Catastrophe In Los Angeles

A hurricane Helene of fire.

California has been losing insurance carriers because the risk in forest neighborhood is just too high. Now we’ve lost 10,000 Los Angeles homes in a fashion similar to what happened in Santa Rosa in 2017. We have fires every year, native species are adapted to it. We lose some structures every year, but that is usually in a wildland interface. This event was different - wildland fire met urban area, and instead of being stopped, the 95 mph Santa Ana winds drove it like a blast furnace.

The 2018 Camp Fire cost a record setting $16.65 billion. Estimates on the current fires are $135 billion for the combined losses, which means each of the two large fires are going to cost five times our previous record by the time they’re finally controlled. Taking another view, hurricane Katrina only did $125 billion in damage.

These events will exit the news cycle soon enough, but they’re going to squat before our legislature, daring them to do something. What could be done about a single loss equal to 30% of the state’s annual budget is a beyond me.

Insurance companies will be bankrupted by this. More of them will flee the state. Rates from the remaining firms will skyrocket. Homeowners will go bare, just like in Florida, crossing their fingers that the next firestorm won’t start in their back yard.

Funny how much damage this Chinese climate change hoax is doing, eh?