January 12, 2005

• In hindsight this photo would have been a better choice for the 2005 comparision, though it's from a reverse angle.
• Dude, it's like the mountain threw up.
• I also found this gem: californiacoastline.org from three months ago. Extremely high resolution before the event.
• When I first moved to the area, my wife and I wanted to look at houses in La Concita. Then we were warned that no bank would lend us money to buy...because of the risk of mud slides. It's a very beautiful stretch of the coast, but it's just not stable enough to build on. Time for these people to move on. Maybe Malibu. I don't think more than three or four houses fell into the ocean this weekend.
• is it me, or does "la conchita" mean "little pussy" in Espanol?
• I think it's "la chochita" you're thinking of.
• I live near there, I know people who were trapped on the highway when the slide came. I can't believe how many people were still in town, if I had thought about it I would've assumed everyone had evacuated. Official evacuation or no, everyone knows what happens there after a storm. It's inevitable.
• Little sympathy here. Sounds like a classic case of human foolishness and illogical resistance to change. Reminds me of those recurring stories about people who build on the local flood plain. Welcome to the real world.
• I recall watching some standard mudslide coverage after the last El Nino. Reporter was asking sheepish homeowner why she would buy/build her house where it would inevitably be swept away. Sheepish homeowner laughed, in the way one does when one has lost every physical item of their life, and explained that she didn't know that the mountain would slide away like that. Reporter laughs. I laughed too, a bit. So she's naive, we can all be that way sometimes. Honest mistake. Then the reporter asks her what she's going to do. Again, she laughs and reassures reporter that insurance is covering her and that it's just things and that thank goodness nobody was hurt. Oh, and she's going to rebuild ... on the exact same spot. At this point, screaming, I tried to send my hands through the TV, coast to coast, to wring $300,000 worth of choking pleasure from said lady's neck. Or whatever the dollar amount of taxpayor subsidized flood insurance. And while I sympathize with the locals, I can't help but think that the anger directed at the local officials, the irrigation system, and the avacado growers is perhaps a little displaced. Transference maybe, or whatever the phsychologists call it. You built your community at the foot of a "hill" made of mud/clay that has a known history of collapse and subject to regular periodic El Ninos. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that it is the fault of the avacado growers. Oh, and I cannot imagine this would not be a good spot to be in when the tsunami hits either. If you manage to run up the hills in time to avoid the flood ... the undercutting of the hill would probably lead to a landslide.
• A great example of the Darwin factor not working well when the subjects being studied can purchase insurance. The same thing happens, as I'm sure you're all aware, along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts with the hurricanes, along the Mississippi with the flooding, etc., etc..... As long as we continue to provide insurance against this, people will continue to do stupid things.....
• jesus christ, you people are soooo compassionate.
• Dead people are stupid, I reckon.
• Taxpayer supported flood insurance, where can I get me some of that? You also have to consider that it's almost impossible for these folks to sell these houses to be able to move elsewhere (insurance is specifically to rebuild you can't just take the cash and buy an RV). Sure they picked a crappy spot but folk live in a lot of places that are subject to some sort of natural disaster waiting to happen. Earthquake, Hurricane, Tornado, Flood etc
• Well, there but for the grace of god go
• etc
• I mean, I know in times of horrendous calamity & emergency, war, etc, black humor can be a way of psychologically staving off the true impact of what is happening, but you lot really did just go beyond the pale. I hope that you have all learned your lesson. Now where is Micheal Crichton? Doesn't he think this is all a big load of rubbish? Well, he's a tall prick, so he probably thinks he'd be ok in a flood. Fucker.
• Reminds me of those recurring stories about people who build on the local flood plain. Round my way, we call those people "Londoners".
• Stupid Londoners.
• jesus christ, you people are soooo compassionate. Well, he's a tall prick, so he probably thinks he'd be ok in a flood. Fucker. Hard to take you seriously, Nostril.
• Oh I dunno, Michael Chrichton is 6'9" apparently, which seems pretty tall to me.
• zeoslap: I am aware that the money is for rebuilding, and that's why I don't entirely blame the homeowner. But while the system forces bad choices to be made, that's still real dollars that are going to be washed away sooner or later. Oh, and an interesting point I picked up watching some Frontline special on housing and floodplains is that when you add flood control, then people build houses as if it will not flood. And then it does, inevitabley happen, the house becomes a total loss. If you don't have flood control, then houses get built knowing that it will flood, and as a result are more robust. SO (and here's where we get to the relavent point), I would argue that the retaining wall built did a double disservice to those poor people that got killed. It was insufficient to stop the carnage, and yet lulled the people living below it into a false sense of security. Had there been no wall, the housing that was built would probably be built sturdier, perhaps cinderblock and concrete instead of wood framing, and the folks might have had a better chance at survival. This is, of course, all just idle speculation
• Not only will many banks not lend money to people who knowingly build their houses in unsafe areas, but, in La Conchita after the last big mudslide, many new residents were required to sign waivers acknowledging the risk of living there. (With regards to the waivers, it was something broadcast on local news here in LA, and I have no verification that it is 100$ true.) For people who may have gotten stuck in a bad place and had no foreknowledge: I feel very bad for them. For those people who signed the waivers, or people who, for example, moved there AFTER the last big landslide: I feel bad that they lost their houses and/or their lives, but I can't help but think that they were asking for it. It's like people who smoke and then get lung cancer: you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.
• How did that "%" become a "$"? Must've been my typo.