Meghan Daum: After the Fires, What's Left of L.A.?

Author and podcaster Meghan Daum lost her home in one of the wildfires affecting the Greater L.A. area. She joins the show to discuss what the city is like right now, and how it got this way.

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Meghan Daum: After the Fires, What's Left of L.A.?

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What have the wildfires done to southern California and the people who live there? And could any of this destruction have been prevented? Just asking questions.

The wildfires breaking out across Greater Los Angeles have so far killed at least 25 people and damaged or destroyed over 12,000 structures, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Today's guest lost her home in a fire that started in the Eaton Valley of the San Gabriel Mountains. "This is what's left of my house," she wrote on X. "Every house on the block is burned to the ground."

Meghan Daum is a writer and author of five books including The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars and The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion, a PEN Center USA Award winner for creative nonfiction. She also hosts the podcast The Unspeakable with Meghan Daum.

Sources referenced:

• Daum's X post about her destroyed home
• National Association of State Foresters' 2021 National Prescribed Fire Use Survey Report
• The Breakthrough Institute's Cost-Effectiveness Of Large-Scale Fuel Reduction for Wildfire Mitigation in California
• "Infographic: How red tape makes wildfires worse," by the Property and Environment Research Center
• "With Extreme Fires Burning, Forest Service Stops 'Good Fires' Too," by Lauren Sommer for NPR
• Governor Newsom, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Moore Discuss State-Federal Efforts to Build Wildfire Resilience
• California Department of Insurance: Data on Insurance Non-Renewals, FAIR Plan and Surplus Lines (2015-2019)
• Governor Newsom signs executive order to help Los Angeles rebuild faster and stronger

• Goodbye, red tape. Through an executive order, we are making it easier for victims of the SoCal fires to quickly rebuild their homes and lives.

  We're also extending key price gouging protections to help make rebuilding more affordable. pic.twitter.com/BMrVcFSlHL

  — Governor Newsom (@CAgovernor) January 12, 2025

• California Governor's Office of Emergency Services page on price gouging
• "State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded," by Matt Hamilton

Chapters:

• 00:00 Podcast theme
  00:27 Opening monologue
  1:44 how are you holding up?
  2:37 what is Altadena like?
  07:28 a first-person perspective on the fires starting
  12:53 Meghan's experience in Altadena post-fire
  14:06 Arson?
  17:27 Trump attacks Newsom
  21:28 Woke politics doesn't really explain California's issues.
  22:42 The various policy failures here
  26:42 How do locals feel about the state government?
  34:52 California's economic inequality is going to get worse
  43:28 Are there local shortages?
  46:04 Newsom is banning "price gouging"
  56:42 Will California see a political shift?
  01:01:04 Final question of the show

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Sorry, you'll have to do better. When I see "Woke politics doesn't really explain California's issues" in the ToC, my immediate reaction is that I am wasting my time.

Sure it doesn't explain everything. A non-woke libertarian government couldn't stop the Santa Ana winds. But BY GUM, when the city prioritizes hiring LGBTQWERTY fire fighters who are a danger to their fellow fire fighters over merit and capability, including the ability to carry a fellow firefighter out of a fire, and diverts fire fighting funds to DEI initiatives, holy hell yes woke contributed to the damages.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )]

Most of the damage is the result of democrat governance.

Case closed.

[Longtobefree]

How can you say that when there are also republicans in statewide office?

*google at work*

Oh, wait - - - -

(yes, there are 30 republican members of the state legislature, but that is not really a statewide position, they represent smaller sections. And there are 90 democrats in there, a 3 to 1 edge)

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It's going to be interesting to see how much that changes after 2028, get some idea of how much is just reflexive anti-Orange Man voting.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Californians went nuts way before Trump showed up.
They’ll keep voting for Marxists while hoping for prosperity.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

Yup. They don't hate him any more than they hated W, Romney, Dole, etc. As a guy who was basically chased out of the state he was born in, I take plenty of satisfaction in the fucks that ruined my state enjoying the fruits of their labor.

[MWAocdoc]

The level of Newsom's delusional state - or, possibly, cynicism - is almost impossible to fathom! Either he honestly believes that his emergency edicts will FORCE people to continue selling building materials they don't have at the usual price after they sell out (delusional) or this is a lie to falsely convince his constituents that he is doing something to help them when it cannot possibly succeed (cynicism). If the voters of California swallow this bunk, they deserve whatever they get.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

or [1] this is a lie to falsely convince his constituents that he is doing something to help them when it cannot possibly succeed (cynicism). [2] If the voters of California swallow this bunk, they deserve whatever they get.

Yes, and yes

[LIBtranslator]

What do Richard Pryor and tree-hugging Californians have in common?

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Pepsi? No, wait. That was Michael Jackson.

[Wizzle Bizzle]

Pepsi isn't the first thing I associate with Michael Jackson.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )]

Neither does Shrike.

[Rick James]

Racial equity.

[Uncle Jay]

Neither one can use their brains.

[Vernon Depner]

PETA?

[Don't look at me!]

Freebasing?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

A lot of those rules were passed by legislature. It would be anti-democratic to unilaterally dismiss them.

Just sayin.

[MWAocdoc]

If you like your democracy you can KEEP your democracy!

[Bruce Hayden]

“Goodbye, red tape. Through an executive order, we are making it easier for victims of the SoCal fires to quickly rebuild their homes and lives.”

“We’re also extending key price gouging protections to help make rebuilding more affordable.”

Good luck with all that. King Canute ordered the ocean not to rise. It did so anyway. You need a little price gouging to get the work done. It’s called Supply and Demand. The excess profits from “price gouging” are the economic signals required to bring in greater supplies of labor and capital. Economics 101.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Economics is patriarchy and white supremacy. This is known.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Math is racist.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Much shorter list: what is not racist.

And DEI is racist, but the right kind of racist.

[XM]

“What have the fire done to so cal?”

Aside from the loss of revenue, nothing dramatic in the short term. The state is so big that the fire was barely felt by those who live in the Long Beach or Orange County area. CA is a tale of two cities and the city with the legion of poor people / dem base was spared. Not enough to be red pilled, at least not yet.

CA won’t return to competent governance until the big one and the resulting tsunami erases the blue wall in the LA area. Or something similarly drastic. It sounds cruel and inhumane. But that is the reality and political structure of the state. Nothing that happened in FL and PA can happen here.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

I believe you are correct. They will just Democrat/ progressive/ liberal harder.

[Rick James]

Corruption and sclerotic politics must be allowed to collapse in on itself.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Yup, this will be a revealing test, but I bet the Democrats will not suffer much beyond the next LA mayoral election. California is the center of the liberal fantasy entertainment propaganda machine.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Newsome is cheerleading their version of build back better; all replacement homes will have solar roofs and composting toilets.

[Rick James]

Meghan Daum: After the Fires, What's Left of L.A.?

Well... let's do some math, shall we?

LA = expensive neighborhoods full of the super-rich and favelas and hobo camps... so... (Expensive/super-rich neighborhoods + favelas + hobo camps) - Expensive/super-rich neighborhoods = (favelas + hobo camps)

[Rick James]

*Use an 'escape' on the '/' so we don't get confused about long division.

[Uncle Jay]

"Meghan Daum: After the Fires, What's Left of L.A.?"

What's left of LA?
Well, you will be happy to know you have a woke mayor, city council members and a supporting, clueless leftist media who will blame the fires and loss of property on LAFD, climate change, capitalism and Trump.
Isn't living in a leftist hell hole like LA wonderful?

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Numbers!

12,000 homes and families out of a metro area with 4.5 million households is 0.3%. If not for photogenic fires and fun political sniping, this would not be that newsworthy.

Of course the affected percentage of rich Hollywood types who like to live close to work could be higher.

[RickAbrams]

It sounds as if LA will rebuild with and replicate the same situations which led to these wildfires. Is there even a requirement to upgrade the water systems which feed our fire hydrants? Of course not! LA's rebuild mania is a form of "burn baby burn."

[COFreeMan69]

Glad I left CA in 2007 after 32 years in the OC. For a long time, I felt that CA was an ungovernable mess of fiscal drama and poor public services -- coupled with an expansive welfare state, subpar schools, endless potholes and traffic, along with unaffordable housing and a political class of incompetence convinced me to get out before the s hit the fan.

[Not a Conservative but a Biden LOATHER]

I will be gentle, it is hard to lose your home.
BUT maybe the exit of North California as another state is the real answer. Chop off electoral votes and take the hubris from Newsom and Bass, who are struggling to even look like they care!!!

I watch Newsom and it is undeniable to me that the fire is nothing to him except a hurdle to becoming Presdient. He has the same expresseion Macron and Trudeau have during horrible tragedies.

Macron for example. He acted a complete fool at G7 and then was all puffed up with how great he is, but utter contempt from Meloni.Bless her for treating that wus of a semi-man as he deserves
https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/1200/675/Meloni-Macron-G7.png?ve=1&tl=1