Economy and Climate Change

[AW]

On that we can agree…a failed and incompetent government administration is to blame…(in the pursuit of Unicorns and rainbows)

A State Official Refused To Release Water For West Maui Fires

The fight over water is nothing new on Maui. But the impact on the county's ability to battle fires is coming clear.

With wildfires ravaging West Maui on Aug. 8, a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners wanted to help protect their property from fires. The water standoff played out over much of the day and the water didn’t come until too late.

The dispute involved the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ water resource management division and West Maui Land Co., which manages agricultural and residential subdivisions in West Maui as well as Launiupoko Irrigation Co., Launiupoko Water Co., Olowalu Water Co. and Ha’iku Town Water Association.

DLNR delayed releasing water requested by West Maui Land Co. to help prevent the spread of fire, sources familiar with the situation said.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/a...er-for-west-maui-fires-until-it-was-too-late/

yep, who said we can't agree.
it's better that our officials warn in case for the worst, so at least the perception they did something instead of doing nothing at all (or fly off to cancun)

 

[morekaos]

“perception” of doing something? What a crock. How about doing something that is needed like appropriately warning. In the end, you have to admit all the panic porn was pointless. It accomplished nothing but creating a massive surplus of sandbags that now are going to become a crisis to get rid of.

 

[AW]

“perception” of doing something? What a crock. How about doing something that is needed like appropriately warning. In the end, you have to admit all the panic porn was pointless. It accomplished nothing but creating a massive surplus of sandbags that now are going to become a crisis to get rid of.

like i said, tell that to the people in maui, tell them panic porn is pointless

you either do something, like warning people, or do nothing (or going to cancun)

 

[irvinehomeowner]

Since I know @irvinehomeowner isn't big on handing out credit for correct predictions, I'd like to recognize morekaos for this prescient post.

On the other hand, it really was a disaster for those trying to leverage this perfectly normal weather event to bolster their climate crisis fear narrative. What usually happens after such a letdown is that next time a true disaster occurs, people don't bother listening or paying attention to the authorities, and they end up in more danger because they ignore evacuation orders. Too many false alarms and over-hyped weather events can actually lead to more deaths and human suffering over the long run.

Since I know LL loves to change the narrative to troll me... let him find where I said it would be another disaster. All I commented on was unprecedented rain in August, how we should be happy we now have technology to track these type of events, especially for those near the beach who this could be bad for, how I thought it was weird that people were over-prepping for this storm, and even commenting that our area won't be hit like the desert area.

I know you wish you can be as "prescient" as morekaos (questionable ) but stop trying to project your own personal miscalls. I bet you did more than I did for this storm because I did nothing... didn't even put away any umbrellas, went out to eat both lunch and dinner (lunch was desolate but dinner was more crowded since I guess people figured it was nothing).

Like I said, I'm glad it was a non-event... better safe than sorry.

 

[morekaos]

like i said, tell that to the people in maui, tell them panic porn is pointless

you either do something, like warning people, or do nothing (or going to cancun)

in the case of the boy king and our local and Los Angeles administration, warning people or going to Cancun accomplished same thing. Pointless and a waste of time.

 

[irvinehomeowner]

@morekaos: So what would you have done? The point that AW is getting at is it's better to warn, not have anything, than not to warn and have Maui-type incident occur.

I don't think you have suggested a better solution?

Me.... I prefer to err on the side of caution... why are storm warnings political now too? You have some serious blue/red issues.

 

[sgip]

The warnings were justified, given the complacency of Californians. This weather event could have been significantly worse, but thankfully was not. In our area there were a few downed tree branches but no real flooding other than deep in the canyons. Don't know about Irvine, but in RSM we're knee deep in pine needles. Yuck!

I would add that it appears (IMHO) Governor Dippidy Doo stayed clear of the media pre-storm, waiting to grandstand his efforts to clean up after the storm as some kind of white knight riding to our rescue. Since the impact was relatively minimal to expectations, he'll skulk back to Sacramento and wait for another catastrophe to glom onto. Such is world of politics today.

Always better safe than sorry. I'm OK with the amount of fear porn that was smeared around every local news outlet.

 

[CalBears96]

The warnings were justified, given the complacency of Californians. This could have been significantly worse. In our area there were a few downed tree branches but no real flooding other than deep in the canyons. Don't know about Irvine, but in RSM we're knee deep in pine needles.

Always better safe than sorry. I'm OK with the amount of fear porn that was smeared around every local news outlet.

Yeah, the warnings were definitely justified because weather is unpredictable. Like IHO said, we're all glad that it was mostly a non-event, but we don't know what would have happen if Hurricane Hilary kept its strength.

And the outlets did say that most of the flooding will occur in the mountain and desert areas, which it did. There was flooding in Palm Springs.

I just think that people are stupid in panicking. This was going to be a one-day event. There was potential power outage. So what should people have bought? Bottle water, flash lights, lantern, batteries. Any kind of food that doesn't require cooking. That's all. I still don't understand filling up your car unless you live in a potential mudslide area that would require you to evacuate.

 

[AW]

basically scenarios are:

1. warn people, nothing happens, best outcome (hurricane hillary)
2. warn people, calamity, at least they warned us, emergency response is up and ready
3. don't warn people, nothing happens, no harm no foul
4. don't warn people calamity, worst outcome (maui)
5. no matter what, blame the left (mk)

 

[morekaos]

like a year ago when a very similar storm slammed into us but no one seems to remember that….it’s just rain…

TROPICAL STORM KAY BRINGS RAIN, POSSIBLE FLASH FLOODING TO SOCAL​

Hurricane Kay has been downgraded to a tropical storm after first making landfall in Mexico.

By ABC7.com staff

Weakening Tropical Storm Brings Rain to Sweltering Southern California

Showers popped up Thursday morning in parts of Southern California as the region remained in the grip of a week-long heat wave. Here’s when the heat will finally ease.

www.nbclosangeles.com

 

[Liar Loan]

false alarm as in doing nothing, tell that to the folks in maui

What should I tell them? It's not possible to forecast spontaneous wind-driven wildfires in advance. If you propose warning people any time winds pick up that wildfires are possible, most people will just shrug their shoulders and move on. There's nothing actionable to do in advance.

Once the town of Lahaina was already burning and people were trapped and dying, the government didn't sound the alarms, the power company didn't cut off power, the water company didn't release the water. Whose going to listen to a government that fails at it's most basic functions anyway?

Not only that, but the hillside next to town was covered in extremely dry brush 3-5 ft tall in some instances. Nobody thought to clear that or at least create a fire buffer zone? With such an inept government, it doesn't matter if climate caused it or not. The climate was the smallest variable because no matter what, sooner or later, this disaster was going to happen.

 

[morekaos]

@morekaos: So what would you have done? The point that AW is getting at is it's better to warn, not have anything, than not to warn and have Maui-type incident occur.

I don't think you have suggested a better solution?

Me.... I prefer to err on the side of caution... why are storm warnings political now too? You have some serious blue/red issues.

I would’ve done exactly what I said to do. Tell people to carry an umbrella with them. It’s going to rain. That would’ve been enough. Panic porn did more harm than good as I said before next time, maybe when there’s a real emergency, no one is going to listen to them.

 

[Liar Loan]

I bet you did more than I did for this storm because I did nothing... didn't even put away any umbrellas, went out to eat both lunch and dinner (lunch was desolate but dinner was more crowded since I guess people figured it was nothing).

LOL... Now you want to have a pissing contest over who did the least to prepare for the storm.

 

[morekaos]

and it’s nice and sunny outside, I think I’m going to take my boat to dinner tonight

 

[AW]

What should I tell them? It's not possible to forecast spontaneous wind-driven wildfires in advance. If you propose warning people any time winds pick up that wildfires are possible, most people will just shrug their shoulders and move on. There's nothing actionable to do in advance.

Once the town of Lahaina was already burning and people were trapped and dying, the government didn't sound the alarms, the power company didn't cut off power, the water company didn't release the water. Whose going to listen to a government that fails at it's most basic functions anyway?

Not only that, but the hillside next to town was covered in extremely dry brush 3-5 ft tall in some instances. Nobody thought to clear that or at least create a fire buffer zone? With such an inept government, it doesn't matter if climate caused it or not. The climate was the smallest variable because no matter what, sooner or later, this disaster was going to happen.

Exactly my point, the gov't didn't do anything there.

We did, and nothing happened, which is better than not getting notice and something happens

Not possible to forecast? Do we live in the dark ages? Do they not know about the Dora's path? Do they not get wildfire warnings (like we do)?
So basically you agree, we did a splendid job, and you can thank the gov't here we were at least pro active

 

[nosuchreality]

Personally, I find the hours long self-congratulatory press conference this morning by LA Government, both tasteless and ripe with hubris.

They're congratulating themselves on the great job and preparedness and the reality of the situation is that Major Hurricane Hilary went to the eastern half of its projected path cone, weakened dramatically with the cool water, then plowed early further south into Baja dumping the bulk of its energy on Baja.

If it went west as far as it went east and did a hook shot straight into Long Beach, we'd see, frankly, how unprepared everything really was for a once a century event. Dramatic pictures of a flooded poorly redone Dodge stadium parking lot not withstanding.

 

[morekaos]

did you even watch that press conference yesterday? What a bunch of self congratulatory, grand standing, self-important D-bags…they couldn’t get enough of each other and they really didn’t do anything constructive. Thanks for telling us it was going to rain.

 

[Liar Loan]

Exactly my point, the gov't didn't do anything there.

We did, and nothing happened, which is better than not getting notice and something happens

Not possible to forecast? Do we live in the dark ages? Do they not know about the Dora's path? Do they not get wildfire warnings (like we do)?
So basically you agree, we did a splendid job, and you can thank the gov't here we were at least pro active

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand how fires work. It's not possible to forecast spontaneous wildfires. If it were, then Paradise wouldn't have happened because the state of California would have warned everybody to safely get out. Instead 85 Californians died.

 

[AW]

You seem to fundamentally misunderstand how fires work. It's not possible to forecast spontaneous wildfires. If it were, then Paradise wouldn't have happened because the California government would have warned everybody to safely get out. Instead 85 Californians died.

Was there a hurricane with crazy winds preceding paradise?
No

Was there a hurricane with crazy winds preceding Maui?
Yes

so i guess you've never heard about how they can forecast the path of a hurricane and red flag wind warnings regarding fire danger

 

[irvinehomeowner]

LOL... Now you want to have a pissing contest over who did the least to prepare for the storm.

LOL... you started it about who was more prescient than who and accusing people of fear mongering for the case of climate change.

Did you are did you not do something? If so, why? That's the point... even morekaos covered his boat and put away his umbrellas so there was value in these media warnings.

And as much as it was non-eventful here, there are people inland who are dealing with flooding, closed roads and lost power... if you were still living in the IE... you would be thankful for some advanced warning too.