How Stupid Are They?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

BH, I'm not sure I would have included Puerto Rico in that overall statement.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

BH, I'm not sure I would have included Puerto Rico in that overall statement.

Yes, a little different set of circumstances there - Huston area has been known to flood for many years. That folks fail to get insurance is just gambling - should require them to get insurance if they want to live in specific areas, but then again folks don't like to be told that they are required to get insurance.

[robert.]

I'm not so sure they had an option to buy flood insurance.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm not so sure they had an option to buy flood insurance.

Federal Gov't: https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program

[webenda]

Air moving east across California hits high mountains. This forces that air to compress. Then move westerly and down. Compression causes heat. (The hottest Heat causes fire.

NIce explanation Robert but only partially correct. Compressing a gas does raise its temperature. The hottest heat can start a fire.
https://youtu.be/PYSxWEjfvcc

The ignition temperature for various chaparral is 374 °F to 500 °F. The hottest temperature ever recorded from adiabatic heating (the name for the phenomena you describe) is 134 °F in Death Valley, California--not hot enough to cause fires.

The adiabatically heated winds blowing the Thomas fire into a raging, uncontrollable, inferno are only 70 °F.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I thought it was the prolific and prodigious undergrowth that was the main problem. Why not clear all that out , from time to judicious time?

[robert.]

I'm not so sure they had an option to buy flood insurance.

Federal Gov't: https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program

My statement will be from 3rd party info. Federal flood insurance covers $250,000 for a house and $100,000 personal property. One of the 82 jobs my mother does is answer calls for a mortgage company. All calls from Texas have been diverted to her office. She claims most people are telling her let the bank have my house. $250,000 does nothing for a 1.5 mill house that is destroyed.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm not so sure they had an option to buy flood insurance.

Federal Gov't: https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insurance-program

My statement will be from 3rd party info. Federal flood insurance covers $250,000 for a house and $100,000 personal property. One of the 82 jobs my mother does is answer calls for a mortgage company. All calls from Texas have been diverted to her office. She claims most people are telling her let the bank have my house. $250,000 does nothing for a 1.5 mill house that is destroyed.

If you can afford a 1.5 mill house and don't insure it, you didn't deserve it and/or are beyond stupid.

[robert.]

My understanding is you can only get $250,000 in coverage. There is noway to buy 1.5 mill in flood insurance. Some of the folks she talks to say " they were left high and dry by their insurance co." Even the ones that had their roofs blow off. Insurance company Says "That's still flood".

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Our insurance company considers wind damage as separate from flood damage. Thus, we have separate coverage for each.

[Tom Dempsey]

After Hurricane Hugo came through Charleston SC, there were several major insurance carriers who refused to pay for homes that were completely destroyed because "there was no evidence of wind damage". The only difference between the business models of the insurance industry and the mafia is that the mafia always pays off.

[webenda]

I thought it was the prolific and prodigious undergrowth that was the main problem. Why not clear all that out , from time to judicious time?

Chaparral is not a forest (even if California calls some chaparral areas a forest) there is no undergrowth. Scrub Oak (one of 42,000 chaparral species requiring fire to survive) grows from 0.8 to 4.1 feet high when mature. Take a look at chaparral...

los-padres-national-forest.jpg (29.58 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

Coastal Chaparral.jpg (318.75 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

Mountainous Chaparral.jpg (175.9 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

You want to clear out all 42,000 plant species, from Abies bracteata to Ziziphus parryi? If you do that you will destroy the habitat of millions of fauna. Each of the 42,000 of species of chaparral has an insect dedicated to eating and controlling the growth and another insect dedicated to pollinating its plant. Plus countless higher and lower lifeforms depend on the chaparral forests.

The roots of the chaparral hold the dirt in place. Without chaparral, huge mudslides occur. Sometimes mudslides occur after a fire if new growth does not return to an area fast enough. Without chaparral, California would slide into the ocean and I would have ocean front property here in Arizona.

Instead of building fire resistant houses and maintaining a clear zone from the chaparral you are suggesting ruining the eek-o-system* God gave California by clearing it all out? Not good Murph.

The Bible states that God will bring to ruin those ruining the earth.
--Revelation 11:18, New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE).

*It is not an "eek-o-system." What is the word I want, "echo system?'" Aha! ecosystem -- a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

You make excellent points, Wayne. Thanks for the education, which is why I asked in the first place, of course. But your explanation, complete with well chosen photos, tells the reality of that place perfectly.

So, then, what is the answer for all those homeowners who want to live there (not that there has to be an answer for all our wants and needs)?
I found this photo in your presentation to be particularly enlightening, when combined with the others.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

So, then, what is the answer for all those homeowners who want to live there (not that there has to be an answer for all our wants and needs)?

Visit, enjoy the beauty, clean up after yourself, and go home somewhere else knowing that you left this intact for others to enjoy.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

So, then, what is the answer for all those homeowners who want to live there (not that there has to be an answer for all our wants and needs)?

Visit, enjoy the beauty, clean up after yourself, and go home somewhere else knowing that you left this intact for others to enjoy.

Your reply reminds me of a story a parish priest of ours told us wbout his hike down into the Grand Canyon, for his first and only time there. He said that a very firm rule was that whatever you took into the canyon, hiking along the trails, had to be brought back up and out with you - everything - which apparently included human waste.

Well, I have no idea how such a rule was supervised and employed, but it made interesting sense to me once Father told us of his experience.