• Having grown up in the LA area, I’ve seen a lot of big fires (sometimes up fairly close) along with our legendary earthquakes, but nothing like this. Although I live 200 miles north these days, many of the places seen on TV are very familiar to me. I used to run every weekend in Eaton Canyon and up the Mount Wilson fire road, and I can recall seeing the Eaton Canyon area hills burn up at least three times before. But never like this.
More to the point: I know of several Power Line readers who have been evacuated, and at least one whose home was lost. By reference, the 1961 Bel Air fire, which occurred under similar high wind conditions that blew down into town a brushfire in the Hollywood hills, destroyed about 500 homes (most of them very expensive ones since it was Bel Air), including the home of one of my dad’s business associates. The number of homes destroyed by the Eaton Canyon fire alone will be a multiple of that, and the Pacific Palisades toll will be similarly beyond comprehension.
• This is going to be Gavin Newsom’s Katrina moment that kills his future political prospects, not to mention LA’s hack mayor Karen Bass. I watched the morning press conference on TV, and the media’s questions directed at Bass were savage—about her budget cuts to the fire department, the lack of water pressure in fire hydrants, the chaos and confusion of the emergency response. Bass deflected as best she could, saying she’s concentrating on today’s needs. But even the compliant media is not going to overlook the incompetence and corruption of California’s government at all levels, such as the exorbitant salaries paid for some officials, like the $750,000 salary for Bass’s appointee to run the LA Department of Water and Power.
Also, Bass was warned:
• I’m due on campus at Pepperdine in Malibu next Monday morning to begin classes for the spring semester. As of right now the semester going to start on Monday as planned, but we’ll see. Natural gas is out, and preventive electricity shutoffs are possible. Having survived a local fire just two months ago, the campus is not in danger now because there’s no more local brush to burn, but stay tuned. If things go as planned, I’ll be able to survey some of the scene in person.
UPDATE: In fact, all classes are going online for all of next week, so I won’t be turning up on campus after all.
• Prediction: The next great scandal and outrage will be the rebuilding process—and I do mean PROCESS. Expect that the “visionaries” in the planning departments of LA city and County will say the fire is actually an “opportunity” to “re-imagine” how our neighborhoods ought to be rebuilt. I expect one of the usual morons at the Los Angeles Times already has the op-ed written on this theme.
We’ve seen this before, with large fires that destroyed hundreds of homes in the hills of Santa Barbara several times over the years. The planning and permitting process for rebuilding there was lengthy, expensive, and highly prescriptive of styles of housing to be allowed where single-family houses previously existed. The LA area planners will be worse: not only will all the rebuilt homes have to be done with expensive “eco-friendly” features, but there will be pressure to up-zone neighborhoods for higher density multi-family housing. (Portland, Oregon, has long required this for homes that burn down.)
• I’ll note separately in today’s Daily Chart some facts about rainfall and climate.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.