We who live in L.A.'s flatlands used to congratulate ourselves that we weren't exposed to brushfires & mudslides like the rich people on high. Then ...
In addition to fire traveling fastest uphill, the hilly (mountainous) areas generally have more brush, and more intense wind gusts. All those things make it generally more dangerous in a wildfire. Aside from the risk of homes being more frequently closer together (which can also occur in the hills but less so), you are generally safer in the flats. Flats are also easier for fire fighters to reach. However, when you have 100mph winds, all bets are off. Fire will fly through the flats just as easily as the hills. Solution? Perhaps more homes built from ICF (Interlocking concrete foam) blocks which are poured reinforced concrete similar to freeway supports? Add a metal roof and they’re pretty resistant to burning. Not sure how they’d do in an earthquake, but I imagine much better than other stone like materials.
In the 1991 Oakland Firestorm, houses made of steel i-beams actually melted beyond repair and concrete foundations were so scorched as to be unusable without extensive repair. I saw them.
I believe you, but when steel is enclosed in concrete the insulation from heat is tremendous. In a building inferno (like the Twin Towers) extreme heat for a long time will melt the metal. But to survive a wildfire, you need materials that can withstand heat for a much briefer period of time. Kind of like a safe that is fire rated. If it’s able to resist melting and protect contents for an hour, the contents won’t be destroyed. If it’s stuck in a furnace for a long time, it will be a puddle.
Concrete is not immune from damage. The same fire roasted foundations until they turned a strange pink color. To rebuild on the same foundation, we had to jackhammer down below the j-bolts and repour the whole thing. We also had to patch the sides. I think it was all done simply to avoid the demolition costs.
Nothing is immune for sure, but I think you are describing a building with a steel beams and a concrete foundation but with flammable materials (ie wood) for the main structure? If so, the outer structure will burn fiercely and subject both the foundation and the internal steel beams to very extreme heat for the longest possible time. That will warp/melt steel and damage concrete. Contrast that with a thick walled structure MADE of concrete with steel supports insulated by the concrete. The heat needs to penetrate the concrete before any danger to the steel can occur. Plus the heat is lower (outside the structure vs the structure itself). Ever see a fire destroy a freeway? It can happen under extreme conditions, but almost never. Go to foxblocks.com to see examples. These homes resist fire for up to four hours.
I remembered this one. I think "near Oakland" is Emeryville: "On April 29, 2007, a gasoline tanker truck caught fire and exploded on the MacArthur Maze interchange near Oakland, California34. The fire was so intense that it caused a section of the I-580 overpass to collapse onto I-880 below48. While I-880 itself was not destroyed, it was affected by the collapse of the overpass above it." (Perplexity.com)
There was a fire just last year which damaged a freeway near downtown Los Angeles where massive quantities of flammable supplies which were stored under a freeway caught fire. The more I look into the details on the ICF construction for homes, the better it looks. Just read about the 2007 wildfires in San Diego which destroyed 2000 suburban homes. Three homes in that fire were left standing. All were ICF.
I was a flatlander when I first moved to LA, but that flatland was called Venice, CA, which meant that instead of natural disasters I dealt with bum assaults, home invasions and the constant "homeless outreach" that usually involved trying to coax a meth-head off my stoop or asking them politely to please not overturn our garbage cans.
Since 2017 I've lived up in the hills on the other side of Mulholland from Steve and have had one fire that was quickly squelched but then last year's mudslides, which wrecked our yard, garage and totaled our car.
So the question is, what's worse: fighting off the zombie hordes of the flatlands or prepping for an annual natural apocalypse? Beats me!
But inertia reigns, we rent a large house for less than $5k monthly (an LA steal!) and getting anything similar in Weho or Bev Hills would mean paying much more for much less.
Anyway, I gotta run, looks like the Palisades fire is creeping toward the 405.
When I spent a couple of weeks in Santa Monica in 2018, I was surprised that liberal Santa Monica had its homeless problem pretty well restrained. But the moment you crossed into Venice Beach (part of the city of Los Angeles) it turned into a giant homeless party.
I think the supposed "solution" for awhile was to herd all the bums either on the Venice Boardwalk or onto 3rd Street off Rose Ave, the West Side's version of Skid Row. This was where they were all fed and tended to, and where all the dealers lurked in those alleys off the beach. I think this arrangement held from around 2012-2020ish.
But of course that metastasized, first into Abbot-Kinney, and from what I hear now the bum situation is also pretty bad in Samo.
I haven't been to Venice in a few years and I wouldn't live there for free.
Here in Beverly Glen, I may have to jump into my car shortly and race away from an inferno, but at least I don't have to deal with any stray Charles Manson lookalikes wandering up from the city looking to chew on my face.
We still love it here and aren't considering bailing...yet.
I think people who are not from the area would be surprised to learn which places in Los Angeles County are part of Los Angeles City and which are independent entities. For example, when Gary Owens talked of "beautiful downtown Burbank" he was speaking of an independent city that now has a population of 107,000. In the same category are Pasadena (139K), Santa Monica (93K), and Beverly Hills (32K). Meanwhile, Hollywood, Westwood, and Studio City are all part of Los Angeles proper.
Pacific Palisades is the westernmost part of the city of Los Angeles.
Back in 1913, the city of Los Angeles bought up the Owens River water rights from farmers east of the Sierra Nevada and built an aqueduct. It then used that leverage to get many neighboring municipalities to merge with Los Angeles.
Some did not. For example, Beverly Hills held out until an aqueduct was built from the Colorado River, ensuring its water supply.
I want to say that New York City was formed the same way, getting Brooklyn and western Queens County to join in 1898. At the time Brooklyn was an independent city while western Queens was comprised of Elmhurst, Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, and western Hempstead. They all voted to join NYC, while the towns of Queens County who voted NOT to join NYC were reconstituted into Nassau County.
In a similar vein, Jersey City (1873) and Newark (1905) slowly expanded over the years to incorporate smaller adjacent towns, but that sort of municipal expansion is now frowned upon
Municipal expansion, without the consent of the annexed, is pretty common in southern states, oddly enough. Memphis avoids depopulation by forcibly annexing suburbs, as do many Texas cities.
The 2018 Woolsey fire threatened Thousand Oaks and Woodland Hills. It then crossed the Santa Monica mountains and burnt down the slope through Malibu. Hundreds of Malibu homes were destroyed. Yet because the horrific Camp Fire occurred the same time, the Woolsey Fire is ignored.
But shouldn't the Woolsey Fire have been a huge wake up call to SoCal residents and officials? I am truly baffled at the "c'est la vie" attitude of Californians towards fire. Especially so since so much conversation and regulation updates took place after the 1989 and 1994 earthquakes to build earthquake proof structures.
Pepperdine University was threatened by the Woolsey Fire, as well as the recent fires. It has an active fire mitigation plan and this plan shows what must be done to protect buildings from the raining fire of windblown, flaming debris. Of note:
+Campus roads provide natural fire breaks
+Fire resistant landscaping is utilized throughout the campus
+Brush is cleared annually at least 200-feet from campus buildings
And, Pepperdine has two fire trucks that allow the university to immediately respond to brush fires and flaming debris that threatens the campus.
I dare say, most LA communities do not seem to take the risk of fire seriously. And Pacific Palisades and Altadena residents have paid dearly for their neglect.
These things are all about probabilities. Sure a fire could burn down the valley, a fire can spread and burn down any urban neighborhood. Ancient Rome burned down routinely (classical scholars please fact check me). The risk is much much higher in places that have had periodic wildfires (like the hills). We just had historic Santa Ana winds and the surrounding wildfires (I hope I don't speak too soon) are no where near crossing the interstates they would need to in order to get to me.
Looking at the fire maps the Eaton fire evacuation zone has retreated from glendale and aside from the palisades fire all the other evacuation zones are gone. I know we are in for more sind soon so we shall see but I figure if this one didn't get us, we are pretty safe.
This is a huge disaster but the real estate agent I saw on YouTube said a little more than a 1000 people were made homeless by it. Out of a few million Angelinos that isn't much. We have a lot of insurance issues in this state and blaming the fires on climate change doesn't;t address it.
Maybe the inability to get insurance will stop most people from building in high fire areas?
Are mitigation efforts worthwhile? Would controlled burns and such have prevented this? Healthy informed debate on politically charged topics is impossible now so I honestly can't tell what the consensus is.
There was a good discussion at The Free Press comment section. An experienced firefighter said the controlled burns are risky, especially in arid country. The fire can get out of control. He pointed out that voters always blame politicians in that case.
That makes sense. I infer from the tone of public discussion that CA should do more fire prevention but that it wouldn't have prevented the Palisades fire
It certainly could have contained it better. Brush clearance and non-empty reservoirs might have helped. The firefighters emptied three million gallon reservoirs before their hoses went limp and a nearby 117 million gallon reservoir was empty for a year while repairs to its cover were... contemplated,
"the real estate agent I saw on YouTube said a little more than a 1000 people were made homeless by it. Out of a few million Angelinos that isn't much."
You appear to be off by an order of magnitude or so..
Perplexity: "The Eaton Fire near Pasadena has devastated over 5,000 structures, including homes, apartment complexes, and businesses4.
The Palisades Fire, the largest blaze in the LA area, has obliterated more than 5,300 structures4."
I will add that I understand that the winds are projected to increase again shortly.
I don’t care where people choose to live, but I’m against paying for any rebuilding. If you can afford to rebuild, good on you. Same with the folks who choose to live where hurricanes scour the coast every few years.
"Southern California had three big urban earthquakes in my dad’s lifetime (1933, 1971, and 1994), but none since 1994, so it’s hardly unlikely that the region could get hit with an earthquake sometime in coming decades that will make people forget the 2025 fires."
That has been the concern, namely, that the Quake to end all Quakes finally does arrive (e.g. #10 on the Richter Scale). Incredible that Malibu was finally hit...apparently semi-landmark restaurant Dukes was destroyed, according to some reports. Hope that didn't occur though.
To quote a Tweet from The DJT...
"Sad!"
Another rumor that is making the rounds is that Governor Newsom did not want to use necessary water to help reduce the fires because of EPA protected smelts in the water. Apparently he had his priorities.
If this statement regarding why Newsom neglected to use the water when he had an opporutnity to reduce the water, and that it would've made a considerable difference in reducing the overall damage to SoCal area, then it would be safe to assume that his potential 28 candidacy for D presidential nomination is at a standstill, and hopefully, greatly reduced in all likelihood from occuring.
But Gruesome's turning off my electricity for a week or so didn't get him booted, so...
I believe that the smelt has replaced the snail darter as the reason for not filling reservoirs with rainwater, not for not pumping water already in the ocean or already salty parts of the Sac Delta.
"What have we lost? So much! Landmarks and landscapes, family homes and apartment buildings, small businesses and community spaces, libraries, museums, schools, churches, hardware stores, coffee shops, art studios, supermarkets, fish shacks and horse barns, books and photographs and paintings and objets d’art, things ordinary and irreplaceable, memories of lost loves, relics throbbing with personal significance and others that are world famous, collections formed over multiple lifetimes, massive trees and bonsai pots, vintage cars and Bakelite radios, ostrich eggs and crystal balls and lucky pennies, embroidery and fishing poles, things mourned on television and losses unknown, much of it now ash lofted up into the atmosphere and carried for miles on the uncaring Santa Ana winds."
~Kim Cooper
Did you know Pacific Palisades was created by Methodist chautauquans? Simple folks who loved nature and the simple life. Here's a video about it:
The Will Rogers ranch house and associated buildings has been destroyed. It was a lovely 31-room house he built in 1929 on his 360 acre ranch, along with guest houses, stable, corrals, golf course and polo ground. Not bad for a wild Indian from Oklahoma. He and his pal the aviator Wiley Post, another wild Indian from Oklahoma, planned their fatal flight to Alaska there. After his solo around-the-world flight, Post landed his Lockheed Vega "Winnie Mae" on the golf course to say hi to his friend. It's all gone to ashes now.
The Topanga Ranch Motel is also ashes. More than half-a-dozen movies were filmed there, along with episodes of the TV shows Mannix and Remington Steele among others. Struggling scriptwriters wanting quiet and no distractions to write often rented rooms there. It was cheap and the room TV sets were usually out of order. So all you could do was write. Now it's no more.
So much has been lost forever. It's really shocking.
Up until 1966, when he sold off the property to pay off the debt of his successful Gubernatorial campaign. Then when he left office in 1974 he and Nancy bought the ranch in Santa Barbara County which they used for the rest of his life.
Sona Movsesian, who is mildly famous as Conan O'Brien's assistant, lives 3½ miles or so northeast of the Rose Bowl in Altadena. She hasn't posted an update per se, but it is presumed that she and her husband and two sons have lost their home.
About an hour ago she posted an update on Instagram confirming that she and her immediate family did indeed lose their home and asking that any relief effort be dedicated to the less fortunate rather than her. Also, since she will no longer be living there for now, I suppose I can now say that she lived on Loma Alta Drive near Pasadena Rosebud Academy.
RIP Peter Yarrow (86.7) of Peter, Paul and Mary, who died less than two weeks after Jimmy Carter. They are linked in history because Carter pardoned Yarrow who had served a three-month term for getting a handjob in 1970 from a 14-year-old fan who came to his hotel room seeking an autograph with her 17-year-old sister. Just think that he if had gone for the sister he would have been free and clear. For those wondering why Carter had the authority to pardon this crime, this happened in DC, which did not have autonomous rule at the time
Yarrow's lawyer in the case was William Bennett Williams, owner of the Redskins and quite the legal titan and his father, Bernard Yarrow, was a lawyer with Tom Dewey and Allen Dulles. Assistant to Bill Donovan in the OSS. Interesting factoids.
The Twitter tells me Riviera still exists. And they cleared the barranca about a decade ago and as long as the pump room stays powered they should be in the clear. But putting on a tournament in a month is a big ask, unless they ban fans like covid.
Where I live we have floods, and one year (2022) we had such severe floods that some people perished and many lost homes, FEMA had to come in, etc. I live in the mountains that envelop the flatlands that incurred the flooding, so I and family were safe from the floods, but it was difficult to view the damages suffered by those in the lower regions from above. As lonely as it gets in the mountains of the Cascades at times, I never felt more stable and safe in my surroundings that week.
Steve, Are you safely ensconced in a lower risk area? I hope so as we need you to “notice” in safety.
I'm a native flatlander.
In addition to fire traveling fastest uphill, the hilly (mountainous) areas generally have more brush, and more intense wind gusts. All those things make it generally more dangerous in a wildfire. Aside from the risk of homes being more frequently closer together (which can also occur in the hills but less so), you are generally safer in the flats. Flats are also easier for fire fighters to reach. However, when you have 100mph winds, all bets are off. Fire will fly through the flats just as easily as the hills. Solution? Perhaps more homes built from ICF (Interlocking concrete foam) blocks which are poured reinforced concrete similar to freeway supports? Add a metal roof and they’re pretty resistant to burning. Not sure how they’d do in an earthquake, but I imagine much better than other stone like materials.
In the 1991 Oakland Firestorm, houses made of steel i-beams actually melted beyond repair and concrete foundations were so scorched as to be unusable without extensive repair. I saw them.
I believe you, but when steel is enclosed in concrete the insulation from heat is tremendous. In a building inferno (like the Twin Towers) extreme heat for a long time will melt the metal. But to survive a wildfire, you need materials that can withstand heat for a much briefer period of time. Kind of like a safe that is fire rated. If it’s able to resist melting and protect contents for an hour, the contents won’t be destroyed. If it’s stuck in a furnace for a long time, it will be a puddle.
Concrete is not immune from damage. The same fire roasted foundations until they turned a strange pink color. To rebuild on the same foundation, we had to jackhammer down below the j-bolts and repour the whole thing. We also had to patch the sides. I think it was all done simply to avoid the demolition costs.
Nothing is immune for sure, but I think you are describing a building with a steel beams and a concrete foundation but with flammable materials (ie wood) for the main structure? If so, the outer structure will burn fiercely and subject both the foundation and the internal steel beams to very extreme heat for the longest possible time. That will warp/melt steel and damage concrete. Contrast that with a thick walled structure MADE of concrete with steel supports insulated by the concrete. The heat needs to penetrate the concrete before any danger to the steel can occur. Plus the heat is lower (outside the structure vs the structure itself). Ever see a fire destroy a freeway? It can happen under extreme conditions, but almost never. Go to foxblocks.com to see examples. These homes resist fire for up to four hours.
I remembered this one. I think "near Oakland" is Emeryville: "On April 29, 2007, a gasoline tanker truck caught fire and exploded on the MacArthur Maze interchange near Oakland, California34. The fire was so intense that it caused a section of the I-580 overpass to collapse onto I-880 below48. While I-880 itself was not destroyed, it was affected by the collapse of the overpass above it." (Perplexity.com)
There was a fire just last year which damaged a freeway near downtown Los Angeles where massive quantities of flammable supplies which were stored under a freeway caught fire. The more I look into the details on the ICF construction for homes, the better it looks. Just read about the 2007 wildfires in San Diego which destroyed 2000 suburban homes. Three homes in that fire were left standing. All were ICF.
I was a flatlander when I first moved to LA, but that flatland was called Venice, CA, which meant that instead of natural disasters I dealt with bum assaults, home invasions and the constant "homeless outreach" that usually involved trying to coax a meth-head off my stoop or asking them politely to please not overturn our garbage cans.
Since 2017 I've lived up in the hills on the other side of Mulholland from Steve and have had one fire that was quickly squelched but then last year's mudslides, which wrecked our yard, garage and totaled our car.
So the question is, what's worse: fighting off the zombie hordes of the flatlands or prepping for an annual natural apocalypse? Beats me!
But inertia reigns, we rent a large house for less than $5k monthly (an LA steal!) and getting anything similar in Weho or Bev Hills would mean paying much more for much less.
Anyway, I gotta run, looks like the Palisades fire is creeping toward the 405.
Uh oh!
When I spent a couple of weeks in Santa Monica in 2018, I was surprised that liberal Santa Monica had its homeless problem pretty well restrained. But the moment you crossed into Venice Beach (part of the city of Los Angeles) it turned into a giant homeless party.
I think the supposed "solution" for awhile was to herd all the bums either on the Venice Boardwalk or onto 3rd Street off Rose Ave, the West Side's version of Skid Row. This was where they were all fed and tended to, and where all the dealers lurked in those alleys off the beach. I think this arrangement held from around 2012-2020ish.
But of course that metastasized, first into Abbot-Kinney, and from what I hear now the bum situation is also pretty bad in Samo.
I haven't been to Venice in a few years and I wouldn't live there for free.
Here in Beverly Glen, I may have to jump into my car shortly and race away from an inferno, but at least I don't have to deal with any stray Charles Manson lookalikes wandering up from the city looking to chew on my face.
We still love it here and aren't considering bailing...yet.
If California ever cracks down on its bums, where will they all go? The rest of the country thanks you--when we aren't deriding you.
nothing to worry about, that will never happen.
bums are sacred here, they are our equivalent of the mendicant monks of Benares.
I think people who are not from the area would be surprised to learn which places in Los Angeles County are part of Los Angeles City and which are independent entities. For example, when Gary Owens talked of "beautiful downtown Burbank" he was speaking of an independent city that now has a population of 107,000. In the same category are Pasadena (139K), Santa Monica (93K), and Beverly Hills (32K). Meanwhile, Hollywood, Westwood, and Studio City are all part of Los Angeles proper.
Brentwood and Bel Air are also part of Los Angeles proper
Pacific Palisades is the westernmost part of the city of Los Angeles.
Back in 1913, the city of Los Angeles bought up the Owens River water rights from farmers east of the Sierra Nevada and built an aqueduct. It then used that leverage to get many neighboring municipalities to merge with Los Angeles.
Some did not. For example, Beverly Hills held out until an aqueduct was built from the Colorado River, ensuring its water supply.
I want to say that New York City was formed the same way, getting Brooklyn and western Queens County to join in 1898. At the time Brooklyn was an independent city while western Queens was comprised of Elmhurst, Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, and western Hempstead. They all voted to join NYC, while the towns of Queens County who voted NOT to join NYC were reconstituted into Nassau County.
In a similar vein, Jersey City (1873) and Newark (1905) slowly expanded over the years to incorporate smaller adjacent towns, but that sort of municipal expansion is now frowned upon
Municipal expansion, without the consent of the annexed, is pretty common in southern states, oddly enough. Memphis avoids depopulation by forcibly annexing suburbs, as do many Texas cities.
Northern states seldom allow this anymore.
The 2018 Woolsey fire threatened Thousand Oaks and Woodland Hills. It then crossed the Santa Monica mountains and burnt down the slope through Malibu. Hundreds of Malibu homes were destroyed. Yet because the horrific Camp Fire occurred the same time, the Woolsey Fire is ignored.
But shouldn't the Woolsey Fire have been a huge wake up call to SoCal residents and officials? I am truly baffled at the "c'est la vie" attitude of Californians towards fire. Especially so since so much conversation and regulation updates took place after the 1989 and 1994 earthquakes to build earthquake proof structures.
Pepperdine University was threatened by the Woolsey Fire, as well as the recent fires. It has an active fire mitigation plan and this plan shows what must be done to protect buildings from the raining fire of windblown, flaming debris. Of note:
+Campus roads provide natural fire breaks
+Fire resistant landscaping is utilized throughout the campus
+Brush is cleared annually at least 200-feet from campus buildings
And, Pepperdine has two fire trucks that allow the university to immediately respond to brush fires and flaming debris that threatens the campus.
I dare say, most LA communities do not seem to take the risk of fire seriously. And Pacific Palisades and Altadena residents have paid dearly for their neglect.
With CA's onerous building rules for new houses, nothing will be rebuilt until AOC's and Barron Trump's great-grandkids enter politics...
These things are all about probabilities. Sure a fire could burn down the valley, a fire can spread and burn down any urban neighborhood. Ancient Rome burned down routinely (classical scholars please fact check me). The risk is much much higher in places that have had periodic wildfires (like the hills). We just had historic Santa Ana winds and the surrounding wildfires (I hope I don't speak too soon) are no where near crossing the interstates they would need to in order to get to me.
Looking at the fire maps the Eaton fire evacuation zone has retreated from glendale and aside from the palisades fire all the other evacuation zones are gone. I know we are in for more sind soon so we shall see but I figure if this one didn't get us, we are pretty safe.
This is a huge disaster but the real estate agent I saw on YouTube said a little more than a 1000 people were made homeless by it. Out of a few million Angelinos that isn't much. We have a lot of insurance issues in this state and blaming the fires on climate change doesn't;t address it.
Maybe the inability to get insurance will stop most people from building in high fire areas?
Are mitigation efforts worthwhile? Would controlled burns and such have prevented this? Healthy informed debate on politically charged topics is impossible now so I honestly can't tell what the consensus is.
There was a good discussion at The Free Press comment section. An experienced firefighter said the controlled burns are risky, especially in arid country. The fire can get out of control. He pointed out that voters always blame politicians in that case.
That makes sense. I infer from the tone of public discussion that CA should do more fire prevention but that it wouldn't have prevented the Palisades fire
It certainly could have contained it better. Brush clearance and non-empty reservoirs might have helped. The firefighters emptied three million gallon reservoirs before their hoses went limp and a nearby 117 million gallon reservoir was empty for a year while repairs to its cover were... contemplated,
"the real estate agent I saw on YouTube said a little more than a 1000 people were made homeless by it. Out of a few million Angelinos that isn't much."
You appear to be off by an order of magnitude or so..
Perplexity: "The Eaton Fire near Pasadena has devastated over 5,000 structures, including homes, apartment complexes, and businesses4.
The Palisades Fire, the largest blaze in the LA area, has obliterated more than 5,300 structures4."
I will add that I understand that the winds are projected to increase again shortly.
Palisades residents are putting up GoFundMes:
http://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5662067&mc=69&forum_id=2
Wow that’s awful.
I don’t care where people choose to live, but I’m against paying for any rebuilding. If you can afford to rebuild, good on you. Same with the folks who choose to live where hurricanes scour the coast every few years.
"Southern California had three big urban earthquakes in my dad’s lifetime (1933, 1971, and 1994), but none since 1994, so it’s hardly unlikely that the region could get hit with an earthquake sometime in coming decades that will make people forget the 2025 fires."
That has been the concern, namely, that the Quake to end all Quakes finally does arrive (e.g. #10 on the Richter Scale). Incredible that Malibu was finally hit...apparently semi-landmark restaurant Dukes was destroyed, according to some reports. Hope that didn't occur though.
To quote a Tweet from The DJT...
"Sad!"
Another rumor that is making the rounds is that Governor Newsom did not want to use necessary water to help reduce the fires because of EPA protected smelts in the water. Apparently he had his priorities.
If this statement regarding why Newsom neglected to use the water when he had an opporutnity to reduce the water, and that it would've made a considerable difference in reducing the overall damage to SoCal area, then it would be safe to assume that his potential 28 candidacy for D presidential nomination is at a standstill, and hopefully, greatly reduced in all likelihood from occuring.
"Duke’s Malibu — Closed due to evacuation notice, posted update on Instagram that the building and staff are safe as of January 9"
https://la.eater.com/2025/1/7/24338882/los-angeles-pacific-palisades-eaton-canyon-fire-restaurant-closure
But Gruesome's turning off my electricity for a week or so didn't get him booted, so...
I believe that the smelt has replaced the snail darter as the reason for not filling reservoirs with rainwater, not for not pumping water already in the ocean or already salty parts of the Sac Delta.
Thanks for update on Duke's. Whew!
Point being though, the smelt takes priority over helping to save SoCal from major fires damage.
Priorities, priorities. Smelt comes first, and people second.
Newsom in 28!
Yeah, right!
"What have we lost? So much! Landmarks and landscapes, family homes and apartment buildings, small businesses and community spaces, libraries, museums, schools, churches, hardware stores, coffee shops, art studios, supermarkets, fish shacks and horse barns, books and photographs and paintings and objets d’art, things ordinary and irreplaceable, memories of lost loves, relics throbbing with personal significance and others that are world famous, collections formed over multiple lifetimes, massive trees and bonsai pots, vintage cars and Bakelite radios, ostrich eggs and crystal balls and lucky pennies, embroidery and fishing poles, things mourned on television and losses unknown, much of it now ash lofted up into the atmosphere and carried for miles on the uncaring Santa Ana winds."
~Kim Cooper
Did you know Pacific Palisades was created by Methodist chautauquans? Simple folks who loved nature and the simple life. Here's a video about it:
https://youtu.be/0PYQuAho2Zs?si=lI0ml5GtiDzaDtBM
The Will Rogers ranch house and associated buildings has been destroyed. It was a lovely 31-room house he built in 1929 on his 360 acre ranch, along with guest houses, stable, corrals, golf course and polo ground. Not bad for a wild Indian from Oklahoma. He and his pal the aviator Wiley Post, another wild Indian from Oklahoma, planned their fatal flight to Alaska there. After his solo around-the-world flight, Post landed his Lockheed Vega "Winnie Mae" on the golf course to say hi to his friend. It's all gone to ashes now.
The Topanga Ranch Motel is also ashes. More than half-a-dozen movies were filmed there, along with episodes of the TV shows Mannix and Remington Steele among others. Struggling scriptwriters wanting quiet and no distractions to write often rented rooms there. It was cheap and the room TV sets were usually out of order. So all you could do was write. Now it's no more.
So much has been lost forever. It's really shocking.
Didn't the Reagans live in PP?
Up until 1966, when he sold off the property to pay off the debt of his successful Gubernatorial campaign. Then when he left office in 1974 he and Nancy bought the ranch in Santa Barbara County which they used for the rest of his life.
What about after his presidency?
Bel Air
They hired a smart mayor and paid her lots of money to be sure bad things wouldn't happen...
The video shows helpfully shows that a lot of open country devoid of wildfire fuel covered what is now known as the Palisades 100 years ago.
Sona Movsesian, who is mildly famous as Conan O'Brien's assistant, lives 3½ miles or so northeast of the Rose Bowl in Altadena. She hasn't posted an update per se, but it is presumed that she and her husband and two sons have lost their home.
Genuinely sorry to hear that, she's great.
About an hour ago she posted an update on Instagram confirming that she and her immediate family did indeed lose their home and asking that any relief effort be dedicated to the less fortunate rather than her. Also, since she will no longer be living there for now, I suppose I can now say that she lived on Loma Alta Drive near Pasadena Rosebud Academy.
https://www.instagram.com/sonamov/p/DEtbcAtJoqT/
O/T
RIP Peter Yarrow (86.7) of Peter, Paul and Mary, who died less than two weeks after Jimmy Carter. They are linked in history because Carter pardoned Yarrow who had served a three-month term for getting a handjob in 1970 from a 14-year-old fan who came to his hotel room seeking an autograph with her 17-year-old sister. Just think that he if had gone for the sister he would have been free and clear. For those wondering why Carter had the authority to pardon this crime, this happened in DC, which did not have autonomous rule at the time
Yarrow's lawyer in the case was William Bennett Williams, owner of the Redskins and quite the legal titan and his father, Bernard Yarrow, was a lawyer with Tom Dewey and Allen Dulles. Assistant to Bill Donovan in the OSS. Interesting factoids.
So that girl wasn't the only one to help get Peter off in this case...
It's all pretty sad. Washington Post reported on it a few years back
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/17/peter-yarrow-carter-pardon-assault/
The Twitter tells me Riviera still exists. And they cleared the barranca about a decade ago and as long as the pump room stays powered they should be in the clear. But putting on a tournament in a month is a big ask, unless they ban fans like covid.
Where I live we have floods, and one year (2022) we had such severe floods that some people perished and many lost homes, FEMA had to come in, etc. I live in the mountains that envelop the flatlands that incurred the flooding, so I and family were safe from the floods, but it was difficult to view the damages suffered by those in the lower regions from above. As lonely as it gets in the mountains of the Cascades at times, I never felt more stable and safe in my surroundings that week.
Perhaps Los Angeles County is overbuilt and not meant to be home to 10 million people. Just a thought.
Yes, the lack of water is a real problem
Cutting off the Invasion might help.
God bless them all. Godspeed to you and your family, Steve.