Response and recovery after the LA wildfires (01-13-2025--Hour2)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] I don't know about you, but I am just now on the lookout for the locusts. I feel like that's the next thing that's coming, right? Because we had, what, September, so I guess like every three months. So we had the massive floods, Western North Carolina, and then out west, now we've had the massive fire. And I think the next thing is the locusts. I think that's what comes next.

[00:00:55] Or the killer bees from Central America that are migrating up here. Remember that one? Whatever happened to all those killer bees? Yeah, I don't know. No, that's weird. That was the thing that we all had to be afraid. Look, I said this, I was joking when we did our award-winning coverage on Friday, Snow, Man on the Street. And, you know, I said, if you're not scared, I'm not doing my job.

[00:01:20] So, this became very clear to me. You know, when the West Nile virus, remember that? Whatever happened to that? No, that one, that was like early 2000s. And it came right on the heels of a drought in Charlotte.

[00:01:41] And, you know, that's when I learned what gray water was, which is, I think, a non-lethal militia group out of North Carolina that deploys all over the place. It's like a mercenary group, but they don't use any lethal force. Gray water. No, I'm kidding. Gray water is when you take water, like you would take a bucket.

[00:02:02] We would. I did. I would take a bucket and I would put it in the shower. And when I would turn the water on to get the water hot, you got to waste water, right, to get the water hot. And I would just collect that water in the bucket and I would just keep it there as I showered.

[00:02:25] And then I would just take the bucket of water and I used it to water my trees in the front yard of my house in East Charlotte. And then I was told that's illegal. That's gray water. It's not treated. How dare you, in this case, me, dump the gray water into the ground? You're killing the trees! Which are actually dying from drought.

[00:02:52] Nobody ever charged me for anything, so I think the statute of limitations is now passed on that. So that's why I feel comfortable disclosing this to you now. But there was this big drought and they were talking about everything dying and we're not going to have enough water. And, you know, the intake pipes for the nuclear power plant needs the water and the water lake levels were so down. And now the water's not going in to cool the plant and we're all going to die from a meltdown.

[00:03:20] Like all of these, the parade of horribles, all the speculative kind of journalism-ing. And look, I was a reporter at the time. I'm sure I did maybe two or three, you know, hundred stories of a similar nature. Okay? And then the rains came. And then we got rains. Then all of a sudden it was West Nile virus.

[00:03:46] So you're going to, right, now you're going to get all the mosquitoes from the standing water. And they're going to kill you. Right? So first the drought was going to kill us. And then when it rained, the mosquitoes are going to kill us after the rains. Right? So there was, that's when it became, because it shifted so quickly. It's kind of like the climate change silliness. Everything is climate change.

[00:04:10] Just for the record, lest I get the pizza denier that the climate changed, I don't deny climate change. I believe the climate does change. I believe there are people that are employed to tell me how the climate is changing on a day-to-day basis. I know this. I spoke with one in studio on Friday. They call them meteorologists. And they talk about how the climate is changing every single day.

[00:04:39] So I believe it does occur. And does it occur on a longer term, a longer, like a long-term scale? Obviously. The dinosaurs didn't kill themselves. Maybe they did. I don't know. It's possible. I wasn't around. Maybe they did kill themselves when they saw, like, the meteor coming. They thought the comet was the sign that they were waiting for. They all put on the Nike sneakers and killed themselves. I don't know. I don't think that's what happened.

[00:05:06] But I think the records are pretty clear that the climate has, in fact, changed over the course of the lifespan of the planet. I'm okay with that. Now, is man and women and persons, okay, is the human race or the hue woman race or the hue person race, is man causing global warming, climate change, global cooling, or whatever it needs to be at any given time?

[00:05:36] I suspect there probably is some kind of an impact. How big? Not worth impoverishing the entire planet. That's just me, okay? I don't think that the juice is worth the squeeze on this. I don't. I think that actually the sun, and I've laid this out very clearly. I've presented my evidence on this for years, that the sun, I believe, is actively trying to kill us, okay? And I think that we need to take the threat more seriously.

[00:06:04] I think that the sun is actually more responsible for how hot our planet gets. Have you seen the size of the sun? I mean, it looks small from where we are, but when you get up close, not only is it really hot, but it is really big. Like, you could set off a nuclear bomb on that thing and you wouldn't even see it. That's how much fire and explosive activity.

[00:06:27] There are, you know, EMPs, these solar flares and stuff that knock out communications on our planet, right? So there are all of these things that contribute. You got cloud cover, right? The moon, which is like, you know, it's got like this sun complex where it's like smaller, but it's like, I could affect the water. You know, okay, whatever. That's like the wonder twins. Like, okay, yeah, you can make yourself an animal or you make yourself like a teardrop. Good for you.

[00:06:56] So I think that there are much bigger entities out there that are having way more impact on our climate than us. We're pretty small compared to the sun and the moon, just like sheer size, you know? Even if you put all the people on the planet together in a big ball and like you mush us all together into a ball, we're still smaller than the moon. So I think, yeah, I think those things probably have more of an impact.

[00:07:25] And again, the key part here is, is it worth impoverishing the entire planet in order to get a reduction in the carbon emissions? And no, I don't think it is. I think that it's better to have people not dying at age, you know, 13, 14, 15 years old because they can't stay warm or can't get cool. I like my air conditioning. Sorry.

[00:07:51] So, and I will start living as if climate change is in fact an existential threat when the people who tell me that it is start living like it is an existential threat. Right? When you start behaving in a manner that comports with what you're telling me, then I will believe that you believe what you're telling me. But let me just take an example.

[00:08:15] If you believe that climate change is going to cause the complete incineration of the California coastline, right? Then don't you think you would take steps to mitigate the climate change? If I believe that were the case, I think I would, for example, put a lot of money into combating those effects.

[00:08:42] I would put a lot of money into relocating everybody off of the coastline. Which, by the way, did you notice how close the fire was to the ocean? How have you all not figured this out yet? You got all that water and then you got a fire right next to the water. And I know I saw some planes, I think they actually, some of them came from Canada, eh? And they flew, have you seen these things?

[00:09:10] They fly along, they skim the water. And they suck up like thousands of gallons of water. And then they fly over and they dump the water on the fire. That seems like a pretty good idea. I saw another guy, he ran a pump out of his swimming pool. And used that water to keep his house from catching fire. He was just spraying down, he and his wife were spraying down all the house, the roof line and all the trees and shrubs.

[00:09:40] They just kept spreading water all over the property and they saved their house. Everything around them burned. And they survived. And their house survived. I don't know. Maybe they were the only ones with a pool in the neighborhood. I don't know. But that seems unlikely. How have you guys not figured this out? All that water. All that water. And you guys have all these water problems. Like you have the biggest coastline, I think, of any state. Maybe Florida.

[00:10:07] Florida might, well, if you're counting islands, I don't know. But like Florida or California, you know, just greedy gluttonous. They take up like most of the coast on the West Coast. They have like the whole side of the country over there. Right? They don't want to break it up and share it with a bunch of different states. So they have the whole thing. And you got all that water and you can't figure out how to get the salt out of it, which we do know actually how to do the desalinization.

[00:10:37] So like or desalination, whatever. So like you can do it. But for some reason, you don't want to do it. Again, when you start acting like these things are existential threats, then maybe I will believe you that it is in fact an existential threat. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain? And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:11:56] And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Let me, let's go over and talk with Lisa. Hello, Lisa. Welcome to the program. Hello, Pete. Hey. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? Well, my heart is hurting a lot. I was born and reared. You raise cattle. You reared children.

[00:12:25] I was born and reared in Pasadena, California. I grew up two blocks east of Lake Street, which is completely gone. And I know so many people. And I do want to give a shout-out to the Dina dogs because they know who they are. But North Carolina, I want to know where that is. But they're all my peeps up in Altadena. But I have a friend, I have several friends up there who lost everything.

[00:12:54] Like 10 people I know that lost everything just off the top of my head. And one of my friends, his father was Armenian and, like, migrated over here, built the house. His house is still standing because it's built out of stone and he has a slate roof. And they are literally, that property is at the base of the mountains of Altadena.

[00:13:23] Alan told me, his son, that they cut off the water supply. And if it wasn't for the swimming pool and they were able to get the pump happening, by the way, I haven't been listening to your program. I just tuned in right now. But I just, I need to tell you what's happening. They cut off the water supply up there. They shut it off. Yeah, I've seen the reports, people reporting that that occurred.

[00:13:50] There's also reports that one of the reservoirs was empty. So there's also reports that the water pressure may have given the same sort of... There's a dam right there. And there's a dam right there off of Maiden Lane. If you Google it, you could find it. But years ago, there was another fire.

[00:14:14] And the street that I used to live on was like a terraced down, like Zangray Drive. About two houses made it out. My street made it. The whole thing is gone. It's gone. It's all gone. And it's by design. I know it's by design. How do you know it's by design?

[00:14:48] Uh... Water. And also, uh... There was a thing about eminent domain. Look it up. What thing... I know what eminent domain is. What thing about it are you talking about? Also? Also? No. Well, no. Just focus on the eminent domain part. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Let me be honest. I have to go do my research. Okay. But I was told about it. Hold on.

[00:15:13] But also, why would the insurance companies all of a sudden just ditch out four months before this happened? We covered that last week. They... There are... The insurance... State Farm was the big one. They said that they cannot cover all of the losses in a catastrophic event. And so they had asked for a premium increase so they would not go bankrupt, basically, in the event of a catastrophe.

[00:15:39] And the state refused to allow them to hike the premiums to cover a catastrophic event. And so they said, we have to drop... We can't renew the policies, basically. So anybody's policy who... Anyone who had a policy that expired would not get the renewal of that policy. And the reason why State Farm and the insurance carriers were trying to raise the premiums was because they are aware of the risks in a way.

[00:16:08] I mean, these people, this is all they do is they just calculate risks. And when they see the policies, they see fire suppression efforts, they understand the police and fire budgets and stuff. And they're like, we can't afford... If there's another catastrophic event, we cannot afford to pay out all of the claims. So... Because of the North, like, Northern California, all of that. It started... Those policy ideas started with Northern California. Here's a little example.

[00:16:37] My father has been paying into his insurance policy for 22 years. Mm-hmm. When they first got here, maybe a tree fell down and it almost hit the chimney. That was fine. But the first time in 20 years, we made a claim. Because the bathroom, the upstairs bathroom started leaking.

[00:17:05] And all of a sudden, like, we're paying in, we're paying in, we're paying in. And the first time we make a claim in 20 years for a bathtub leak, now you're going to raise our insurance by $600. How does that work? Well, I mean, I'm not one to defend all insurance companies and all practices, but that is actually how insurance works. You're not paying into an account. It's not like the money is accruing over time unless you're doing, like, a whole life policy or something.

[00:17:33] But, like, you're not, it's an annualized risk. And the pool is everybody in the risk. So the more people start drawing out, then the company has to, they've got to balance their books. Like, the insurance companies are not going, they don't set up their business to go out of business. So, right, they're assessing the risks. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something like this happened at your house.

[00:18:00] Your family and friends are gathered around, maybe y'all are in the living room. You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, Hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet, all eyes are on Dad, who says, Oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right.

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[00:18:52] Trust the experts at Create a Video, conveniently located in Mint Hill, right off I-485, and online at createavideo.com. I have a message here from Steve on the Twitter machine, formerly known as X. It's a Pete tweet. Steve says, insurance companies operate what is basically a legal Ponzi scheme. That's not, I disagree. It's not a Ponzi scheme.

[00:19:17] Anyway, meanwhile, the payer is reasonably sure a claim will at some point be made and paid. The insurer collects those premiums, all the while finding ways to not pay. That's how it works. If you believe that that is how it works, then don't ever buy insurance. It's very simple. Don't buy it. Right?

[00:19:41] Now, I understand, like in some states, you have to have insurance on the car, so you have to buy insurance there. Now, I will tell you, whenever I've had an insurance claim, they paid it. That's just my personal experience. When I had an insurance claim on the house for the burglary that we suffered and water damage that occurred, the insurance company paid both of those claims.

[00:20:09] So, the idea that they never pay, that's not true. They do pay. Insurance companies do pay. But I understand sometimes they do not. And some insurance carriers are better than others. I've always, I mean, I've been on USAA for 20 years. So, I can only speak for my experience, but other people's mileage may vary. No doubt about it.

[00:20:33] But if you don't want to pay for insurance, and you're, I mean, all you're doing is, you know, you're basically like, it's like life insurance. You're betting that you're not going to die. Or no, you're betting you are going to die, and they're betting you're not. Right? That's, like, when I buy the policy, and I'm making the payments every month, my bet is, I might die this year. I might die. Here's some more money. I might die.

[00:21:01] And if I die, then you've got to give some payout to my loved ones. Right? So, they do pay out those, life insurance. They pay life insurance all the time. Nobody ever thinks about that when they think about the insurance claims, though. But they pay out on life insurance all the time. The actuarials are pretty solid on the lifespan and the risks and all of that stuff.

[00:21:26] It's tougher when you're dealing with homes because they are impacted by so many other types of policies at the government level. And that's what we're seeing in California. And this isn't new, by the way. This is not new. Insurance companies have been dropping all sorts of policies and coverages for the last three years, I think. And, like, we had a personal experience with this at our neighborhood.

[00:21:57] When we moved in, there was, like, a 40-foot slide that was at the pool. It is no longer there. They paid to tear the slide down because nobody would write insurance any longer on the slide. We could not get insurance coverage for the slide for the HOA. So they tore the slide down. So the insurance companies have been paying out.

[00:22:25] Also, by the way, this also links back to payments that were made after all of the destruction of the fiery but mostly peaceful Summer of Love protests after St. George Floyd died. Insurance companies took massive hits. So, yeah, I mean, again, it's gambling, right?

[00:22:50] You're making bets that if you, you know, that some catastrophe doesn't happen or does happen, rather, and the insurance company is betting that it doesn't. And they're betting that they're going to be able to take more of your money over the longer term than it's going to cost in paying out. And at some point, like, if you have a bunch of claims on your car insurance, they're either going to drop you or they're going to raise your rates, right? Everybody who has a teenage driver on their policy knows this, too.

[00:23:19] As soon as you put that kid on the policy, the rates go through the roof. Why is that? Well, because they know younger drivers cost more money. They get into more accidents. They drive. They do more stupid things, right? Just like if you're a young male, you're going to and you want to get a life insurance policy, it's going to cost you more than a young female because young men take more risks, more dangerous behavior.

[00:23:47] But a younger man from a life insurance perspective is going to be cheaper on a monthly premium cost than a 70-year-old guy. And I don't even think you can get insurance policies that late in life, right? They're going to be very, very expensive. So just take your money and instead of, you know, sending $50 a month to an insurance company, put it into a bank account. And then here's the key. Don't spend it. Don't spend the money. And you could be your own insurer, right? Just save the money. Just put it aside.

[00:24:17] Let it accrue interest. Maybe invest some of it and do it that way. I'm not here to tell you insurance companies are all awesome and they all make the right decision all the time. I'm not trying to make that case. What I'm arguing against is the generalization that they are all terrible and they all deny claims all the time. That's it.

[00:24:38] And so I don't believe, again, absent any evidence, what I would call proof, that would persuade me into a different direction. My default is not to say that this was somehow, as I think the caller suggested earlier, that this was planned and that the State Farm Insurance Company dropping these policies late last year, that that somehow was indicative of knowledge of forethought.

[00:25:05] Right. That they knew that there were going to be fires and that the Santa Ana winds were going to be so bad and it was going to burn this particular neighborhood. And so therefore they canceled all the policies. No, they were making again like this is what they do. They assess risk. They saw the risks. They were like, we can't afford if this kind of thing happens. We could not afford to pay this out. So we're not renewing policies. And by the way, they were right. They were right.

[00:25:32] Which I take as a sign that they know what they're doing because they have to, because that's the private sector. They have to know what they're doing or they're out of business. They go bankrupt. And what happens when they can't when they go bankrupt is they can't pay out all the policies for everybody, for anybody. They're out of business and then everybody is harmed. That's why they tried to raise the premiums. And they weren't allowed to. So they told the state of California, we're out. Again, not an expert in insurance.

[00:26:01] And I'm not a I'm not a defender of all insurance companies and practices. I'm just giving you what my read on the situation is from all these many miles away. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News.

[00:26:26] It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom.

[00:26:51] The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15 percent off any subscription. I use the vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.

[00:27:16] Um, got a message here from Stan, an email to Pete at the Pete calendar show dot com. That's K. A. L. I. N. E. R. By the way. Hello, Mr. Calendar. I enjoy your show and appreciated your comments today on the fires in California. I think a lot of folks are missing the big picture regarding this and many other catastrophes which occur where people should not be living to begin with.

[00:27:40] Market forces would likely keep people from building or moving to areas which regularly experience catastrophic events such as uncontrollable wildfires, hurricanes and the like. The bottom line is it illustrates the bottom line and illustrates is that we would all be much better off if the government stayed out of everything and people just relied on market forces to make decisions.

[00:28:05] It's always been clear that if the federal government did not underwrite hazard insurance for coastal areas, areas prone to wildfires, etc. We'd have much less destruction and displacement due to these natural occurrences. If folks want to pay exorbitant private insurance rates to build on the coast or in areas where brush fires and mudslides are guaranteed or self-insure, that's fine. But the rest of us should not have to underwrite the negative consequences of people taking on foolish risks.

[00:28:34] This article is kind of long, but it's very interesting and relative to long read. Well, yes, it's longreads.com. But no, I don't click links, Stan. But so I look this argument. I understand. I've made it for probably a couple decades now, actually, that when we continue to bail out building at the coast that constantly gets demolished by hurricanes.

[00:29:01] At some point, you have to ask, why is this the taxpayer's responsibility to keep doing so? Right. Again, if you want to self-insure, you want to go out and get insurance for it, that's fine. Now, there are some some companies, they just won't write the policies.

[00:29:19] As for not building in any place where a catastrophe could occur, I don't know if that's actually feasible because everywhere you could have some sort of catastrophic event literally anywhere. So I don't know. Again, the insurance companies, you know, do the risk assessments and the like. Right. They look at, OK, you're in a flood prone area. They can tell that based on the historical data.

[00:29:46] But like, for example, in Western North Carolina, that was a thousand year storm. So I'm not sure how like so would you ban building there? And then everybody who doesn't get thousand year storm insurance or flood insurance, mudslide insurance or whatever for a one thousand year storm, then they then they're just SOL. Right. They're just out of luck.

[00:30:14] Oh, well, shouldn't have built in this area that hasn't seen a storm, you know, since human beings started keeping records in the area. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure how you would. I'm not sure how that would apply to every single place, you know, because I don't think any place is immune from any kind of natural disaster. Some places are riskier. No doubt about it. No doubt about it.

[00:30:36] But I think that's what the insurance companies were talking about when when they said, look, we cannot afford a catastrophic event in Los Angeles, a.k.a. a wildfire, because they are looking at the same data that now the rest of the country is seeing about how inadequate the local government was and the state government was in combating. Fire mitigation. Right. And doing fire mitigation.

[00:31:04] So they were looking at that saying we can't afford to replace all these multimillion dollar homes. And a catastrophic event is going to bankrupt the company. So we can't write any more policies or you got to let us raise the rates and see, that's the other part is the government would not allow them to raise the rates to raise premiums. Because then, of course, you know, oh, that's not fair. And then people would be all mad about it and they would go down to their city council meetings and stuff and lobby against it or whatever. I'm at a loss.

[00:31:35] But market forces, I think, would have better addressed it. Now, that being said, I'm not a I'm not one who says we should abandon like I'm not a capital L libertarian. You know, no fire departments. We had that. We looked. We've seen that model before in America. And the fire departments would charge people money and then they would let people's houses burn if they weren't paying.

[00:32:01] And they would then also get into fistfights with other fire companies when they arrived on the scene. And they were trying to make sales. And, OK, I'm trying to fight the fire over here. And no, no, that's our property and all this other stuff. So it's a very messy kind of a thing. And so I'm OK with local government doing fire protection. That being said, if you're not doing it well, you end up what we saw in Los Angeles, it looks like. Now, will that make people change course?

[00:32:30] Will that make people say, you know what, we need to focus on the highest order priorities for a local government? I hope. But I don't live there. So I don't know. We'll see what they decide to do come election season. But there are a lot of reasons why it ended up the way it has ended up. There are a lot of bad decisions. I went over this last week, right? Bad policies, bad priorities and bad politics. Will any of those change?

[00:33:02] Again, I hope so. But I don't know. The death toll now out there is up to 24 with 12 people still missing. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.