The Wildfires thread

[hotdogPi]

Many people don't have a choice on where to live because they can't afford to move.

[Max Rockatansky]

If someone can afford $2,500-$4,000 apartments on their own fair chance they can move (I am aware a lot of these are roommate situations).

[jakeroot]

It is possible to love living someplace in spite of the occasional drawback.

It's no different than if people move to an area where the best route to work involves tolls, then complain there's tolls. In most cases the tolls have existed for years if not decades; they didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

Equating tolls with air conditioning seems pretty tasteless. 159 people died of heat-related illnesses in Seattle during a three-week heatwave in 2021.

[Max Rockatansky]

I loved living in Arizona.  Problem was that the housing market just became too pricy around Phoenix.  I didn't think that I stood a chance of owning a home within the next decade and didn't want to rent forever.  I figured rolling the dice on a job elsewhere was worth the risk and it ended up playing out in my favor. 

[kalvado]

It is possible to love living someplace in spite of the occasional drawback.

It's no different than if people move to an area where the best route to work involves tolls, then complain there's tolls. In most cases the tolls have existed for years if not decades; they didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

Equating tolls with air conditioning seems pretty tasteless. 159 people died of heat-related illnesses in Seattle during a three-week heatwave in 2021.

All these "that many people died.."  have to be taken with a grain of salt. More often than not these are people with underlying condition, who died during event (heat, air quality, stress,  disturbed sleep pattern after DST) as opposed to lasting another month or two (or maybe a week or two).
At least that logic is  apparently OK to justify clock adjustments despite demonstrated increase of death rates.

[Bruce]

At the very least, governments should require developers to stop using awful windows that don't allow for a normal AC to be installed. The partial casement windows that mean using a jerry-rigged setup to just fit the vent in and cover up the rest is the worst trend ever. I sit here grumbling about my windows that slide horizontally (thus leaving a giant gap for air to intrude when using my portable AC, and not allowing a conventional window AC).

Most people around here who remember the good old days of the 2000s have never had to experience yearly heat waves and smoke events. The sudden change is not going to wait for the market to catch up. Some cities in BC are already mandating ACs in new builds since it'd be cheaper than paying for healthcare costs during a prolonged heat wave.

[jeffandnicole]

It is possible to love living someplace in spite of the occasional drawback.

It's no different than if people move to an area where the best route to work involves tolls, then complain there's tolls. In most cases the tolls have existed for years if not decades; they didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

Equating tolls with air conditioning seems pretty tasteless. 159 people died of heat-related illnesses in Seattle during a three-week heatwave in 2021.

Quite some cherry picking of data there.

[kkt]

There is no reason AC should be mandatory in Seattle.  My house had AC installed but it stopped working a couple of years ago and I haven't bothered to get it repaired.  The house is pretty well insulated and opening the windows at night and early morning and then closing them about 11 AM is a winning strategy for keeping the house pleasant.  AC would only be needed for a couple of weeks a year anyway.

[bing101]

https://www.kcra.com/article/crews-contain-wind-driven-grass-fire-that-closed-jackson-highway-sac-county/44867335#

A Grass Fire is reported in the Sacramento area.

[jakeroot]

Equating tolls with air conditioning seems pretty tasteless. 159 people died of heat-related illnesses in Seattle during a three-week heatwave in 2021.

Quite some cherry picking of data there.

True. Just saying no one has died from paying a toll.

There is no reason AC should be mandatory in Seattle.  My house had AC installed but it stopped working a couple of years ago and I haven't bothered to get it repaired.  The house is pretty well insulated and opening the windows at night and early morning and then closing them about 11 AM is a winning strategy for keeping the house pleasant.  AC would only be needed for a couple of weeks a year anyway.

Single-family homes are a different situation. You can more easily create a cross-breeze and/or move to a lower floor during hot days (if that's an option). Plus, Seattle itself doesn't usually get as hot as the surrounding suburbs (mostly to the east and south). Apartments are really where there is concern. As Bruce highlights above, window designs leave a lot to be desired, often installing an AC unit exhaust is a massive project in itself. The single-facing windows (usually the case except corner units) also make it much harder to create any sort of breeze. Upper floors also get hotter; I used to live on the 9th of 10 floors in Tacoma, and it was hot even in winter. The more annoying issue is actually the apartments themselves. The same apartments out east, in the south, down in California, the southwest, wherever, certainly would have AC or an easy way to install an AC unit. Not so in many Seattle area apartments. Only recently has there been a trend to install outlets for portable AC unit exhaust tubes.

[Scott5114]

If someone can afford $2,500-$4,000 apartments on their own fair chance they can move (I am aware a lot of these are roommate situations).

If they're paying $4,000 a month on rent they may not have anything left over to save toward moving.

Trust me, I hate living where I do now, and I would do anything I could to not do so, but unfortunately I had no choice in where my parents lived when they had me, and now I'm stuck here until I can scrape up enough cash. Who knows when that's going to be, so I may well die of a tornado before then.

[kalvado]

True. Just saying no one has died from paying a toll.

You really need to take more bullshitting classes and improve bulshitting skills. Especially if you want to do things like urban design - I would think few bullshitting courses would be a general pre-requestive for that major?

In a country with lots of poor people, and a significant number of hunger deaths (11% of the population are food insecure, and more than 10 thousand people a year die from hunger) any extra charge - like tolls or extra cost of AC - may result in people pushed over the edge. Not to mention toll enforcement strategies, where people accumulating significant toll debts can have their registrations revoked or cars seized, leading to the inability to work and feed the family!

This wouldn't give you a passing grade, maybe in some low-level community college; but you should definitely be able to do things better than that.

[jakeroot]

True. Just saying no one has died from paying a toll.

You really need to take more bullshitting classes and improve bulshitting skills. Especially if you want to do things like urban design - I would think few bullshitting courses would be a general pre-requestive for that major?

In a country with lots of poor people, and a significant number of hunger deaths (11% of the population are food insecure, and more than 10 thousand people a year die from hunger) any extra charge - like tolls or extra cost of AC - may result in people pushed over the edge. Not to mention toll enforcement strategies, where people accumulating significant toll debts can have their registrations revoked or cars seized, leading to the inability to work and feed the family!

This wouldn't give you a passing grade, maybe in some low-level community college; but you should definitely be able to do things better than that.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this reply.

Having an air conditioning system does not necessitate running it. If someone cannot afford to run the air conditioner for a few days (even though Washington State has the lowest power rates of any state), then they don't run it. Or the use it only when necessary, like my grandparents.

Having AC to begin with is the true obstacle. It's easier if builders just include it with the cost of construction, and roll it into the overall cost (either to buy, or rent). To be fair, this is how it is in almost all of the US. After all, over 90 percent of households in the US have air conditioning, and it seems unlikely that a plurality of those households were the installer of that AC system.

For the record: malnutrition is a much more serious issue than lack of AC.

[Max Rockatansky]

If someone can afford $2,500-$4,000 apartments on their own fair chance they can move (I am aware a lot of these are roommate situations).

If they're paying $4,000 a month on rent they may not have anything left over to save toward moving.

Trust me, I hate living where I do now, and I would do anything I could to not do so, but unfortunately I had no choice in where my parents lived when they had me, and now I'm stuck here until I can scrape up enough cash. Who knows when that's going to be, so I may well die of a tornado before then.

In my case I took a figurative vow of poverty to get out of Michigan and move to Arizona given I had only $700 in my bank account at the time out of high school.  Wasn't pretty for about three-four years and I came down to an empty bank account more often than I would like.  I had money saved along with a better plan a decade later when I relocated to Florida but it was still by no means easy.  The easiest move was from Florida to California, but that was also the only one my employer paid for. 

[kalvado]

True. Just saying no one has died from paying a toll.

You really need to take more bullshitting classes and improve bulshitting skills. Especially if you want to do things like urban design - I would think few bullshitting courses would be a general pre-requestive for that major?

In a country with lots of poor people, and a significant number of hunger deaths (11% of the population are food insecure, and more than 10 thousand people a year die from hunger) any extra charge - like tolls or extra cost of AC - may result in people pushed over the edge. Not to mention toll enforcement strategies, where people accumulating significant toll debts can have their registrations revoked or cars seized, leading to the inability to work and feed the family!

This wouldn't give you a passing grade, maybe in some low-level community college; but you should definitely be able to do things better than that.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this reply.

Having an air conditioning system does not necessitate running it. If someone cannot afford to run the air conditioner for a few days (even though Washington State has the lowest power rates of any state), then they don't run it. Or the use it only when necessary, like my grandparents.

Having AC to begin with is the true obstacle. It's easier if builders just include it with the cost of construction, and roll it into the overall cost (either to buy, or rent). To be fair, this is how it is in almost all of the US. After all, over 90 percent of households in the US have air conditioning, and it seems unlikely that a plurality of those households were the installer of that AC system.

For the record: malnutrition is a much more serious issue than lack of AC.

Apartment-central AC with install would be something on the order of $5k, maybe a bit more. We paid just shy of $9k for AC+furnace replacement a few years back, for a not to big house. 
Standard 5% interest means at least $250/year in rent for just having it installed, along with - assuming pretty long 20 year service life - another $250 in depreciation, for a total of $500/year.  With monthly rental payments, that is  $42/month, give or take. Not too much on top of $4k rent, sure. Now assume a bit of abuse and 10 year service life for a more realistic number.
So how many people would rather spend that $1.50 a day on food (or  recreational substances)?

[bing101]

https://www.kxly.com/news/air-quality-unhealthy-for-sensitive-groups-in-spokane/article_7df314f6-411b-11ee-bc91-93565f63e856.html
Spokane responds to bad air quality due to wildfires in the state.

[bing101]

State of Hawaii releases a list for the reported missing in the wildfires.

[bing101]

https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-wildfires-maui-electricity-power-utilities-9f23f79821ea50256f0725ac9b0b3905

Here is more in the investigation over the Maui Fires.

[bing101]

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/cherry-fire-vacaville-evacuations-lifted/

Reports of a wildfire in the Vacaville area is under investigation.


https://fox40.com/news/wildfire-watch/forward-progress-stopped-on-wildfire-that-prompted-evacuations-in-solano-county/

[bing101]

https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-wildfire-lahaina-tourism-unemployment-economy-e71b9020be83e39012bf69dc5cfb0d13
Here is more on the Hawaii wildfires and it's impacts.

[bing101]

https://abc7news.com/hawaii-maui-tourists-wildfires-lahaina-fires/13878570/
Maui opens up.

[Max Rockatansky]

More like Laihaina opens back up, Maui has otherwise been open.  I'm not sure what debate there really needs to be, the island is reliant upon tourism as an economic driver. 

[bing101]

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/wildfire/highland-fire-riverside-evacuations-updates-maps/103-447a54e3-83db-4d0a-9f01-ebda21b61ee6

A wildfire is reported in Riverside County, CA.

[bing101]

https://www.kitv.com/news/local/fire-in-mililani-mauka-has-burned-300-acres-40-contained-according-to-hfd/article_b186296e-782c-11ee-a9a9-af5a96ddd686.html

Another Wildfire is reported in Hawaii.

https://www.khon2.com/hawaii-fires/fire-in-mililani-has-residents-frightful-of-potential/

[bing101]

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/two-dead-dozens-homes-destroyed-bushfires-rage-across-eastern-australia-2023-10-31/

Here is more on Wildfires in Australia.