The means by which bureaucrats and politicians can stand in the way of public safety are both myriad and murderous. A thread by John Konrad.
She is a 20 year USCG Veteran and should understand the importance of marine pumping to refill fire department water supplies.
This topic is a MAJOR pet peeve of mine.
Let’s explore how California and Hawaii have utterly failed to use the natural resource we have: salt water.
The original X thread starts here.
Wondered the same thing myself
Great Thread!
Coastal Communities Burning is caused by the Prog Pyramid of Stupidity, Ignorance and Malevolence.
John Konrad the 5th sums this up well… especially enjoy seeing that John Konrad the 4th played a rant role instilling some sense into this… lessons learned, and especially like the idea of using brackish water to supply emergency fire suppression. (towards the end of the thread above)
The argument against using salt water seems to be based on the problems with keeping salt water in the pipes forever, and not flushing these with fresh water. It’s difficult to believe that those tasked with putting out fires wouldn’t already know this, they act as though the established way is the only way, while every emergency is partially blamed on, “how could we plan for such an event”?
When you see big horn sheep or moose licking the side of your vehicle while visiting the forest parks, do you ever think, “how good does my truck taste?”
It’s not like the salt water extinguishing a fire is being used every day. Do the gov’t types think that salt water is poison? There are calls to partially divert a river from the north (Klamath in Oregon?), and it’s not like saving the smelt and insisting the river water simply runs into the ocean is going to continue with the new Admin, Trump has mentioned this even while the current imbecile visited LA to announce that he’s a great grandfather now.
10 days to go…
I actually think building a nuclear reactor to pump a couple of 64″ water pipes from Peace River would be less expensive than seeing vast areas of LA burn. Many folks would object to this, (but not me!) so there must be hundreds of better ideas, unfortunately those ideas are all stuck in committee meetings forever, alongside the unwillingness to clear underbrush in the forest areas where Pacific Power has transmission wires.
Some initial numbers being tossed around for these fires are in the $135 – $150 Billion area.
For a bad week in the LA area, compared to a near permanent solution of a long distance pipeline from the north…
Not to sound insensitive, but shouldn’t we be calculating the Carbon emissions that these homes caused, and what these homeowners owe in reparations to the rest of us?
We could probably get the Americans to pay for a pipeline from Hudson Bay to California.
I work in an allied industry and read GCaptain almost daily and John Konrad is a straight shooter and clear thinker.
Ergo, he will be ignored and/or denigrated.
Do any Californians still think high speed rail is money well spent?
Fires don’t care if its a county or city or state responsibility.
Apparently 59% of California voters think it’s a good idea.
Not to mention the money it costs to paint crosswalks and fire hydrants the pride colours.
R.P. – I actually used the paint price argument as well as driver confusion with painty schemes when I contacted some anti pride crosswalk supporters in Westlock, Alberta, Canada; the motion to ban passed by a small majority, and LGBQWERTYUIOP heads exploded.
Now they’ve torched, I mean touched, the gilded gated, who’ve detected government incompetence as the culprit.
Now it’s not just the peasants who are revolting, whom the rich of Palisades and Malibu didn’t have to smell.
Hypocritical as that is, they seem a pissed off bunch right now and are directing their anger at politicians, having seen their errors and omissions affect them in real time. They command public attention and are communicators.
IOW, bad news piled on to the neo-regal administrative swamp swilling class. Oh, and Trump got sentenced today.
Jimmy Carter’s funeral yesterday presaged a political funeral, assuming Canadian and US conservatives don’t blow it.
Ah, but watch closely as to what happens and who will be given the Dunce Cap in the blame game. Before you can say Russiagate, the establishment will lay blame at the Insurance companies for not insuring/cancelling policies in the L.A. area. Yes, some pundits are trying to lay blame there, as if the insurance companies had a responsibility to cover anything and everything, and act as a government entity.
Truth of the matter, the insurers wanted to continue coverage but their risk assessment provided premiums that were in excess of what the State Insurance regulator would allow, under government rules. The limit of increase is approx 12%, the insurers needed higher premiums due to their analysis. So, instead of negotiating an agreement, it was all or nothing to the regulator.
Looks like the insurance companies had this nailed down perfectly in their risks.
Unfortunately for them, the greedy insurance companies didn’t start nor fail to contain the Santa Ana fires.
Please pray that the people of LA and Malibu who lost their homes get the same $750.00 per household from the Biden administration that the Maui fire victims received.
Unfortunately the flood victims of West Virginia missed out Biden’s benevolent mercy.
The ThreadReader thread isn’t working properly for me. Here’s the original X link: https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/1877357420478894345
Thanks, I updated the post.
This is perhaps one use solar or wind could provide. Pump water up into a reservoir when there is electricity.
This sounds like a great opportunity to put wind farms in place of those wasteful space Malibu homes along the windy coastline.
Half the only use wind and solar should have is to pump water 500 to 1,000 feet up a mountain and then use the water to generate hydroelectricity to balance out the times when wind and solar doesn’t work. If producers can’t provide a consistent supply they are less than useless. They are a disruption to the grid.
Even the lefty idjits in Vancouver put salt water mains in the downtown core for fighting fires over 2 decades ago, and Vancouver isn’t exactly short of water (most of the time).
This also a major contributor
https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-lafd-is-run-by-three-lesbians-named-kirsten/
Correct me if I’m wrong, but does it seem like ever since California turned blue every fire prevention & fire fighting decision made by the politicians & bureaucrats has been dead wrong? Does it almost seem like the Maui and LA fires were by design and allowed to occur? Could Democrats really be that f’ing evil? Just asking for my conspiracy theorist buddy.
The only silver lining to this shit show is that Gavin Newsom’s Presidential aspirations went up in flames with LA.
Why would that solution never, ever be considered? Because it makes way too much sense!
California has 20 or 30 feet of snow in the high mountains. The assholes are taking out dams when they should be building them. I remember going through the Donner Pass. We never stopped for snacks. They failed to manage water resources while the population doubled or tripled since the last new work.
You really need to stop and try the burgers at the Donner Pass rest stop. Best burgers ever!
Lol.
People discussing how there should have been preparations made for these fires and how there are out-of-the-box solutions for the use of ocean water are forgetting one important thing:
The state and local governments wanted these places to burn. Just watch – many, if not all, of these fires will be found to be arson. And watch who will be buying up all of these destroyed properties at literal fire sale prices.
Don’t attribute to incompetence what can be adequately explained by bone-crushing evil.
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=RES.20250106
Maybe I’m missing something but it looks like the reservoirs weren’t empty. I think the four at the bottom service the area affected?
As far as actual firefighting damaging equipment … let me say that a personal friend of mine owns LN Curtis Firefighting supply.
https://lncurtis.com/?msclkid=2cdc312d837c131ba14156ac05b8c6df&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=TM%20Terms%20II&utm_term=ln%20curtis%20fire%20equipment&utm_content=TM%20Terms%20II
The amount of firefighting equipment that gets damaged/destroyed … and then replaced during CATASTROPHES such as these firestorms is unbelievably massive. Let’s just say that it has made my friend a very, very, very wealthy man. Fire Departments already TRASH $$$$ in equipment during every firestorm.
Hindsight is 20 20.
They couldn’t maintain one water system. You think they can handle a separate salt water system?
California can’t even build roads and bridges. They remove dams.
They’re gonna re-plumb the entire city, buy a second set of all brass fire equipment? Wet dream.
Make the fresh water system reliable, require sprinklers.
If my house was on the sea side of the highway and I had a gas powered trash pump, I’d be doing my damndest to save my home, same as if there was a swimming pool in my backyard. If you can support the grid with your EV why not be able to support the hydrants from your swimming pools, etc. But aren’t small gas engines to be banned in CA, soon?
You can’t get trash pumps that aren’t CARB certified, as several people have posted today trying to buy ones for their back yards before the fire arrives.
Everyone who has been saying “We can’t use salt water to fight the fire because reasons” doesn’t seem to understand that letting the fires burn is more destructive than having to do a cleanup afterwards.
Also, every one of the water bombers they are using, are doing pickups in the bay, which is salt water.
Use what is available, stop the spread, and then get it under control and eventually out.