Only after we all pay for free higher education for every Nevadan.
In Many states they do not allow anyone to build in a 100 year flood plain. It is common sense. Yet some homes did get built in those flood plains and when they tried to insure them. When the insurance companies refused the home owners did not get insurance from the state. It’s logical that there are places where homes can not be built.
What is happening in California, if managed correctly, could be done but it will take new regulations. Anyone who has been in that area has noticed the overgrown greenery on the sides of the roads and peoples yards. Unfortunately that is going to have to be taken way down. It can’t be allowed with the dry conditions anymore. But this is going to cost huge man hours and more taxes. As far as the building codes? I am sure they will be updated.
Florida has solved most of their problem with Babcock ranch. But it isn’t built on the coast. Those homes on the coast are in a flood plane as evidenced by the homes on stilts. If they can’t figure how to make them stronger and better in a hurricane that area will have to be declared unlivable and anyone who wants to live there can at their own peril.
As far as Tornado country. You build a few trailer parks without anyone living in them. They will be like magnets to the Tornado’s and that will solve that problem.
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Exactly, so I see agreement, mostly.*
Well, if you need a mortgage and insurance, then you are asking other people (banks, insurers, and all their stakeholders, including other policyholders) to share in your risk, which for measurable risk should be priced and shared or not shared accordingly, a point of substantial agreement.*
I have something like an insurance policy addendum, to absolutely clarify any confusing matters. And let’s face it, insurance is confusing!
I denoted all of my statements above with an * to indicate zero malice in my heart and zero malice intended. Please also apply said asterisk to all of my above statements, for absolute completeness.
Please also permit me to extend a similar courtesy to your posts, while I would never presume to know your feelings or emotional intent based on a short internet discussion on perils and risk sharing in property-casualty insurance, please kindly allow me to assume upfront only good intent from all posters here.
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I built my current house in a flood plain. Since I didn’t want to buy flood insurance I applied for a Letter of Map Revision (LOMR) with FEMA.
I had to elevate the site of the house to take it out of the flood plain.
What was annoying was the process I had to go through to get the LOMR. The house has a basement. My surveyor calculated that I would have to only dig down 30" in order to get the house high enough to be out of the flood plain. I wanted to put the basement in and then backfill/terrace the dirt out around it. That wasn’t allowed by FEMA. I had to pile the dirt up, approximately 5’ high, and the surveyor then had to stake out the house foundation marking each sides coordinates. They submitted this drawing to FEMA showing that the proposed house was now sitting out of the flood plain.
After I received the approval, I had my concrete contactor shove the dirt mound out of the way and we proceeded like I had intended at the beginning. The local building inspector did inquire how I was going to be sure I located the house exactly where the surveyor had mapped it. I had measured the distance of two corner points of the house to two property pins located at the front of the property. He was satisfied with that response.
The terracing worked out well. It all looks natural except for the southeast corner closest to the creek. There was a large hedge tree there I wanted to keep. I was also close to the flood way which has different rules than a flood plain.
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Interesting GCR. Could you have built the house on stilts and received an approval?
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Funny you should ask. There are two houses that are two houses downstream from me that are on stilts. They have had water under their houses many times over the past 23 years we have lived here, but the water has never entered their houses.
The creek is damned up about 5/8 of a mile south of us. It makes the creek about 60’ wide. Most of us have docks and use the creek to paddle boat or canoe on.
What we all worry about is development north of us. As new streets and housing are built it changes the runoff when we have heavy rainstorms. It used to be all tillable land. Now there is a lot of hard surfaces. Fortunately the “basin” is very small. If the rain falls 2 miles either side of the creek or 5 miles north of where I live, it will not drain into our creek.
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One more question. So you are without flood insurance correct? The insurance company does not have a problem with insuring the home for fire and all the other add-ons?
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I have a severe bias against the entire insurance industry as a result of my past career as a trial lawyer. Every insurance company I dealt with, regardless of whether I was defending them or suing them, had perfected the art of collecting premiums and not fully paying expensive claims. I.e., ‘we don’t have to pay for your expensive heart attack and stents because you failed to tell us about your high blood pressure diagnosis that we discovered buried in your past medical records. That is a pre- existing condition that you fraudulently failed to disclose.’ That sort of thing.
My anti insurance bias is so great that I did not buy a beach house until I found a small beach house a few hundred yards away from the beach front, that I could buy for cash, so that I could dispense with almost all of the usual insurance (except liability) , and with the knowledge that I could afford to rebuild it myself.
I agree that there should be a limit on their ability to cancel without one year’s notice, but they practically own the legislature here in Virginia, and probably everywhere else. So I don’t see that happening.
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The poles along that route have a tumultuous recent history. Many of them date from the 1930s, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power initiated a project in 2019 to replace some of them with stronger metal structures.
The project stalled after environmental regulators said the department had damaged 183 small bushes known as Braunton’s milkvetch, an endangered species.
The department agreed in 2020 to pay a fine, and won approval to resume work, saying the project was “essential in regards to our wildfire mitigation plan.” But the project does not appear to have proceeded.
DB2
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No flood insurance. It was not required by my lender or by any insurance company that I have had. I have used 3 different insurance companies over the past 23 years. The changes were by me due to price increases that I thought were out of line. Home insurance is a hot button issue for me.
I used to be really close to my neighbor to the south. He moved away 10 or 12 years ago so this information is old. We discussed home insurance many times. His place required flood insurance. He told me he was having to pay close to $4k a year. My neighbor to the west, whose property does not but up against the creek was also required to have flood insurance. I believe he said his flood insurance was about the same price.
FEMA came through our county 5 or 6 years ago updating flood plain maps. A lot of people in the western portion of the county were notified that they were now in a flood plain and needed to buy flood insurance. There were a lot of unhappy homeowners. Fortunately, my LOMR was reapproved by them.
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Your linked article mentions a previous fire that could have ignited the Palisades fire. Also mentioned was Skull Rock, a frequent party location for youth. But let’s assume it’s those pesky environmental regulators hindering power pole upgrades…
Your bias is showing.
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My bias is that downed power lines were the cause of most of these LA fires, so perhaps it is showing. The Eaton Canyon fire case for power lines seems pretty strong. Could the Palisades fire be due to ‘youths’ smoking in the hills? Possibly.
DB2
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While the exact cause hasn’t been determined, there are lawsuits that have been filed against SCE… I haven’t seen anything indicating downed lines, rather the lawsuits seem to be directed toward negligence in failing to deenergize the lines.
Did you see something indicating that powerlines came down because they failed to replace older wooden poles?
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An energized line wouldn’t be a problem if said line doesn’t go down.
The NYT indicated 90-year old wooden poles are not as strong as modern metal ones. Makes sense. The question before the jury may well be whether that would make the power lines themselves more/less likely to come down.
DB2
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That doesn’t make sense. Either the lines came down or they didn’t. If they came down then the old poles are a factor but if the lines didn’t come down then nobody is going to say anything.
I think you guys are on the right path though. The question is what caused the fire not what might have caused the fire.
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True dat. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we rush to judgement before understanding.
That’s not accurate. Energized lines can cause fires without the failure of the pole, or the line coming down.
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The “power lines” have two major parts: the transmission lines themselves and the structures that support them.
If the support goes down then the lines also drop. Modern steel pylons are more stable than old wooden ones. The transmission lines can also go down while the pylons remain.
DB2
And, fires can be ignited without poles or lines coming down.
Yes and on top of the transmission lines they have these things called insulators.
Right but if they didn’t start the fire why are we even talking about them. I agree they need to be replaced, and should have been replaced, but again, did they start the fire?
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We are talking about them because downed power lines caused at least some of the wildfires. SoCal Edison will probably have to declare bankruptcy.
I don’t follow you here.
DB2