Sam Kinison had this bit about world hunger being a problem because aid agencies kept bringing assistance to people that live in a desert. It’s, of course an oversimplification and quite frankly inaccurate, but he was a comedian of his time and all of that.
The point in mentioning it is that I feel the same way about people that lose their homes to floods in a flood plain, or to fire in a forest.
"Oh. You want another house? In the same place? The place that has burned every ten years for the last TEN MILLENNIA!? Oh, and you want to build it out of matchstick wood AND PLASTIC! You see this? You see this here? It’s stone! And this? Concrete! Yeah! A common building material THAT DOESN’T BURN!!! "
Humanity is doomed
This area should not be rebuilt, unless it can be rebuilt with buildings that are much better protected from fire. This area is always going to be high fire risk and we will see far more extreme fire weather in the future than even the event that destroyed these neighborhoods.
A lot of disaster insurance in California is not offered by private insurance but backed by a state ‘backstop’ plan. You have a choice of nothing or this plan. The reimbursement rates are totally not replacement value.
Anyone who did have state insurance probably collected a fraction, took the loss, and moved elsewhere.
We probably shouldn’t rebuilt in high risk zones. Densify the valleys instead
This, although last I saw YIMBYs were pushing to deregulate and density what just burned.
Only SEVEN homes have been rebuilt out of THIRTEEN THOUSAND?!?
