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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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If reservoir capacity was the problem, wouldn't we see the reservoirs drain, and then demand for water go unfilled only after the reservoirs were excessively drained instead of near-full? If they're not draining significantly away from full, then reservoir capacity cannot be the only issue; whatever problem is preventing water in small-but-full reservoirs from being used would presumably also thwart attempts to use water from large-and-full reservoirs.

We do see that in the summers. Right now is when fall rain fills up reservoirs (and the snowpack forms in the mountains), and both this year and last year have had well above average rainfall statewide. It's a bit like saying "battery capacity can't be the problem with my solar system, it's full at 1pm!"

That's not to say that reservoir capacity is hurting firefighting right now, which is a mix of local distribution and storage being a mess (part of what was supposed to be fixed by the bond but wasn't), and this sort of fire being really hard to fight.
The seriously wealthy people whose mansions have their own fire suppression systems and emergency water storage seem to have come out pretty well. Which could mean that a) they over prepared more than was cost-effective, or b) the state massively under prepared to deal with wildfires due to mismanagement.

The loss of fire insurance coverage indicates to me that everyone with a real financial stake in the outcome knew how bad things were and pulled out of the market to avoid the inevitable consequences.