re: We Build Levees

Obviously they don't need a levee. They need to invest in what they need to prevent this destruction caused by the inevitable fires they will get.

This is all such a tragedy that could have been and was predicted and therefore mitigated. Leadership matters and it seems a lot of our "leadership" focuses on feel good and down right ridiculous matters that don't matter..

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The “salts’” in the water are corrosive but given the situation you build a system that can handle the salt and especially if you are close to the ocean you spray this water, as is, on your house. Everybody within a new blocks of the oceans does this let’s say. Hey if it’s my $5M house that’s something I’d do.

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No, you would not do it. You are saying this because you don’t understand the issues you would face. The very system you are contemplating has been installed on dozens of Gulf of Mexico (America?) platforms over the last few decades. I’ve been involved in a substantial number of these. I’ve seen how much they cost. The system would cost more than your $5 million house.

As I posted, if your house was very low lying you could have a system made of fiberglass pipe that would not cost more than your house. But you would still need a way of deploying a high volume pump that avoids it sitting in seawater when it’s not being used. If the shore was a beach you’d need a long intake pipe jutting out to where the water is clear even at low tide. You’d need to support this pipe against the tremendous forces of storm driven waves.

If the shore was a cliff (not tall because then you’d run into expensive pressure problems) you could get clarified water near shore. But you’d still have to have a way of deploying the pump into the ocean when you need it. In the meantime, you’d have an unsightly pump and lowering apparatus junking up your expensive property.

Then you’d need to get electricity to this pump. That means a dedicated generator with enough copper to handle the inrush current of your pump. Remember, there would be no utility power. All of this requires special marine grade products and techniques to install and maintain.

I don’t want to write a book. I’m just trying to explain to you that as an engineer, who spent his career in detail design and management of detail design, I know that the devil is in the details. Lots of ideas sound great until you do a FEED, then the price comes into focus, and ideas like this get abandoned with a quickness.

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greater than 80% of California’s water supply is controlled by Big Ag … mostly the almond growers.

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So that's where smoked almonds come from?

Given the location of the properties to the OCEAN and the predictability of the FIRES and the VALUE of what has been lost I'm guessing a group of common sense folks could get together and design a system that would have saved a lot of these houses, schools, and businesses..

I can't imagine a fresh water system ever having the volume of water available to solve this problem. I think this problem will require multiple solutions one of which includes the use of the OCEAN.

Take your low pressure plan and Install a low pressure salt water header and each home or group of homes has its own booster pump. Not every home would require an intake as the homes are physically close together. This isn't off shore Gulf of Mexico geography. This will require a thinking outside a box mentality. Big picture solution for a big picture problem.

If something like this isn't developed these areas will never be rebuilt as insurance is going to cost prohibitive.

Ill thought out regulations and poorly trained regulators with a lack of common sense is one of our country's biggest obstacles to progress.

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Umm they can. It's called annual debris and underbrush cleanup. They just refuse to remove the fuel that causes wildfires on an annual basis. So they get wildfires. Imagine that.

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I mean... if they want to live in the middle of the forest, then they really outta keep the underforest clean, because it's gonna get cleaned up one way or the other. They can clean it up... or nature will clean it up... as we are seeing it do right now. Right?

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Some engineer probably told them it would be cost prohibitive.

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Yup

The intercoastal waterway would have been 30 miles instead of 3,000.