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Talk of recovery has already begun as firefighters slowly begin to extinguish the fires that have consumed much of the hills and valleys surrounding Los Angeles.
For those whose beloved homes are now reduced to leaning chimneys and ashes, the president, governors, mayors, and other powers that be will support and streamline support for the survivors of this heartbreaking tragedy. It may be comforting to hear these pledges from the people of the world. And surely there is no more important message than a message of hope and solidarity.
But as a journalist who has walked through the aftermath of multiple fires, I feel compelled to issue a warning. What happens next is not easy, and worse, it is often unfair.
This is a warning not to rub salt in the wound, but I’ve seen this too often and my hope for LA is that it can do better. But to do that, we need to start with a harsh reality that many people don’t want to accept. That means there is a possibility that a fire will occur again in the same place, perhaps within our lifetime.
This means that what was lost cannot simply be regained, or the tragedy will repeat itself.
“Anyone who thinks this will never happen again is fooling themselves,” Jeffrey Schlegelmilch told me. He is the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School. Like nearly every climate scientist I’ve talked to, he’s not down.
But facts are facts. The Palisades, and to a lesser extent Altadena and other areas where the fires are occurring, are all in high fire danger areas. There isn’t much left to burn now, but the landscape will likely become dangerous again within a few years. That’s true with or without climate change.
But as my colleague Ian James has written, global warming is causing weather whiplash, with winds getting stronger, fires turning into fiery nados, rain turning into atmospheric rivers, and us people believe that droughts are impossible. It survived one of the driest periods in California history.
That means the frequency and intensity of disasters will also increase, said Katherine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University who helped create one of California’s first climate risk assessments more than 20 years ago. She compared the situation to a baseball player taking steroids. — bigger, meaner, and better at what they do.
“We have to prepare for what will happen in the future,” she told me, which sounds like a no-brainer. But also, how?
Scientists call this coveted region, with only a few hundred hiking trails, a place that compensates for the ongoing dangers at the interface between wilderness and city, for both its people and its future. What does it mean to rebuild responsibly? A few yards from the front door?
Most unfortunately, it means survivors will be asked to make more sacrifices. More funds are needed to build fireproof houses. Once these hurdles are overcome, the rebuild will take longer. It becomes even more stressful as you decide what is and isn’t possible.
Of course, governments have a lot of responsibility to ease those burdens and set responsible and reasonable rules, even if they are politically unpopular. They always are.
But the reality is that more than 10,000 structures will be lost, and replacing even a portion of them will strain the government’s ability to maintain them, and that’s okay. People will be angry about FEMA and zoning and new building codes and permitting waits—sometimes rightly so, but changes that must happen if we’re serious about preventing future catastrophes. You will get angry at times.
Still, there are real systemic issues that require consideration and government accountability before rebuilding homes in unsafe locations.
The narrow lots and narrow streets of the Palisades, for example, make it difficult for people to get out and for firefighters to get inside, and were never designed for the mini-apartments that fill them, the climate said. said Michael Walla, director of the Department of Energy. Stanford University Policy Program.
He notes that the Palisades was “laid out in a manner intended to maximize the value of the site for scenic views,” but that it unintentionally created “a significant fire hazard.”
Many of these streets align perfectly with the Santa Ana winds, he said, and in the event of a fire, embers would flow into the streets, causing homes to “fall like dominoes.”
These are all factors that are difficult to change. But those are risks that need to be identified or mitigated before people are allowed to go back in a dangerous direction. Because many people living in the Palisades did not realize that they were living in a place that had experienced fires in the past and was almost guaranteed to start a fire. That again.
But those inspections take time, and more than that, all of those property owners accept their desire to comply with the new restrictions and accept that even with the restrictions, some level of risk remains.
So bougainvillea may no longer be able to climb the side walls. A wooden fence may not be such a good idea. Perhaps the charm of an Arts and Crafts bungalow needs to be achieved without the combustible cedar shingles. These are the core things to talk about upfront because they will actually make a difference.
“We can maintain our neighborhoods to withstand these types of fires, but it takes will and it takes political agreement that it’s the right thing to do,” Walla said.
Now let’s talk about inequality. This is because the right thing that should be done by a group may not be done by an individual.
The Palisades are clearly wealthy. But even within that wealth there are degrees. There are many people in this area who won’t have to worry about rebuilding costs or even losing another home to a fire in the future. they can afford it.
The colorful streets were also filled with families who had lived in the area for decades or even generations. Their home may be paid off or close to it, and their life savings buried in the land. And Altadena and other disaster-stricken areas are home to many Angelenos who are just working and paying off their mortgages. The area was a magnet for black and Latino families because of its affordability.
I won’t go into details about insurance, but even with insurance, it’s unlikely to cover all of these ordinary people. Especially since intense competition for resources such as contractors and architects is about to begin, driving costs even higher. Let’s not start with the tariffs and deportations that the next president has promised. Both would further complicate reconstruction.
And while the insurance commissioner has put a moratorium on home insurance cancellations in these areas for now, premiums will likely rise significantly once that is lifted.
At what point does the average person, even an above-average but not extremely wealthy person, no longer have the luxury of rebuilding or taking risks?
It’s a problem that has plagued much of California for years, but now it’s hitting Los Angeles with ruthless force and a twist: Will the Palisades become even richer, or can they afford to see it all burnt down? Can you build a place where only people can gather?
In the event of a fire, including this one, “it’s almost impossible to rebuild a place in a way that involves all existing residents and is sustainable in the face of future climate change,” Karen Chapple told me. told. She is a professor emeritus of urban and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studies fire aftermath.
Professor Schlegelmilch of Columbia University has seen it too. He said the recovery was too often “uneven” and those who needed help the most were struggling the most to get it.
“Very wealthy people will have access to resources and there will be accountants and lawyers to help them,” he said. “And then there are people who are living on the edge and only getting paid if they don’t work…trying to manage 15 different jobs.”
There is also a trickle-down economic effect for those who are not forced to evacuate. Thousands of yards of gardeners are gone. Cleaners, cooks and even nannies are now out of work but still have to pay rent. How can I include them in my recovery?
And there is only so long survivors can camp out in hotels and couches. The housing crisis is sure to arrive, and everyone is at risk of being pushed down a notch. That’s because the most desirable housing is occupied by people who have independent assets or insurance checks to cover it.
This may be the most important part of our recovery. It’s about figuring out how to make it more fair. Figure out all the different people who will need to recover in some way, and figure out how to live in the burn area with minimal risk to the most vulnerable.
It’s easy to see how this becomes a melting pot. As we strive for stability and progress, it becomes a source of personal pressure, political instability, and internal strife.
But we must bounce back in a way that allows us to live with the fire and with each other. Therefore, the most difficult part of recovery is having the clarity and the will to do it right.
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