Benchmarking Fire Disaster Recovery

by

There has been a lot of loose talk on the web about how fast – and whether – large portions of Los Angeles will be recovered. Much is spoken “without anchor.”

A colleague, who contributes here on occasion under the nom de plume of Capt. Gooding is one hell of a researcher and we take his word as gold.

With this in mind, we propose some “Expectation Benchmarking” referencing Lahaina.

The wildfire that destroyed Lahaina, Maui, in Hawaii state, was on 8 AUG 2023. It smouldered for about 5 days. 102 were killed by the blaze. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) estimate that over 2,200 buildings were destroyed, mostly residential. The official damage total from the United States Department of Commerce is $5.5 billion.

The Lahaina fire burned over 2,170 acres and destroyed the historic town of Lahaina.

8 FEB 2024: FEMA preliminary after action report: https://www.usfa.fema.gov/blog/preliminary-after-action-report-2023-maui-wildfire/

8 AUG 2024 – private citizens have cleared about 1350 building sites of debris. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1,399 homes need rebuilding. As the community pursues rebuilding efforts, county officials have only approved a fraction of the disaster recovery building permits submitted by homeowners or their representatives. https://www.corelogic.com/intelligence/maui-fire-update-one-year-later/#

In 22 OCT 2024, a draft rebuilding plan was released for public comment. https://www.forbes.com/sites/willmcgough/2024/10/22/a-place-for-residents-first-and-visitors-second-maui-releases-draft-of-lahaina-rebuild-plan/  Basically NO public money has been actually spent on rebuilding anything yet.

25 OCT 2024, they don’t even know how many historic structures will be ALLOWED to be rebuilt, whether they can look like they did, or will have to be built to new code standards, and there is legally only a year to rebuild anyway, which, uh, was already passed by 25 October 2024. https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local-news/2024-10-25/maui-county-lahainas-nonconforming-structures-rebuilt-flexible-codes

10 JAN 2025, 73 landowners launch initiative to rebuild businesses. (Maybe. We’ll see…) https://mauinow.com/2025/01/10/front-street-recovery-generational-landowners-launch-initiative-to-rebuild-lahaina-town/

Before the Aug 23 fire, 12,700 people (more or less) lived in Lahaina, Maui. Abut 2,200 structures burnt. Lahaina was just over 7 square miles in size. We are talking about a minute fraction of the LA total burnt area (so far, as fires still continue uncontained.) Current reports are of 12,300 structures burnt out so far in LA. Most of Lahaina was elderly timber frame houses, many uninsulated. Vast numbers of the LA fire homes burnt were multi-million dollar mansions. When

I hear politicians tell audiences that the SOCAL rebuild will be fast, I just want to throw up. They either have no idea,  (possible, as most are Democrats who have never actually worked on physically building anything in their lives, and so have absolutely no idea how hard the permitting process is, let alone where they are going to get the skilled labor who can meet all the CALI building codes – CALI is NOT Texas – Oh, and where are all those contractors going to stay while they rebuild LA? In the hotels that are not there any more? In downtown hotels at hundreds of bucks a day? Good luck with that one. Any idea how much simple labor costs are going to be to rebuild because of that? Astronomical is a possible description.), or are lying. Or both.

The LA fires are not done yet. More destruction is yet to come. But any thoughts that the areas burnt out by the LA fires will be promptly rebuilt are codswallop. Balderdash. Onion sauce. Ain’t a gonna happen, not quickly, at least. The economic horrors of these fires (not to mention the human dimensions of grief) are only beginning to sink into the consciousness. The officials are utterly clueless. Or serial liars. Or both.

To quote Marlon Brando, in Apocalypse Now: “The horror. The horror…”

With a nod to his perceptive research expertise, we can only add “The BS, the BS…”  Or, more politely, “The paperwork. The Paperwork.”

Write when you’re contained,

George@Ure.net

27 thoughts on “Benchmarking Fire Disaster Recovery”

  1. “Strange Days” – The Doors

    Strange days have found us
    Strange days have tracked us down
    They’re going to destroy
    Our casual joys
    We shall go on playing
    Or find a new town

  3. Having watched at a local level the problems that Lahaina, et al, is wrestling with, he is absolutely right about rebuilding LA. Hell, they wouldn’t even let local owners back on their properties in Lahaina until they had been examined, tested, and cleaned of ‘toxic waste’…. IE all the ash. Maui had to designate a special toxic waste dump site to remove the ash waste to. That all had to be accomplished before they would even let owners back on their own properties to begin assessing how to rebuild.

    LA will be uninhabitable for years… maybe decades.

  4. I see the likelyhood that many will simply walk away from their uninsured properties in LA and move elsewhere. Cut their losses and refuse to rebuild or even clean up.

    • Most homeowners in southern California have mortgages. Mortgages required fire insurance.

      Probably a lot of have refinanced to pull cash out of the house. Because the property values have gone up big time.

      But you maybe right on people who bought more than 30 years ago and still live in the property with no mortgage. They will not walk away with a value of $700,000 to one million value of previous value of the house before the fire. but the land has to be worth at least $500,000 if they are old homeowners.

      • Carpetbag.

        The sticks and bricks cost of a house is limited. A truck driver can haul in the materials list out of Mississippi. The location where the sticks and bricks sit make the story.

        When carpetbagging make the seller think they are selling the burnt up sticks & bricks and not a premium location.

        A carpetbagger REIT.

  5. Another 113 combination!

    California fires live updates: 11 dead, 13 missing in LA County…

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/california-fires-live-updates-santa-ana-winds-rage/?id=117541907

    G.A. STEWART : After I published my first book, The Age of Desolation in 2010, I made a discovery when I sensed that the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster on March 11th, 2011 might have connections to the Madrid Train Bombing on March 11th, 2004. So, I began to research the history of events on that day just as I did for the history of April 20th, which appears in Nostradamus Quatrain I-42.

    It would take me almost three more years to put all the pieces in place regarding dates with the number combination 1-1-3.

    https://theageofdesolation.com/nostradamus/2021/01/13/113/

  6. There is something wrong with Southern California… Something in the fabric of this place that is just – off. It has been this way for years.

    We weep with those who have lost so much. We can barely imagine living through such a nightmare. These are human lives and valued property and memories being vaporized as most of us look on from safe distance away.

    We note the fundamental obvious incompetence of local and State leaders who helped to create and allow this catastrophe. No adults are in the room to handle a epochal crisis when one arises. Leaders who now stand fully bare naked to reveal their cluelessness and complete lack of vocational, mental, ethical, and spiritual ability to lead at a time when so many are so vulnerable and hurting – and when leadership quite literally is the difference between life and death. Survive, or perish.

    But not everyone had to wait for such apocalyptic burning to see The Nightmare of Los Angeles. Some of us who have once lived there have already experienced this for ourselves up-close-and-personal in lesser ways. Maybe not the horrors of losing one’s home or business and possessions. But yes to the utter vacancy and emptiness of normal Life in LA. This is a place truly without a Soul. It is an empty world of vanity and appearances and fakery and shallowness. It is touted around the World as a place of dreams when the reality is that much of what is found here is disappointments if not being a bit or a lot more nightmarish.

    What is it about Southern California that makes it so? It didn’t have to turn out this way, did it? Is it the weather that is generally far better than weather elsewhere that turns people into a lazy and uninspired funk? Is it just the Leftist politics which celebrate the insanity of Wokeness and rewarding Non-Achievers? Is it something in the water? Whatever it is – something has made LA in to what it is.

    For generations we have all been fed the hype by America’s State Media about how great this place is and such a land of dreams. They never tell you about the nightmares. Those you learn for yourself should you choose to spend some of your years in this false Hollywood-ish stage setting of happy and glamorous fronting that covers a land barren of good purpose and proper leadership.

    When the Beach Boys sang about Southern California back in the early ’60s they were not lying. It was quite a place back then. Before the Communists took over and all the horrid countless and soil-draining subdivisions replaced the orange groves and when truly industrious people lived and worked there in the big aircraft factories of Douglas and other places.

    But those times died off with the ‘70s and the place has become much more expensive, crowded, Socialist, and disappointing.

    Southern California has its own procession of Seasons. Only there, the Seasons are Rainy Season, Mudslide Season, Santa Ana Winds Season, Fire Season, and Hot Hot Hot Season. With the perpetual years-long undercurrent of running Seasons of Disappointment.

    Prayers for the victims. Hopes that you can rebuild your lives and heal your hurts. No one should ever have to live through and face the hellscape of trying to rebuild your lives all over again.

    But also, maybe might you now consider that this may not be so much a City of Angels as it is the Homeland of an Ancient Greek Fire God who bought the hype and took residence there — and that wont be going anywhere no matter what happens next.

    • Gertrude Stein said it about Oakland, but I think it applies to LA as well: “There is no there there.”

    • Well said Roundball,
      I’ve lived here all my life and it certainly wasn’t always a cesspool of ignorance and plain lack of common sense. There are still plenty of good people here but they have been muffled and canceled by the liberal media. I blame mainly the liberal politics of the spoiled intitled tree hugging idealists that have been conned and hijacked by evil forces that have been recking havoc on the planet for centuries. These policies have encouraged behavior that are glutinous and self-serving on the surface but have allowed these evil forces to take full control of this state and have managed to infect many other states of this amazing country. This system they have created is eating itself from the inside like a parasite, all by design by the evil Fkrs. Time will tell soon if we can find a proper pesticide to deal with these vermin. I’m not sure KING DON is powerful enough to rid this country of the vermin that infects us. We have 4 years to win this battle or all will be lost, Californiaism will be coming for all if he does not succeed. My home town was burned to the ground 3 days ago and I am pissed off to say the least. This Palisades fire started on top of Santa Monica mountain where there is absolutely no access to that area, no roads and no trails, no homeless camps because there is nobody to pander to. It is solid brush atleast 10ft tall, it would take a full day hike to get up there even for a experienced hiker. The only way that fire could of started was by air or something from above. This was no accident. Problems for these areas that are burning now will not end when the fires are extinguished because the first big rain storms will bring massive mudslides to the bottom of every canyon and valley that were ravaged by the fires. The remaining homes and businesses that didn’t burn to the ground will be covered with mud and debris. This disasters financial burden will be in the hundreds of billions for the state of California. We will see Hair gel Newsome do some serious ring kissing with the KING for money. Fires are still burning and out of control mainly because the state officials have zero ability to properly use their assets. They are truly morons that have absolutely no business being in charge. The voting system in California have been manipulated for decades so we are stuck with the leaders we have now. The troubles for this state will affect the entire country until further notice. This will only end one way and it involves violent removal of the criminals.

      • Don’t know how true this is but I have read in multiple publications that BEFORE the White Man moved into California that every summer the local Indians would set fire to areas all over the dry parts of California so as to clear out the brush.

        When the Spanish first went up into California they described it as perpetually smokey, heavily smokey, all during the dry season because the Indians were burning so much of it every year.

        As shown by the Yellowstone fires of the 1990’s that treatment of the land by fire actually INCREASES the amount of wildlife that resides in an area (which surprised all the scientists at the time) so burning off the dry areas and dry brush would have provided more wildlife hunting potential for the local Indians IF those Spanish histories are true. That indicates to me that those old Spanish reports of California burning every summer from set fires are probably true.

        For a land that was regularly cleared by fire by the Indians moving to a dynamic where NO CLEARING by any means was being done sets up a tinderbox just waiting for nature to do that clearing.

        There was a fire study done in New Mexico covering a several hundred year stretch of wilderness fires a while back that showed that in those western forests before forest management came about small ground fires ran through those forests every 20 to 30 years, and a MAJOR forest fire then went though those forests every 75 to 125 years. Nature clearing the land since there wasn’t enough water for bugs and natural rotting decay to do it as there is in Eastern Forests (which can still have humongous forest wildfires even with their more regular rains)

        Much of California has now suppressed fires for long enough in many areas to be bumping into that 75 to 125+ year major fire window that is at least prevalent in New Mexico per that study (and in that same study they assume, Arizona, Colorado, etc.).

        So Cal Surf Dude’s description of the underbrush being at least 10′ tall would confirm, to me at least, that the entire wilderness in that part of the state around LA is Primed and Ready for any sort of ignition at the proper time to set off a huge “Cleaning Fire”.

        It is thus up to the local authorities to be primed and ready for such an event since it is a virtual 100% guarantee that it was going to happen sometime in the next 20 years … and to have Building Codes that would help limit the damage when it did happen. Obviously they were NOT ready and their building codes and development put little emphasis on fire protection for individual structures being impacted by such an event.

        Nothing even as simple as large Fire Breaks between the wilderness canyons and the heavily developed areas apparently was even done.

        Ah … the HUBRIS of humans, and their Orientation only being Short Term. Human Nature never changes.

  7. George, Look at how fast this thing is moving! Look at how big it is compared to the houses. That is was caught on live TV.

    There is also an orb at the bottom of the could that is moving super-fast out of the way.

    There is no helicopters that move this fast. nor Drones that move this fast. https://x.com/528vibes/status/1877795686814470251

    If you think this is a helicopter???, congratulations you just won a free eye exam at lens crafters.

    • “Faster,faster,until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.” -Hunter S Thompson

      “these are the drones Ure looking for” – DK

      • Perhaps the orbs and drones are still sniffing for the box of radiation. Or they are sniffing for a different box of radiation in attempts to prevent a EQ. That was a classic.

  10. Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro to be inaugurated

    The US announced a $25m reward for the arrest or conviction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Friday as he was set to be inaugurated for a third five-year term in office following last year’s widely-disputed election.

    Maduro, meanwhile, has ramped up his crackdown on the opposition, which international observers believe comfortably beat him in last year’s election. Hundreds have been arrested, and many forced into hiding or exile.

    https://www.semafor.com/article/01/10/2025/venezuelas-maduro-to-be-inaugurated

  11. Hobbyist Builds AI-Assisted Rifle Robot Using ChatGPT: “We’re under attack from the front left and front right. Respond accordingly”

    One of the wildest videos to go viral on TikTok recently caught everyone by surprise. It featured an engineer who built his own AI-assisted robot that aims and shoots a rifle using voice commands.

    The rifle, mounted on a robotic arm, pivots instantly. It swivels left, then right, firing a barrage of blanks precisely as instructed. A voice, eerily polite, responds: “If you need any further assistance, just let me know.”

    https://x.com/OwenGregorian/status/1877690011770048572

  14. From June of 2020:

    Joe Biden is vetting leader of the Congressional Black Caucus Karen Bass as a possible running mate as hunt for VP candidate steps up

    Karen Bass could become Joe Biden’s running mate as the former vice president faces mounting pressure to choose a minority woman to join him on the Democratic ticket.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8451495/Joe-Biden-vetting-leader-Congressional-Black-Caucus-Karen-Bass-possible-running-mate.html

    I had utterly forgotten that Bass was one of Alex Soros’ finalists for the face of Biden’s VP, before he finally selected Harris…

  15. People are lighting fires in otherwise non-burning urban areas of LA

    People are lighting fires in otherwise non-burning urban areas of LA. Saw this happen first hand at 302 Pico in Santa Monica. Called it in & fire dept & police responded. Stay safe and call in any activity ASAP. We don’t need more flames out here.

    Note: Yes the Fire Department arrived and put the fire out. Yes this was directly across from Belmar Park. For reference:

    https://x.com/hubermanlab/status/1877236580676493784

    Words utterly escape me…

    • Go, Go, Godzilla !

      -https://youtu.be/RTzb-sduiWc?si=-PYUimvgQYR0XMiL

      ‘screams bug-eyed”

      Oh no they say he’s got to go..go go GODZILLA!

      Me thinks the culprit is certain Hindi dude – Agni

      The question is; What is he so angry about with LA area/people?

      • According to Wiko, Agni has another handle: Agni (Pali: Aggi).
        It also explains why where there is smoke, there are Aggies.

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