After disaster: to rebuild or not to rebuild…
…whether in Paradise, California, or any other disaster-prone area, that is the question.
Paradise and many other towns in California seem especially vulnerable to fire. But although quite a few fires have raged near Paradise for many decades, it was mostly spared from any major destruction till now.
Beautiful settings call to people. But beautiful settings can be risky, whether the risk be earthquake, fire, or flood (tornadoes are a risk in other areas not necessarily known for special beauty—please forgive me all you midwesterners).
In a place such as Paradise, fire insurance becomes pricier, and a fair number of people there were uninsured for that reason. They will get some FEMA money, but that is very limited and ordinarily not nearly enough to rebuild. We all pay taxes that go to FEMA, and we all might pay increased insurance rates to cover so many payouts to those who are insured. But even though we all have a stake in this, I’m not for limiting people’s ability to live where they want.
You might say that the victims of the fire should sue PG&E, which may or may not be responsible (or at least partially responsible) for the conflagration. But there’s a catch, because no power company can be 100% successful at preventing these events and still provide power to the public. If PG&E had to pay out to all the fire victims, it goes bankrupt or passes the whole thing onto its customers in a huge rate increase. And what would replace it?
This is how California has recently decided to handle it (from this past September, prior to the Paradise fire):
In California, utilities are responsible for fires traced to their equipment whether or not they are complying with regulations. PG&E faces about 200 lawsuits on behalf of 2,700 plaintiffs stemming from last year’s fires.
…This [recently passed bill] would soften that standard by having regulators determine liability based on whether equipment was reasonably maintained and operated. It would also let utilities issue bonds to help pay damages, with a surcharge on ratepayers’ bills helping to cover interest payments.
So, how much is too much risk in a community, and who gets to decide? Does each locality decide for itself whether to limit growth or allow it?
[NOTE: Good news, though—the number of the Paradise missing has fallen to 25.]
You might say that the victims of the fire should sue PG&E, which may or may not be responsible
Why not Jerry Brown who vetoed a bill to put utility lines underground or to require fire break areas below them? The bill was passed unanimously by both Houses of the Legislature and was written by John Moorlach, a Republican.
It is not a good idea for government to subsidize property insurance. An even worse idea is to build and live in an area that has a “fire season”. Year after year…
In forested areas like Paradise; require rebuilt houses to have fireproof roofs, rather than wooden shake roofs. Concrete structures. Require brush clearing within 100 feet. Require on-site fire suppression systems. At least 5 Paradise residents stayed and fought the fires with their own pumps from their swimming pools, and aside from having no power, their homes are still livable. Also; below-ground shelters similar to Kansas “storm shelters”.
Coastal regions; require rebuilt homes to be elevated on concrete stilts at least 5 feet above the highest recorded flood levels. In base housing in the Philippines in Subic Bay, most houses were elevated, with garages and storage space on the “ground” floor. Build stronger houses. By spending about 15% more on construction, you can make a house almost hurricane-proof.
In Earthquake or hurricane zones; require the use of “hurriquake” nails in construction. Smooth nails pull loose too easily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HurriQuake
Insurance companies might offer lower rates to insurers living in municipalities and developments that set standards (codes) for setback clearances, barriers, and maintenance. Costs would go up, but places like Paradise might create cooperatives to lessen the impact.
Government subsidies are a bad idea.
Oh, okay, how about an area that has a flood season? Hurricane season? Earthquake season? We’d be running out of places to live pretty quickly. California’s been hit badly lately but nowhere is reliably safe. The east coast and midwest are very vulnerable to earthquake because they’re not prepared the way we are out here. Also, the entire west coast (not just California) has “fire season” every single year due to the millions of acres of forest and wild land. Fire season is more widespread and destructive now due to the fact that we are in a drought and the fact that our government does not follow its own advice, and common sense, and manage the forests properly or build infrastructure to preserve and distribute water as needed for humans (as opp. nonnative fish, environmentalists, and other woodland creatures).
I confess to being irritated at paying somewhat higher home insurance rates for my house in the Raleigh-Durham area because we partially subsidize rates for people living on the beach.
In California in fire season, it’s a conundrum. People living in the foothills and canyons want power, but they also hold the power company liable if the wind takes down a line or pole.
The reduced missing list is good news. So, possibly something on the order of 110 deaths. Not good, but it could have been much, much worse.
Ken Mitchell:
Yes, some people successfully defended their homes in Paradise.
And some tried and had to leave at the last minute. My guess is some of them (or some who tried to defend their homes and never left) are among the dead.
There are laws in California about brush clearing around a house. However, most of the people in Paradise were in older homes and homes set much closer together than that, and when the property lines are that close together you can’t have that sort of perimeter of brush clearing.
My in-laws lived in Southern California and about 40 years ago they were required by law to replace their wood shake roof with a fire-retardant roof. I don’t know what the rules were in Paradise about that—perhaps older homes were grandfathered in—but in the area where my in-laws lived in a suburb of LA, they certainly weren’t grandfathered in, even way back then.
As for subterranean shelters against a wildfire, I’ve read a lot about them and they don’t seem to have designed an effective one that isn’t mega-expensive. What’s more, although an effective shelter would save people, that would have no affect on insurance, since the homes would still burn down.
Insurance companies employ actuaries. Why not leave the pricing of property-casualty insurance to the market (something California has a history of interfering with, on occasion at the behest of referenda)? That’ll give you an idea of what prudent land use might be. (Why wasn’t this done re greater New Orleans after 2005?)
I’d wanted to write on this in detail. I think I’ll put just one of the points I wanted to make, and if there’s enthusiastic response I’ll write the rest.
Suppose you live in an area where some terrible thing has a 1% chance of happening to you and all who live there (the “100-year flood”). Now suppose we consider all the areas that have that same risk–1% chance per year–and watch them for 100 years. What will we see?
37% of these areas will not see this event at all in 100 years.
37% of these areas will have it happen 1 time in 100 years.
26% of these areas will have it happen more than one time in 100 years.
100 years is rather longer than most people own a home. Suppose we pick a more reasonable time frame, 30 years. The same probability, 1%, over 30 years, would be
74% of these areas will not see it happen in 30 years
22% of these areas will see it happen once in 30 years
4% of these areas will see it happen more than once in 30 years
Now a bank holds a mortgage on many houses and they may have hundreds or thousands in such areas. They will require you to have insurance for that reason.
But an individual homeowner whose house is paid for might choose to avoid that expense (premiums 1% of the value of the house plus lagniappe). The odds of the house burning down is a bit lower than the odds of getting lung cancer from smoking–and plenty of people have decided smoking is worth the risk, and they PAY to smoke.
If smoking put money in your pocket every month, or saved you money over not smoking, how many people would be doing it? I’m not very surprised that people in Paradise wouldn’t buy insurance against what happened.
@Art Deco:Why not leave the pricing of property-casualty insurance to the market
Because people with valuable property in that area don’t like the market answer, and if there’s a lot of them, or they’re rich, they’ll have the political clout to get the government to meddle.
It might be noted that the state of California will have a much harder time rebuilding than it should have, because of the massive budgetary and other burdens that their huge illegal alien population–the largest in the U.S.–presents to that state.
The estimated annual cost to California to provide for illegal aliens is $30 plus billion dollars–almost 18% of California’s entire annual budget.
To look at this burden from another angle, here are some startling new figures from the Census Bureau, as analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), about how many non-citizens (green card holders, long term temporary workers like “guest workers,” non-naturalized permanent residents, and illegal aliens) are tapping into the welfare programs that are supposed to be helping poor and ailing Americans.
According to a new CIS study of Census Bureau data from 2014 (apparently the latest such data available), 63% of non-citizens in the U.S.—that’s 4.6 million households—are on welfare, and half of those non-citizens are estimated by CIS demographers to be illegal aliens.
Non-citizen households also used welfare benefits at a far higher rate, sometimes double that of native households.
What’s more, at the 10 year mark, 70% of those on welfare are non-citizens i.e. once non-citizens get on welfare, most of them never get off it.
And while non-citizens are supposedly barred from receiving welfare, some states give them welfare benefits anyway, and many non-citizens and illegal aliens get around that bar by receiving welfare benefits on behalf of their children, who are U.S. citizens—because they were born here—another great reason to eliminate birthright citizenship, and birth tourism.
So here is an huge chunk of the state budget, an enormous amount of tax dollars that should be available to take care of the needs of U.S. citizens, but which has been diverted to pay for the needs of non-citizens, many of them illegal aliens.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/census-confirms-63-percent-of-non-citizens-on-welfare-4-6-million-households
Romey,
It’s what socialistic societies do. While preventing reality from imposing consequence. At least as long as they can; “How Havana is collapsing, building by building” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/02/havana-cuba-collapsing-buildings-hou
Ken Mitchell @ 4:12,
All of those measures make sense but would ensure that only the wealthy and very well off could live in those areas. Unless the greater public subsidizes those fortunate enough to live in those desirable areas. Arguably, that’s already happening. See article linked above for where that leads…
I don’t know what the rules were in Paradise about that—perhaps older homes were grandfathered in—but in the area where my in-laws lived in a suburb of LA, they certainly weren’t grandfathered in, even way back then.
You can’t get fire insurance with a shake roof in a mountain area, and I think anywhere anymore.
The people who had lived in Oakland and Berkeley before the Tunnel Fire would up okay as far as property went — those who could afford to rebuild, rebuilt. Those who couldn’t, sold their property and made a bundle. Paradise is not Berkeley. A lot of the people who wound up there because they couldn’t afford anywhere else. A lot of people lived in mobile homes, and mobile home dwellers get screwed.
I think one solution is small modules. There’s a company that makes 119 sf modules for about $10,000 -$12,000. They could probably get some amazing marketing by proposing them as replacements in Paradise at a reduced rate. Three modules are pretty livable: bathroom module, kitchen module, living model. Five modules are pretty affordable. Eight modules are larger than a lot of urban condos.
Save up for additional modules to increase your “house” size.
(Right now, the modules seem popular with people for pool houses, our backyard art studio space.)
What’s more, at the 10 year mark, 70% of those on welfare are non-citizens i.e. once non-citizens get on welfare, most of them never get off it.
The TANF census is 1/3 that of the AFDC census a generation ago – though our general population is 20% larger. Not many states maintain a general relief program. New York does: you’re allow two years per lifetime of general relief benefits.
All of those measures make sense but would ensure that only the wealthy and very well off could live in those areas.
That’s true of some sections of just about any locality. Get over it.
Because people with valuable property in that area don’t like the market answer, and if there’s a lot of them, or they’re rich, they’ll have the political clout to get the government to meddle.
And people who chose more prudent arrangements have to subsidize the reconstruction of their homes? Well, that’s California.
Snow on Pine — Those welfare expenses for illegals are offset, economically, by the Social Security taxes of millions of Miguel Hernadezes, Social Security No. 123-45-6789, and Maria Gonzaleses, Social Security No. 987-65-4321, working “grey,” who pay into Social Security and will never collect. If it weren’t for them, Social Security would already be bust. Of course, those payments go to the feds and not to the states. However, a lot of that comes back to the states in the form of Medicaid funding. What the overall balance is, I don’t know, and I don’t know that anyone does — which is probably because the bureaucrats don’t want us to know.
Frederick — Private insurance is not available for people living in areas like Paradise. Look up the California FAIR Plan. Supposedly not subsidized by taxpayers, but I suspect subsidized by those of us with private insurance, since California strong-armed the insurance companies into participating.
Richard Saunders–there are many studies that try to approach good figures for the amount of taxes illegals pay vs. the cost of the benefits they receive.
As I commented on another thread here, there are many times when organizations and/or governments do not want to “officially” know or publicize certain things, so, they just don’t collect good, comprehensive, or even any statistics, on them.
This question is one of those that the government apparently refuses to collect precise and accurate statistics on.
One 2017 estimate, however, from the Federation for Immigration Reform, has illegals paying a total annual estimated $19 billion in Federal, State and Local taxes, while receiving $135 billion in annual benefits in return, for an estimated net annual loss to our country of $116 billion dollars, due to the presence of illegal aliens in our country.
See https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/09/report_illegal_aliens_cost_american_taxpayers_135_billion.html
Make that the “Federation for American Immigration Reform.”
Paradise can be rebuilt and it would be safer than it was if the did some basic fire-proofing of the buildings and managed the nearby forests better. The question is, is there an economic reason to rebuild? Most towns have an economic reason for their existence. Paradise (Pair O’ Dice) started as a mining town. After that it may have been a hub for logging in that area of the Sierras. When the logging died out (Thank you Sierra Club) it became a haven for retirees and those looking for low cost living in a high cost state. How many of its present citizens have the wherewithal to rebuild? How many businesses will want to come back to a much smaller town with fewer customers? Those who do rebuild will have enough money/income and love of the place to start over again. How many will that be? Not many is my guess. Paradise could become just a ghost of its former self as so many old mining and logging towns in the West have become. It will be a few years before that answer is known.
J.J.:
I completely agree.
Snow on Pine — the FAIR report is assumptions all the way down, and I don’t have the time or the energy to vet all of them. However, to take one example, there are no refunds of FICA taxes (except in rare circumstances not applicable here), and their facts, at least on Social Security, are flat-out wrong: the old age and survivor’s portion of FICA’s total 7.65% for each of employer and employee is 6.2; the Medicare portion is 1.45%, that is, 81% is OASDI and 19% is Medicare, not 47% Medicare. (p.31) (Even if they mean what percentage the Medicare payment is of the OASDI, that’s still only 23%.)
That doesn’t give me any confidence that FAIR’s assumptions and methodology are any good. Their tax numbers fly in the face of what I know from and about small-business owners.
Somebody is testing weather weapons using scalar tech and other classified weapons technology, in California. It may or may not be the usual parties.
My power engineer husband has read a report about the source of the power. Contrary to his expectations, it WAS a high voltage transmission line — on a 100- year-old tower in a very remote area. An insulator broke and some kind of possibly rusted out hook let the line fall. A high voltage line has no protective equipment on the lines, as distribution lines do. The protective equipment is only at the substations, here and there along the line of towers. A cutout would have cut the power quickly on a distribution line.
I get that it was a remote area, but equipment 100 years old? Really, PG&E?