I moved to LA from KU, thinking I would be among the finest filmmakers ever…
Through happenstance, I met who would become one of my best friends, and we started a band.
We recorded a couple albums, toured, and his folks’ home was our rehearsal space.
I was 23 years old when I met them, the “old” man in the band. I was the driver and drummer. I took that responsibility seriously. And my buddy’s parents knew I could carry the load. They entrusted me a lot, and we traveled thousands of miles playing gigs.
Got my start in showbiz due to this family, had a terrific career, and now their home is ashes.
These people, that family treated me with nothing but respect, love, appreciation and responsibility. They are like family to me. They got evacuated, and they grabbed as much “stuff” from their home. Photos, certain books and records, cards, little things but big to their family.
They’re safe. But my friend is so sorry that there are things his son will never see…. He’s in shock, he’s angry about how this was handled, it’s a fucking mess.
This is a disaster that affects all of us in many ways…. Just check the fire on an oil spot that happens to be a good region for the oil repository for fueling certain airplanes.
It ain’t just rich assholes getting burned up here, but dickheads will write this experience how they want. Most of these mooks haven’t found their asshole out of their elbow. And I’ve lived in Kansas, LA, NOLA, and NYC. I’m not an expert, but I know I have more life experience than most people alive.
And it’s not a competition! But for everyone saying this is great: fuck your mother.
This is a catastrophe. But I guess if your side is an elephant or donkey, then you have your home team. And I think you’re fucking deranged very stupid assholes who should stick with rooting for laundry and sports. But I digress… [Reply]
Originally Posted by suzzer99:
+1 to all this. I've spent the last two days reading everything I can find on this.
To dispel a few other myths:
The problem is lack of water due to rainwater diversion policies. This is completely wrong. All 114 water tanks in the palisades were full before the fire. The reservoirs were all full.
The problem is 15 hours of firefighting drained the tanks and the pumps weren't able to refill them fast enough. The hydrants are on the same system as regular water, so when a plastic water pipe bursts in a burning home, that drains the water pressure even further.
Now, maybe you can say the pumps were outdated and there weren't enough tanks. But that's a nitty gritty conversation and it's not clear if any of that would have made a huge difference in this fire.
Controlled burns would have prevented this. This is also wrong. Controlled burns work in forests where fuel accumulates over years. Chaparral grows back quickly, and unless you're going to burn every hillside in LA, a fire like this would just jump past any controlled burn firebreaks. Some embers flew 2-3 miles before landing and starting a new hot spot. No firebreak in the world can prevent that.
My best friend is on the frontlines fighting the out-of-control fires in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.
It's hard to imagine any system that could prevent a wildfire from spreading under conditions like this.
Maybe dedicated water cannons with their own water tank positioned around neighborhoods. But no one will know if that would even work until we get another insane fire like this and the neighborhood is directly in its path. So that's a lot of money to spend on an experiment.
I do wonder though if you could throw some kind of asbestos blanket over the house, like the termite tents, but for fire. Seems like that might work? And if everyone in the neighborhood had them, then you're only talking about a few trees and bushes burning, which is much much less fuel.
It's true that, at least in Pacific Palisades, these neighborhoods are very wealthy, so maybe they'll try some outside-the-box solutions.
have you seen the multiple clips of firefighters saying there's no water coming from hydrants??? [Reply]
Originally Posted by saphojunkie:
They don’t get it. They think this is wildfire / forest fire shit. They don’t get that this is like if mission hills caught on fire
DC has no bounds when it comes to being an expert at everything with as little context as possible in the name of megaphoning a political opinion at you for the millionth time while being hellbent on finding people to blame. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bearcat:
DC has no bounds when it comes to being an expert at everything with as little context as possible in the name of megaphoning a political opinion at you for the millionth time while being hellbent on finding people to blame.
Personally, I would never view people affected by natural disasters with anything but empathy. As this week has proven, nation wide, Mother Nature is capable of making any of us her bitch whenever she damn well feels like it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Dante84:
This situation sucks. Feel terrible for so many people.
(Separate note - is OP famous or something?)
It's horrible. And Bearcat astutely stated perfectly how there's always a segment of the population who lack compassion, and only want to place blame while never helping or coming up with any solutions.
Also, I'm not famous, but my buddy's dad is. I don't feel comfortable namedropping, but he's written and directed some of the biggest films of all time. I'm just lucky enough to be their friend through their son.
One other thing, my name is not Dane. My name is Thomas. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJJasonp:
have you seen the multiple clips of firefighters saying there's no water coming from hydrants???
Yes. Did you read my post?
Originally Posted by :
The problem is 15 hours of firefighting drained the tanks and the pumps weren't able to refill them fast enough. The hydrants are on the same system as regular water, so when a plastic water pipe bursts in a burning home, that drains the water pressure even further.
Now, maybe you can say the pumps were outdated and there weren't enough tanks. But that's a nitty gritty conversation and it's not clear if any of that would have made a huge difference in this fire.
Originally Posted by GabyKeepsMeWarm:
It's horrible. And Bearcat astutely stated perfectly how there's always a segment of the population who lack compassion, and only want to place blame while never helping or coming up with any solutions.
Also, I'm not famous, but my buddy's dad is. I don't feel comfortable namedropping, but he's written and directed some of the biggest films of all time. I'm just lucky enough to be their friend through their son.
One other thing, my name is not Dane. My name is Thomas.
Dane's real name wasn't Dane. But I never thought you were him. Let's just say he had a pretty distinctive posting style that a new login wouldn't hide for very long. :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by Frazod:
Dane's real name wasn't Dane. But I never thought you were him. Let's just say he had a pretty distinctive posting style that a new login wouldn't hide for very long. :-)
Dane liked to yell at everyone from what I remember. [Reply]
