Turning off Power to Combat Wildfires will hurt one group: The Elderly

[squatz1]

While I do agree on broad terms that if its going to stop a wildfire, we should be shutting down the power in certain areas -- we still must understand the effects that this has on particular groups. This would help us to determine if shutting the power off is worth the risk.

On one hand, when wildfires happen the most endangered group are elederly people: The usually are the most isolated, have the hardest time getting out of a fire situation, and so on. Similarly, when you are to shut down the power to an elderly group -- they are at the highest risk for issues due to the fact that they heavily rely on medical devices such as ventilators and dialysis machines to stay healthy (relatively healthy)

If you want proof: All you have to do is look to the most common cause of death for 2017 Hurricane Irma, where the most common cause of death was from power outages which causes medical issues that were preexisting to go untreated.

If California is to continue to do this, they must be ready for the calls from elderly and be prepared to help

RAND CORPORATION - https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/turning-off-power-to-combat-wildfires-could-harm-the.html

[Judge-Dredd]

What's the idea behind this anyway, presumably slowing the progression of the fires by reducing complications caused by burned and falling power lines?

That whole damn state is a matchbox. I feel for the elderly. Even under ideal circumstances when there aren't wildfires they don't have the same luxury to pick up and move like younger people. Others have a chance to leave and they don't.

California may be beautiful but there are simply too many reasons NOT to live there.

It's an ecological and political timebomb.

[squatz1]

What's the idea behind this anyway, presumably slowing the progression of the fires by reducing complications caused by burned and falling power lines?

That whole damn state is a matchbox. I feel for the elderly. Even under ideal circumstances when there aren't wildfires they don't have the same luxury to pick up and move like younger people. Others have a chance to leave and they don't.

California may be beautiful but there are simply too many reasons NOT to live there.

It's an ecological and political timebomb.

The idea behind it -- which is a good one at heart -- is that they're shutting off the power in certain areas with high winds to stop a fire from starting due to downed wires or something along those lines. It sounds good at first, but the thing is that California hasn't done anything to stop these wildfires from starting.

What they should've been doing for decades is allowing for tons of controlled burns to happen. This would've allowed them to remove flammable materials from the ground, so this sort of thing won't happen again.

But that's not what they're doing -- they're putting lives in danger by not doing controlled burns to control this and by continuing to turn on and off the power for areas that truly need it.

[Judge-Dredd]

@squatz1

So essentially the common human nature of being reactive instead of proactive. You'd think with the history of drought and wildfires in California there would be an intelligent policy change in regards to combating these events. This is going to continue as long as they allow it. Geography certainly isn't helping.

Seems the politicians and officials in California care more about social issues like pushing gender neutral pronouns on everyone than they do the infrastructure of the state and well being of their citizens.

Arizona bay anyone?

[squatz1]

@squatz1

So essentially the common human nature of being reactive instead of proactive. You'd think with the history of drought and wildfires in California there would be an intelligent policy change in regards to combating these events. This is going to continue as long as they allow it. Geography certainly isn't helping.

Seems the politicians and officials in California care more about social issues like pushing gender neutral pronouns on everyone than they do the infrastructure of the state and well being of their citizens.

Arizona bay anyone?

Yeah, the problem is that controlled burns do cause a good deal of pollution -- probably not as much as a forest fire, but usually the biggest opposition comes from the localities near the controlled fire. As while it is 'controlled' there is sometimes where thing can get out of hand. So the people around them are nervous.

You'd much rather see proactive policies -- look here for a good deal of them https://calmatters.org/explainers/solving-california-wildfires-why-dont-we-do-these-things/

This source explains the pros and cons of common talking points when we're talking about forest fires.

[BADecker]

Turning off Power to Combat Wildfires will hurt one group: The Elderly.

Yeah. They're old anyway. Let 'em burn, right?

[Spendulus]

@squatz1

So essentially the common human nature of being reactive instead of proactive. You'd think with the history of drought and wildfires in California there would be an intelligent policy change in regards to combating these events. This is going to continue as long as they allow it. Geography certainly isn't helping.

Seems the politicians and officials in California care more about social issues like pushing gender neutral pronouns on everyone than they do the infrastructure of the state and well being of their citizens.

Arizona bay anyone?

Yeah, the problem is that controlled burns do cause a good deal of pollution -- probably not as much as a forest fire, but usually the biggest opposition comes from the localities near the controlled fire. As while it is 'controlled' there is sometimes where thing can get out of hand. So the people around them are nervous.

You'd much rather see proactive policies -- look here for a good deal of them https://calmatters.org/explainers/solving-california-wildfires-why-dont-we-do-these-things/

This source explains the pros and cons of common talking points when we're talking about forest fires.

What I'd do if I was Trump is to be sure that batshit crazy moon bats like CA governor and legislators don't get a dime of federal money until they straighten quite a few things out. And until then they need to STFU.

[squatz1]

@squatz1

So essentially the common human nature of being reactive instead of proactive. You'd think with the history of drought and wildfires in California there would be an intelligent policy change in regards to combating these events. This is going to continue as long as they allow it. Geography certainly isn't helping.

Seems the politicians and officials in California care more about social issues like pushing gender neutral pronouns on everyone than they do the infrastructure of the state and well being of their citizens.

Arizona bay anyone?

Yeah, the problem is that controlled burns do cause a good deal of pollution -- probably not as much as a forest fire, but usually the biggest opposition comes from the localities near the controlled fire. As while it is 'controlled' there is sometimes where thing can get out of hand. So the people around them are nervous.

You'd much rather see proactive policies -- look here for a good deal of them https://calmatters.org/explainers/solving-california-wildfires-why-dont-we-do-these-things/

This source explains the pros and cons of common talking points when we're talking about forest fires.

What I'd do if I was Trump is to be sure that batshit crazy moon bats like CA governor and legislators don't get a dime of federal money until they straighten quite a few things out. And until then they need to STFU.

I think this is what should be done. That's the only real way to force change -- saying OKAY if you don't want to do this, then we're going to withold some federal grants for you to schools and such. Boom -- now you have soemthing that can be done.

But CA has no reason to want to do that if they keep getting flooded with federal money and more government when something like this happens.

If you fix the problem once and for all you don't need more and more government agencies and control.

If you let the problem continue, but act like you're fixing things (or fix small issues so it looks like progress) Then you're going to be able to get away with this system.

Hopefully they're forced to fix their issues though.