(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Californians are used to the risk of fires, but the scope of this one was devastating, possibly caused by a century-old transmission line.
In less-affluent areas (where average properties were valued at one million instead of Pacific Palisades where the average was 3x that), some will never be able to afford to re-build. They may have to take the relatively low cash offers of vulture developers and even foreign billionaires who swooped in to scoop them up.
"This is about the end of a place. In the future, the fires will be a demarcation. There will be the times before and after the disaster, and the one will be remembered as this happy, gauzy surreality that never was" . . . When this is over, the politics of this place will be upended."
A local businessman got a call during these fires that his daughter's house was burning, and that the "firefighters' hoses ran dry because the fire hydrants didn't have any water." He says this is a "third world" sort of thing that should never happen in the America's second largest city.
He's expected to run against Los Angeles' current mayor for that office next June. I'll follow this story.
from The Free Press
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