Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Rasulis]

I am not saying you can prevent each and every wildfire. It was an answer to "pre-emptive preparation is impossible".

When as is reported a faulty power line sparked the fire, then this was very much possible to prepare for or even prevent.

Fair enough. The Eaton fire did start in the area beneath a high voltage tower.

[DarkTZeratul]

Fair enough. The Eaton fire did start in the area beneath a high voltage tower.

Or, to use another example, the Camp Fire that obliterated the town of Paradise in 2018 was started because of a failure in a piece of electrical equipment that hadn't been replaced for a literal century.

(You may be able to vouch for SDG&E, but PG&E can absolutely get fucked)

[Rasulis]

Or, to use another example, the Camp Fire that obliterated the town of Paradise in 2018 was started because of a failure in a piece of electrical equipment that hadn't been replaced for a literal century.

(You may be able to vouch for SDG&E, but PG&E can absolutely get fucked)

That is a problem in the US. Some of the power companies in the US are for profit private entities. You can even buy their stocks in the stock market. Problematic in my opinion.

Although, PG&E has started to replace the old power poles after the Camp fire. A picture from one they replaced in San Francisco. The new pole is steel textured to look like timber. They left the old pole attached temporarily to the new pole until all the different communication companies get a chance to relocate their lines to the new pole. The new poles are supposed to be stronger, lighter and fireproof.

[DarkTZeratul]

That is a problem in the US. Some of the power companies in the US are for profit private entities. You can even buy their stocks in the stock market. Problematic in my opinion.

Yes, this is absolutely the root of the problem. PG&E is incentivized by what makes them the most money, and conducting maintenance doesn't. Meanwhile, last year they both raised their rates and gave their executives massive bonuses. Their CEO made 20% more than she did in 2023.

(And yes, I'm well aware this problem is nationwide; I simply speak best to the local variant).

Although, PG&E has started to replace the old power poles after the Camp fire.

But it shouldn't have taken a $16 billion dollar wildfire that killed 84 people and destroyed multiple towns for them to do that! I'm not going to praise them for finally getting around to what they should have done decades ago. Besides which, great for San Francisco, but if something failed here and caused a fire, SFFD would be right on top of it and the damage would likely be limited to the adjacent building. All the major wildfires that PG&E were directly responsible for have been in rural areas. Are they replacing that equipment as well?

[Rasulis]

Yes, this is absolutely the root of the problem. PG&E is incentivized by what makes them the most money, and conducting maintenance doesn't. Meanwhile, last year they both raised their rates and gave their executives massive bonuses. Their CEO made 20% more than she did in 2023.

(And yes, I'm well aware this problem is nationwide; I simply speak best to the local variant).

But it shouldn't have taken a $16 billion dollar wildfire that killed 84 people and destroyed multiple towns for them to do that! I'm not going to praise them for finally getting around to what they should have done decades ago. Besides which, great for San Francisco, but if something failed here and caused a fire, SFFD would be right on top of it and the damage would likely be limited to the adjacent building. All the major wildfires that PG&E were directly responsible for have been in rural areas. Are they replacing that equipment as well?

As far as I am aware, PG&E is working on replacing the poles in the rural area or undergrounding the lines. They left some of the old poles in-place for the communications lines. However, the electrical lines were moved to the new poles. I think they mentioned that it will take them till 2035 to complete the project.

They are not doing that out of the goodness of their heart either. Because they don't have one. The customers are paying bill. Their rates are skyrocketing. I am glad we went solar/battery in 2022.

[DarkTZeratul]

They are not doing that out of the goodness of their heart either. Because they don't have one. The customers are paying bill. Their rates are skyrocketing.

I'm aware. Because apparently "we just had to pay billions of dollars because we were negligent with our maintenance, so now we have to increase our rates to actually pay for the maintenance we should have done decades ago" is a perfectly acceptable justification.

I am glad we went solar/battery in 2022.

Yeah, we got solar shortly after buying our house, too. And I'm glad we did, because a lot of the rebates and such for doing so have been reduced or removed now that adoption is so widespread.

[PhaelixWW]

LA is not a unique case. It is the first of Urban Conflagration case since the 1981 Oakland Fire.

The Tubbs Fire in 2017 would like a word.

As someone who lived through it, it was 1991 and this is SO MUCH WORSE. The Oakland Fire was just one fire, and largely contained within about 24 hours. Though it was largely caused by the same combination of drought, hot temperatures, and high winds.

Yeah, it's no comparison, really. The Tubbs Fire was made far worse than it would otherwise have been because it was only one of a whole string of fires that started within two days of each other in close proximity. That drastically increases the difficulty in containment when you're splitting your firefighting forces to cover that many front lines, especially when one of those front lines starts eating into a city of 175k population and others completely surround another city of 80k population.





And the LA fires have been even more destructive.

[Twdft]

A picture from one they replaced in San Francisco.

Wait what? You don't have electricity underground in cities?

[Shadowferal]

Wait what? You don't have electricity underground in cities?

They're getting there. California is a massive state. "About 33 percent of the 220,590 miles of distribution lines across the state are underground."
Started in the late 60s.

[Draco-Onis]

Wait what? You don't have electricity underground in cities?

It's too expensive and companies aren't rushing to do it, you end up with poles supporting older poles or some band aid fix. It's becoming a bigger and bigger problem with climate change a lot of the US infrastructure is straight out of a third world country.

[Belize]

Wait what? You don't have electricity underground in cities?

FWIW underground cabling doesn't always make sense in seismically active areas, and they're very expensive to install in rocky mountainous areas

https://laneelectric.com/programs-se...d-power-lines/


https://link.springer.com/article/10...518-016-0077-3

Second link is a study based on the Christchurch earthquake, where it looks into all the factors that made repairing underground lines a headache

[Katchii]

Wait what? You don't have electricity underground in cities?

The short answer is no. As others have said, it's prohibitively expensive to do in mountainous and very rocky areas and doesn't really make sense in seismically active areas.

This is also why in situations like this high winds will cause the power company to shut down power to certain areas because of trees and stuff potentially hitting "hot" power lines. If there's no power running through the line, a spark can't be caused by a tree touching the line due to a gust of wind, or in the worst case, a downed power line won't be an electrical or fire danger either.

[Twdft]

The short answer is no. As others have said, it's prohibitively expensive to do in mountainous and very rocky areas and doesn't really make sense in seismically active areas.

How is water distributed to homes in seismically active areas? Every time you rip up the street to lay a pipe for water just put a couple cables for electricity and internet right next to it. I understand the cost factor though.

[Gabriel]

How is water distributed to homes in seismically active areas? Every time you rip up the street to lay a pipe for water just put a couple cables for electricity and internet right next to it. I understand the cost factor though.

Different utility companies don't play nice with each other.

This is in Finland, but two different companies have been putting in fiber optic cables in the suburb around me, and they completely ignore each other and just do they own thing. I've seen one company rip up a street to put in the cable and then fix the street, and the other company coming in to put their cable in the exact same place the next day to rip up the street and fix it again.

[Rasulis]

How is water distributed to homes in seismically active areas? Every time you rip up the street to lay a pipe for water just put a couple cables for electricity and internet right next to it. I understand the cost factor though.

In cities with older infrastructure, they try to minimize digging streets and sidewalks. Not only do they have to replace in kind, but they have to maintain traffic and access to businesses and residences during construction. The construction will also have to take into account all the existing utilities (water, sewer, reclaimed water, fire hydrant lines, storm drain, fiber optics, gas lines, underground cisterns, etc.) Then there is right of way acquisition which meant they have to obtain right of way sharing agreement with other agencies. Those poles are also usually leased to other companies' lines, mainly communication companies. They can't get rid of the lines without terminating the leases. The whole operations get expensive very fast.

Replacing wooden poles with steel poles is cheaper. Least invasive and the lease holders can relocate their lines to the new poles easily. They replace one pole at a time. Instead of doing excavations which last weeks and months, they could replace a pole overnight. Most nearby residences won't even realize that they were there until they saw the new pole in the morning. Also, no need to bid the project out. They could do pole replacement in-house. They could also keep the existing electrical hook ups.

In rural and residential areas, it depends. If it is easy, they'll burry the lines. If it is too much hassle due to environmental restrictions, geology and terrain, then they just replace the poles.

Talking about old cities, I have seen sidewalk stamp going back to 1908 in my neighborhood that still looks great and no cracks. In case people are not aware, they used to stamp sidewalks with the name of the concrete company and the date that it was poured. I have seen stamps going back to late 1800s in Los Angeles and San Diego.

- - - Updated - - -

Different utility companies don't play nice with each other.

This is in Finland, but two different companies have been putting in fiber optic cables in the suburb around me, and they completely ignore each other and just do they own thing. I've seen one company rip up a street to put in the cable and then fix the street, and the other company coming in to put their cable in the exact same place the next day to rip up the street and fix it again.

Yeah. Here we have something called street moratorium. No digging within one year after a street is resurfaced. In cases of emergencies or small projects, we can get a waiver.

- - - Updated - - -

The Tubbs Fire in 2017 would like a word.



Yeah, it's no comparison, really. The Tubbs Fire was made far worse than it would otherwise have been because it was only one of a whole string of fires that started within two days of each other in close proximity. That drastically increases the difficulty in containment when you're splitting your firefighting forces to cover that many front lines, especially when one of those front lines starts eating into a city of 175k population and others completely surround another city of 80k population.

And the LA fires have been even more destructive.

Forgot about that. Another fast-moving fire driven hurricane force wind. Back to the LA fire. Acreage wise, it is relatively small (40,696 acres) per Cal Fire. A testament to the hard work of all the firefighters. Unfortunately, 12,300+ structures burned down. Including some of the most prime real estates in Los Angeles.

The amount of works being done.

From Portland to Houston, hundreds of out-of-state firefighters said goodbye to their families and loaded into engines bound for Los Angeles. Over 1,000 inmates in California filed onto hand crews in prison orange. Water bombers with “Quebec” stamped across their side swept over the blazes, as a Mexican fire brigade touched down and set to work. Nearly two dozen from the Navajo Scouts, a Bureau of Indian Affairs-managed program, joined the fight.

All of them orbit the incident command posts, which are built in parking lots, fairgrounds or stadiums, with the post for the Palisade’s fire acting as headquarters for some 5,000 people. Those working behind the scenes do everything from quickly negotiating with landowners for spots to land helicopters to producing a new, roughly 50-page action plan everyday sent via QR code to everybody working the fire.

To the west, on the biggest fire in California — the Palisades fire — Desrosiers from British Columbia was working out of an incident command post, the biggest she’s ever seen. The post runs for miles along the coast; it fills the beachside parking lots with fire engines, mobile kitchens, tents, equipment repair shops, gear depots, laundry services, medical staff, storage, and about anything else they would need.

“The biggest learning curve is seeing how all those people work together to keep those things together seamlessly,” said Desrosiers, whose job as public information officer is to provide journalists and the public with updates on the fires.

Back in British Columbia, Desrosiers might have worked alongside one other public information officer. At the Palisades fire, it’s somewhere near 50.

Trump can go screw himself. The same with inconsiderate idiots.

The FBI is searching for whoever flew a drone that damaged a firefighting plane in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Fire Department said on X, formerly Twitter, this SuperScooper plane was flying over the Palisades fire when it collided with a civilian drone over Malibu. The plane, Quebec 1, will be out of service until the wing damage can be repaired.

Plane back in the air last Tuesday. It is one of two SuperScoopers on long-term lease by LAFD.

[Belize]

How is water distributed to homes in seismically active areas? Every time you rip up the street to lay a pipe for water just put a couple cables for electricity and internet right next to it. I understand the cost factor though.

Water leaks are more easily spotted and repairable than electrical conduit breaks, generally speaking.
Big breaks in water lines will generally telegraph to the surface, so there's less of a need to dig around, that's really where a big part of the costs is.

[Edge-]

I opened Twitter for two seconds at work.

Rosanne Bar has a MAGA rap song? With a Canadian guy?

I feel I need to share this terrible news with everyone else. Thankfully I do not leave my speakers on my work computer turned up so I did not have to suffer too much.

[Mayhem]

How is water distributed to homes in seismically active areas? Every time you rip up the street to lay a pipe for water just put a couple cables for electricity and internet right next to it. I understand the cost factor though.

What you don't understand is that in seismically active areas everything apart from electricity is just teleported, it's an issue the federation is working on but currently there is nothing you can do about it.

Waste? teleported, water? teleported, internet? teleported

Really everything is easy to transport, well everything apart from electricity, that has to be transported in carbon tubes which are very vulnerable to seismic activity.

[Karreck]

The deportations, and the beginning of America's next human rights horror, could begin as early as Tuesday.

https://www.foxla.com/news/trump-mas...tation-chicago

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is planning a large-scale immigration raid in Chicago that day. The raid is expected to last all week, WSJ reports.

The WSJ reported that Los Angeles, New York, Denver, and Miami "are also in the incoming administration’s sights, and more targeted raids could come."

In a report from the Chicago Sun-Times, families bracing for Trump's planned mass deportation had also feared the raids may begin as soon as early next week. The proposed mass deportation has been a big part of Trump's campaign leading up to the 2024 Presidential Election.

"On Day One, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out," Trump said during a rally in New York City back in October. "I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible."

Months before the upcoming inauguration, Trump's incoming "border czar" Tom Homan said Chicago would be "ground zero" for the proposed mass deportations.

"If the Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside. But if he impedes us, if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien, I will prosecute him," Homan was quoted back in late 2024, according to WSJ's report.

[Rasulis]

The deportations, and the beginning of America's next human rights horror, could begin as early as Tuesday.

https://www.foxla.com/news/trump-mas...tation-chicago

My response to that.

Every so often, Al Juhnke, executive director of the Nebraska Pork Producers Association, says he'll get a phone call from one of his farmers about how to solve Nebraska's severe labor shortage..

It goes something like this: "Al, I got a great idea. Why don't we invite any immigrants? Legal, illegal … I don't care. Invite them to Nebraska because we have lots of openings out on our farm and we need help."

Nebraska is one of the top meat producers in the U.S. It also has one of the worst labor shortages in the country. For every 100 jobs, there are only 39 workers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Last January, the state's economic chamber released a report saying Nebraska had no choice but to welcome immigrants to "address the workforce gap."

Juhnke says attracting workers to Nebraska is not about wages. The average pay for a meat trimmer is close to $18 an hour — well above the state minimum of $13.50. "These are good paying jobs in the plants," he says. "People say, 'Well, just double or triple the pay [and] you'll get United States citizens to work.' No, you won't."