California Wildfires

[Thomkal]

This one looks like its going to be very bad for California. Towns have been pretty much destroyed. Malibu one of a number of places that are being evacuated. Hope all our friends here are safe.





https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/09/us/ca...wcx/index.html

[Edward64]

I don't understand why so many residents seemed to be caught off-guard and all the deaths, now at about 55+ and as many as 130 people unaccounted for.

Some reports on PG&E being responsible for some of the fires.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I don't understand why so many residents seemed to be caught off-guard and all the deaths, now at about 55+ and as many as 130 people unaccounted for.

Some reports on PG&E being responsible for some of the fires.

Yeah, their stock has plummeting. Probably on expectations of an enormous civil damage payout.

[NobodyHere]

dola

Apparently some California politician has said that he doesn't wish PG&E to go bankrupt so the stock has been rebounding overnight.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I don't understand why so many residents seemed to be caught off-guard and all the deaths, now at about 55+ and as many as 130 people unaccounted for.

I think they're just really unpredictable and tough to forecast where it goes next. Plus for some reason they don't get the same kind of attention a hurricane does despite being just as deadly.

[RainMaker]

This is incredible.

A burned neighborhood in #ParadiseFire:

(via @NBCNews) pic.twitter.com/UmYyxN2wOW

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) November 16, 2018

[Ryche]

Wife's grandmother used to winter in Paradise. Crazy that a town of 20,000+ has basically been wiped off the map.

[kingfc22]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...lmed-paradise/

[RainMaker]

When this is all over, are we going to be looking at hundreds of casualties? Seems like a lot of people are missing.

[kingfc22]

Sure seems that way. Bay Area currently has the poorest air quality on earth.

I can’t imagine living in India if this is near “normal” level.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I think they're just really unpredictable and tough to forecast where it goes next. Plus for some reason they don't get the same kind of attention a hurricane does despite being just as deadly.

In Paradise particularly it was the high winds. The fires moved incredibly quickly. The fires lately have been more deadly because of several factors - the years of drought providing essentially acres of kindling are the biggest, but the way the state handled wildfires in the past and peoples' proclivity to keep building further and further into the woods without proper protection are big contributors as well. Prevention used to be the biggest buzz word around forest fires, but occasional fires are a part of the natural cycle - they clear out dead brush and such, and the burned areas provide nutrients for new growth. With more buildings around (people) and more dead brush (drought, fire prevention), fires have been growing in size and scope for years.

As for PG&E (full disclosure, I'm an employee), California is a reverse-indemnity state - which means that even if the company met (or even exceeded) all of the Utility Commission standards for safety, if the fires originated from our equipment, we can be held liable for the damages. That was the case with last year's wildfires in Napa/Sonoma: despite exceeding all mandated safety standards for power line maintenance, excessively high wind blew PG&E power lines into nearby tree branches, which started the fire. From what I have heard, the company is expecting up to $2.6 billion in costs from last year's fires already. The insurance the company has against these sort of natural disasters is paltry in comparison to those costs (somewhere in the hundreds of millions range).

What sucks is that the media loves a villain, and a private utility company is an excellent target - especially when we are practically a monopoly on power (electricity and natural gas) for the majority of California. Combine that fact with the San Bruno natural gas explosion nearly a decade ago, when we WERE negligent and completely at fault, and you have a recipe for disaster. Misleading and straight out factually incorrect headlines abound, and seeing friends on Facebook go on rants about my company is incredibly frustrating - but getting involved is a lose-lose situation, so I just try to ignore them.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

... despite exceeding all mandated safety standards for power line maintenance, excessively high wind blew PG&E power lines into nearby tree branches, which started the fire.

Didn't know downed power lines could start a fire.

[Vince, Pt. II]

FiveThirtyEight put out an article that said this much more eloquently and data-driven than I did above.