No, no place is “immune” from the occasional natural disaster. But some areas seem to experience them more regularly and with more profound and widespread devastation than others.
I don’t know about the NE, but in IL and in surrounding states, I’m not aware of huge numbers of deaths and property destruction from snow. Sure, once in a while some people freeze to death - or get stranded in their cars. But, how many of those folk HAD to be out and about in the storm? Unlike wildfires and hurricanes, snowstorms are pretty consistently predicted some time in advance. If it snows, you might have to stay home for a day or 2 until the roads are clear. Not exactly comparable to a hurricane.
Over my life there have probably been a dozen tornados within 50 miles of me. Again, none caused damage the likes of these LA wildfires or most hurricanes. And occasionally extreme rains will result in some flooded basements. Not at all the same.
Maybe living in CA ought to be even MORE expensive than it is.
I grew up in northern Illinois. One of the “Palm Sunday” tornados whipped through our back yard & killed a woman in a house a few blocks away. But that was 60 years ago and the area was pretty rural. As the desireable land along the coasts becomes more populated, the expense and loss of life from natural disasters like wildfires, tsunamis and hurricanes increases.
And holy cow, was it cold up there near Chicago! The death toll and property damage from cold may well approach that of a wildfire or hurricane, but the damage and deaths are harder to quantify and occur one or a few at a time and thus generate less publicity.
On balance, I find life in my part of CA to be pretty good. YMMV.
I saw in the paper this morning that that fucking twerp Elon Musk is blaming gay and minority firefighters for the fires being out of control. And in just that many words. He also said that "DEI means DIE for Californians. What a total jackass he is.
I’d appreciate some effort to cite that “may.” Because I strongly disagree with your assertion. Yeah - in an especially cold snap (or heat wave), some number of folk may die from exposure. Largely elderly or homeless. And largely preventable - with effort by the individuals and/or the community. Parts of Buffalo NY regularly get feet of snow at one time every winter. Where are the reports of deaths and widespread property damage? And - of course - I hear rumors that folk are even able to eke out miserable existences in latitudes north of the American midwest…
On the plus side, even if our midwestern lifespans might be shortened by the inclement weather we experience, our lives SEEM longer as we force ourselves to endure our crappy weather!
Shhh. Seriously everyone. We want to keep the ignorant out of here. Let them keep their beliefs.
Seriously though. This is a disaster thread. Posting about how it’s bad to live here while the disaster isn’t even over yet while some of us are affected and many of us have loved ones affected is being an asshole. Fuck off to somewhere else.
I can appreciate your irritation at being criticized about where you live even as the disaster continues to unfold, but this isn’t the Pit and you know that. Please dial back the hostility here.
Apologies if I mis/overstepped. The second post in this thread discussed the conditions contributing to these fires, so I thought discussion of those condition appropriate. I have previously had difficulty appreciating exactly what ought to be discussed how in which particular forum, and what ought to be split off into different threads.
I think where you got off track is when you started making comparisons about which sorts of disasters are “better” to live with, whether better to die of exposure to freezing temperatures or wildfire.
The point of this thread is to discuss the active fires in Southern California as they continue. Discussions comparing the livability of one region to another based on their disaster vulnerabilities belong elsewhere.
What’s the long-term housing situation like in LA for the displaced people in the area? This isn’t like a flood where things clear up and people can go back to live in their house after a few days while cleanup is ongoing. If people want to stay in the area, they’re going to need another place to live for 1 or more years.
I know of at least one family that lost their home and are staying with the parents/in-laws in another part of the city. That may not be a medium-long term solution, and they are fortunate to have that much. I would guess there are many who don’t even have that option right now. LA has a large homeless population already, mainly due to the high cost of housing. If displaced people have jobs, they likely wont end up among the ranks of the region’s homeless, but there is a housing shortage going on, and this disaster is not likely to make it any better. I honestly don’t know what people are going to do. Are they sending in trailers like for other natural disasters?
Also, renters are probably in a better position than homeowners. A homeowner has to stick around to find out about their insurance, parcel clean-up, rebuilding, etc. A renter may have lost everything, but they are not attached to the property the same way as a homeowner, and if they can telecommute, have a lot of potential options in the region, or beyond.
Temporarily the people I know are moving in with parents, moving into hotels or airbnbs or moving in with friends. I saw that Airbnb isn’t charging people in the LA area who are affected. Here in nearby Santa Barbara, we are taking people in. Lots of Facebook posts about people offering to help or asking for help for friends.
Southern California has a substantial housing crisis, and while that mostly impacts lower socioeconomic people the press to rehouse so many middle and upper income people will almost certainly exacerbate the existing rental crisis by pushing rents figuratively through the roof. Plus, it is already difficult to find skilled construction labor, and given current events the tariffs on imported materials may drive reconstruction costs by 50% or more.
As someone who has lived in a flood zone (but never personally flooded out) I can attest to the fact that recovering from a serious flood is not a matter of “go[ing] back to live in their house after a few days while cleanup is ongoing.” Flood waters that enter the main living areas of a structure general require demo of drywall and materials up to the waterline and removal and replacement of flooring as well as trashing all furniture and appliances in the best case; if the water sits for long enough or demo doesn’t start quickly it can be a bones-out rebuilt of the entire structure.
The short term is tolerable. Everyone knows some who’s impacted. Friends, churches, companies are all helping out.
The medium term is terrible. Los Angeles does not have enough housing. Rents will continue to be extremely high. Builders will be overbooked and expensive.
Long-term it’s actually pretty good. There’s a lot of apartment buildings going up everywhere. And while the 10,000 structures destroyed is not a small number, it’s a tiny percentage compared to the number of houses built every year in Los Angeles.
Same. We’ve offered to host some displaced friends, but the timing is… not great, as we’re temporarily moved out for a floor refinishing project. I’ve noted that my hotel is significantly more busy this week as compared to a week ago.
By the time we’re back in maybe alternate arrangements will have been found. Other friends are hosting family members, and the current drama with one couple is that their adult child and family are expecting to stay with them for four years. Even if the insurance companies pay in an exceptionally timely manner, the resources available for so much rebuilding will take a long time to marshall.
While Santa Barbara, Goleta and Montecito have ridiculously tight markets for low and middle income rentals and probably can’t absorb a lot of the folks looking for housing, our real estate friends have been saying that the high end market has been softening for a while now. Looks like that trend is reversing. I’ve been watching reddit threads of rental housing in the area and people are gleefully calling out the rental property listings that have obviously jacked up their monthly ask. There are anti-gouging regulations in place but I don’t immediately know the details other than 10% seems to be a trigger point.
I was talking to my mom who moved to the West LA area in 1958 if she remembers there being a fire in that area in the past. (They happened regularly in Malibu and Topanga). She recalled a previous fire in Brentwood/Bel Aire in 1961 which was by far the worst fire ever in Los Angeles until probably now.
While that is true, it is not easy to just migrate from one area of the metropolitan Los Angeles area to another. Many of the people affected in Altadena who lost homes to the Eaton Fire, for instance, live there because they work in the nearby cities of Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, La Cañada Flintridge, or downtown Los Angeles which is a reasonable commute and some decent transit options with Metrorail. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, Occidental College, Pasadena City College, and many other institutions and business have significant numbers of staff who have lost their homes and there is literally not enough available housing within ready commuting distance to absorb them, nor are these positions that are suitable for remote work, nor is there free land nearby to quickly construct housing for what I’m guessing is 20k-30k of displaced people (maybe higher depending on the number of apartment buildings and multifamily dwellings impacted).
So, even though it is a small impact in the overall scope of the Los Angeles area, it is a major impact for an extended period of time for people in this specific area that will either force people to move further into the exburbs (Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Rialto, Santa Clarita) and endure multi-hour commutes (just making an already terrible traffic situation even worse), or just find work elsewhere. I’m guessing something similar for people affected by the Palisades Fire (which, again, are not all rich actors and film producers). Regardless, it is definitely going to push rents which are already way too high to a point where it is going to be a struggle for people making a solid low six figure income to afford housing.
Yeah, Southern and Central California have a lot of wildfires but they’re mostly wildfires that are a threat to people living up in the mountains or in deep foothills where fire suppression is difficult because of road access and limited water. The Los Angeles region hasn’t had urban fires like this is living memory. This is not a typical ‘fire season’, which should have ended in November at the beginning of the rainy season, except we’ve gotten essentially no rain, nor can we expect much in the way of precipitation for the foreseeable future.
My friends who both work at JPL lost their Altadena home. Luckily, they have family members fairly nearby, but I have no idea what they are going to do long term. Any unburned houses that go on the market are going to be expensive. Definitely a seller’s market coming up.
