problem. Experts thinks it wouldn’t have made a big difference if it were online.

Bass Cut the Fire Department Funding. There were concerns that some recent budget cuts to the fire department impacted response. That narrative, being pushed by the owner of the LA Times, and (of course) Rick Caruso, is false. According to Politico, the city was still negotiating a new contract with the fire department during the budget cycle. Funds for the LAFD were placed in a separate reserve until the deal was finalized in November. In reality, the department’s budget increased by over $50 million compared to the previous year. The Daily News (never a friend to liberals) noted: “On Thursday, a spokesperson for L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who was budget chair last year, said the city increased the fire department’s overall budget by approximately $53 million in the current fiscal year. However, $76 million – intended to pay for fire department personnel – was placed in a fund separate from the fire department’s regular account when the budget was adopted because contract negotiations with department employees were still taking place at the time.” The DN added: “As a result, if you just compare the LAFD’s budget last year to this year’s, it looks like it went down $23M. But that’s because when the budget was adopted last May or June, the city was still negotiating those new contracts. The $76M that was set aside in a separate account ultimately was moved once the MOUs were finalized.”

Mayor Bass Was Out of Town. There seems to be this notion that (a) the mayor (or governor, or President, or …) needs to be in the area when the disaster occurs, and (b) the mayor &c’s presence will solve a lot of problems. That’s bunk. People can schedule trips when they appear to have a clear calendar, and that can include doing city business out of town. Disasters don’t look at the calendar. What’s important is whether the leader has the ability to coordinate things when they are away, and how quickly they return. Bass was on top of the situation, and returned as quickly as she could. The New York Times addressed this, noting: “When a series of dangerous, wind-driven fires broke out on Tuesday in the Los Angeles area, Mayor Karen Bass was on the other side of the globe, part of a delegation sent by President Biden to Ghana for the inauguration of its new president. Ms. Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman who became mayor in late 2022, did not return to Los Angeles until Wednesday afternoon, by which point more than 1,000 homes had burned and 100,000 people across the region had been forced to flee from their homes.”. But the NYTimes also noted that Bass took the fastest route back, and that the city was prepared. Another article noted that: Bass was “in active communication with [LAFD] Chief Crowley, Council President Harris-Dawson, and other local leaders since early [the morning of the fire] and [was] flying home right now after participating in a Presidential diplomatic mission overseas”. It was also noted that the City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson was filling in for Bass as acting mayor (so there was leadership), and the Mayor’s office had outlined their plan for responding to the wind storm and potential fires in an email sent to reporters at 10:56 AM, roughly half an hour after the Palisades Fire broke out and quickly grew to 200 acres. The person behind the complaints about Bass: Again, Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass for Mayor and will likely run again (or run for governor).

Faucet from the North. This is one of Trump’s lines: There would have been no fire had we had a beautiful water supply from the North. But Trump doesn’t know engineering. The book Cadillac Desert goes into this. The problem is that the mountains in far Northern California, near Lake Shasta, make moving water from Washington and Oregon nearly impossible due to the cost of pumping. It could be done, but the cost per gallon would make it very expensive. The height differential and distance would make a siphon-based system, as used for the LA Aqueduct, impractical.

Brush Clearance. This isn’t referring to localized brush clearance, which was enforced, but a notion that the governor or mayor should have been cutting down dead trees in national forests or parklands. The National Review has a rant on this, and they note that (again) Rick Caruso is a proponent of this attack. There are environmental laws that would prevent that; in addition, these lands are protected against such actions. The National Park Service of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area contends that controlled burns are not an effective tool in their particular ecosystem. “Prescribed burning is not effective in limiting the spread of wildfires under the conditions that burn the largest amount of land and cause the most home losses. Native shrublands are being burned too frequently because of human ignited wildfires. Prescribed fire does not fulfill any identified ecological need in chaparral or coastal sage scrub and would increase the probability of a damaging short fire interval following a prescribed burn.” I recall some articles noting that prescribed burns make things worse, as they replace slower burning trees with faster burning grasses that put out more embers, making things worse. There are debates ongoing in this area. But the key fact is this, as KQED notes: “Even if the U.S Forest Service had continued to allow burning, it would not have prevented this week’s devastation from deadly fires that have destroyed thousands of homes. The fires we’re seeing are primarily spreading through urban neighborhoods, with the possible exception of the Eaton Fire that is burning, in part, on federal forest lands. Given the wind, weather and location of the fires, it’s unlikely a controlled burn would have stopped the disaster. The houses and surrounding vegetation are fuels in communities that were not designed for fire resilience when they were planned decades ago.”

In short, we’re seeing attempts by politicians — primarily Conservative politicians who love to cut funds for services — to use these fires to further their political ambitions. They have no concern about helping the people on the ground. They just want to increase the anger and political temperature, and fan fires of a different nature.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as Post-Disaster Armchair Quarterbacking by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.