Those stupid Californians building home in a forest.

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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Location
The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I was watching a PBS special about the 2018 fires in California. I was thinking about those stupid Californians, who built homes in the middle of a forest, which gets routine fires about every five years. Then I looked around. My home in Northeast Pa. is totally surrounded by forest. The area is called Blueberry Hill because of the blueberry bushes, which grew here, after a huge fire ravaged the place years ago.

I began to wonder if we, humans, are rather stupid to be building in areas we know will be under water, or burnt up. Places like New Orleans, which is going to be inundated again, whether we like it or not. Places like California forests, which will burn again, as they have done for centuries. Or building in a known flood plane. Rather than rebuilding, should we try to limit the rebuilding?
 

I would have thought that last very bad fire that killed so many - people would be more
open minded to know how easy a fire can start in the heat ' my self it seems a horrific nightmare to lose ones home …………….
 

In researching Colorado, I'm amazed how many have chosen to live on slopes, surrounded by heavy forest. Fire moves uphill, due to drafting and other physical forces. In the event of major fires, those on heavily forested slopes are in grave danger. Some of the towns, I'm considering, now have major problems with bears, mountain lions and deer coming right into their city centers. Guess why.

Yeah, I am in favor of laws prohibiting folks from clearing heavy forests in order to build their glitzy mountain chalets. Sorry, you anti-laws folks.
 
C'est Moi said:
Who is "we," and how do you propose to limit rebuilding? More laws? No thanks.
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Recently, heard on the news that a developer was being sued as their building in progress runoff caused flooding in a neighboring community. Guess more lawsuits are inevitable regarding flooding. When a precedent is set, then it becomes the norm.
 
Taxpayers also fund FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program that encourages folks to re-build in storm and flood-prone areas such as waterfront on barrier islands.
 
Yeh there might be some areas where there should be no building. But exactly where would all these people then. Cities and many suburbs are already saturated. I don't want to live in neighborhoods with nothing but apartments and town homes because that means traffic and wait times.

No thanks I take may chances in the wild or less developed areas.
 
Liberty said:
Recently, heard on the news that a developer was being sued as their building in progress runoff caused flooding in a neighboring community. Guess more lawsuits are inevitable regarding flooding. When a precedent is set, then it becomes the norm.
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If the developer failed to take existing properties into consideration and that oversight caused flooding, then that's on the developer, not the homeowners who were victimized by the builder's lack of foresight. Lawsuits are the only way to remedy this - surely the developer and developer's insurance company won't stop the work, remedy the situation or pay out without lawyers being involved.
 
Liberty said:
Recently, heard on the news that a developer was being sued as their building in progress runoff caused flooding in a neighboring community. Guess more lawsuits are inevitable regarding flooding. When a precedent is set, then it becomes the norm.
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StarSong said:
If the developer failed to take existing properties into consideration and that oversight caused flooding, then that's on the developer, not the homeowners who were victimized by the builder's lack of foresight. Lawsuits are the only way to remedy this - surely the developer and developer's insurance company won't stop the work, remedy the situation or pay out without lawyers being involved.
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What StarSong said. That's not indicative of any law broken by a homeowner.


 
I take more issue with developers who clear forests to put in shopping malls that last for a few years and are abandoned. There is no reclaiming of these asphalt and cement monstrosities. I see it in the county seat of the rural area where I live. Really stinks the way people think nothing of clearing more and more forest for yet another shopping center, or bank, or fast food restaurant as if we don't have enough of that.
 
StarSong said:
If the developer failed to take existing properties into consideration and that oversight caused flooding, then that's on the developer, not the homeowners who were victimized by the builder's lack of foresight. Lawsuits are the only way to remedy this - surely the developer and developer's insurance company won't stop the work, remedy the situation or pay out without lawyers being involved.
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Yep, it was determined the flooding did not come from the front of the houses (street flooding), but the back of the houses which was where the water ran in. The work in progress was from the development behind the neighborhood.
 
I lived in Northern California for 35 years in a rural county (Tuolumne) in a little city (Sonora) in the foothills of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada . This little city is at 1800' elevation and below the mountain forests. When I moved to Missouri I kept the house as a rental and have had the same renter for 13 years.

Last July my insurance company sent a representative out to take pictures of the place. Soon I received a letter from them saying that I had to comply with wildfire mitigation guidelines within 6 weeks. In order to comply I would have had to cut down every tree and uproot every shrub on the plot. I went as far as trying to contact someone to do the work, but everyone I talked to was either too busy to meet the deadline or outright said they could not do it.

Now, mind you, this is a house in the city limits that has houses on all sides and is close to the fire department and fire hydrants. So I did the only reasonable thing. I switched insurance companies. The caveat was the premium tripled. Now I'm trying to find someone to paint the outside then I will list it for sale.

Bottom line, almost no insurance companies want to insure houses in CA.
 
I live in CA and have no difficulty obtaining fire insurance - just changed companies without a hitch.

Local fire departments require properties to remain cleared of brush, highly flammable trees, and certain types of vegetation that abuts homes. Non-compliant homeowners are fined and face the very real possibility of their city performing the work and billing for it (at a very high cost). Certain areas are more vulnerable than others (canyons and heavily treed areas). Insurance companies can be even more restrictive because they don't want to pay out for claims. After the disaster that was Paradise, CA, who can blame either the FDs or insurance companies?

Florida, the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard are periodically damaged by hurricanes, inland areas get slammed by tornadoes, droughts and floods, and northern states get massive blizzards.

No place on the planet is safe from Mother Nature's ravages - and it's getting worse.
 
TravelinMan said:
I lived in Northern California for 35 years in a rural county (Tuolumne) in a little city (Sonora) in the foothills of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada . This little city is at 1800' elevation and below the mountain forests. When I moved to Missouri I kept the house as a rental and have had the same renter for 13 years.

Last July my insurance company sent a representative out to take pictures of the place. Soon I received a letter from them saying that I had to comply with wildfire mitigation guidelines within 6 weeks. In order to comply I would have had to cut down every tree and uproot every shrub on the plot. I went as far as trying to contact someone to do the work, but everyone I talked to was either too busy to meet the deadline or outright said they could not do it.

Now, mind you, this is a house in the city limits that has houses on all sides and is close to the fire department and fire hydrants. So I did the only reasonable thing. I switched insurance companies. The caveat was the premium tripled. Now I'm trying to find someone to paint the outside then I will list it for sale.

Bottom line, almost no insurance companies want to insure houses in CA.
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TravelinMan said:
Well, I should hope not. You live in the middle of a friggin' huge city!
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Actually, I live in a suburb that's far from the middle of the city. I was responding to your generalization that almost no insurance companies want to insure houses in CA.
 

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