Well done Paulie, I was waiting to see who would be first to swallow the faux headline hook, line and sinker. Some notable differences between Katrina and the recent wildfires in SoCal:

1. An effective local/state emergency response was planned and actually worked.
2. 75 years of working together rather than building an entitlement sub group wholly dependent on the elected party machine.
3. Learned lessons from 1993, 199, 2002 and 2004.
4. Insurance companies willing to pay extra to protect their coverages. . The Santa Anna knows no socio-economic class.

An interesting aside is that local helitanker company, Erickson Air-Crane has been trying to sell aircraft to LA County and other agencies down south for about 10 years. They even offered their services DIRECTLY to the insurers without success.

The one-sided story completely missed the salient fact that over 50 of the housing growth in the affected areas has been in the urban-wildland interface. You can't build there and not expect catastrophe.

People who think a California wildfire is a good comparison to Katrina really irritate me, and I know they don't mean to. Come back to me about how affluence makes a difference when the city of San Diego is nothing but ash. And/or pounded down eight feet below sea level and filled up like a bowl of water.

The closest fire stopped 15 miles away. California wildfires happen all the time, and there's a frequently trained infrastructure in place to deal with it. There was no "flooded like a bowl of water" department with "flooded like a bowl of water" fighters to save New Orleans, and it wasn't because they were poor. The Superdome was flooded, the electricity cut, and running water stopped. Of course it was better at Qualcomm.

Blaming Bush, FEMA, etc. for their handling of Katrina is fair enough, but there is a lot of blame to go around. The affected city, parish and state governments deserve their share - and so do many of the people in Louisiana who knew of the corruption in their governments and among their officials and went along merrily with this squalid debasement of their society. And failure of citizenship is not limited to Louisiana. It applies to all states with maybe the exception of Vermont. In part, the controversies associated with Measures 49 and 50 are attributable to Oregonians looking out for their personal interests and ignoring those of the state.

This posting reminds me of the current fire situation in rural parts of Josephine County. We have three private companies that compete for subscriptions from people living in those areas. A couple of weeks ago, a house caught fire and all three companies responded. The company this guy subscribed to was actually the last to show up, and told one of the other companies that their assistance wasn't needed. Another company left because they were dousing the flames from one direction while the other company did it from another, which is a big no-no in firefighting. The worst part is, the company with the contract actually RAN OUT OF WATER while fighting the fire. To make a long story short, the house burned to the ground, no thanks to the three competing companies, and the situation here is the fireman equivalant of the Keystone Kops. But the good news is, the county commissioners are starting to lean towards a fire district...after 50 plus years of having no such thing.

I would be interested in knowing the particulars of the private fire-fighting companies involved in the San Diego County fires.

My brothers were both evacuated during the worst of the firestorm. One has returned home now--no damage. The other is allowed to go home but has been psychologically incapable of doing so because 75% of the houses in his neighborhood burned to the ground. He tells me that the crews that fought the fires in his neighborhood were from as far away as Santa Cruz (several hundred miles) and had to do triage to same what they considered salvageable while letting the rest burn.

And yes, there is disaster planning, but when a wildfire is big enough and weather conditions are sufficiently severe (if you've never experienced Santa Ana winds, you really cannot grasp the situation), there's just no way to fight the fire.

Ah yeah, war is still a highly honored and revered though flawed mechanism for resolving human conflicts and distributing the loot. As true as that may be, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to wait for war fans to come to their senses before doing something to sensibly address inevitable calamities guaranteed by building stick frame houses in tinder boxes.

Are the burned out residents really going to be permitted to rebuild those same kinds of houses in that setting? What about concrete? Or, build partially underground?

Are the burned out residents really going to be permitted to rebuild those same kinds of houses in that setting?

I heard a radio broadcast via streaming audio from KPBS (San Diego PBS affiliate) about how the rebuilding would provide an economic stimulus. Diane Feinstein's musings out loud notwithstanding, there seems to be no move afoot to impose restrictions...nothing akin to buying out property owners in floodplains after disastrous Mississippi River floods.

Disaster capitalism is a term used to describe an industry of private companies that are contracted to do a variety of tasks following a disaster.

I think it would be useful to distinguish between private companies that take advantage of a disaster situation, and private companies that simply exist to help with the problem, aftermath, etc. You seem to lump the two together and characterize all privatization as bad.

There are good reasons why it makes sense to have private companies assist the government during and after disasters. Most governments only have to deal with a true disaster every 10-20 years. It's difficult -- and probably wasteful -- to fully staff a robust disaster response department when you rarely need it. Private companies, however, can fill in the holes that exist in government operations, and sometimes can do it cheaper and more efficiently because they may be able to respond regionally, or nationally. As part of any disaster preparedness plan, state and local governments should evaluate the use of private contractors BEFORE the disaster hits, so that when it does everyone is on the same page.

Conservatives believe, ideologically, that privatization is always good and government is always bad, regardless of actual facts. Let's not make the same mistake they do from the other side of the ideological divide.

Miles:

Please take this response in the way it is intended, as a genuine question, not an attack: How can a private company be better able to wait a decade or two for billable work than a government agency?

It seems like it would be the opposite. I would expect the shareholders to demand some income to cover the 10 - 20 years of wages, inventory, equipment, etc.

I'm thinking the long waits apply to state and local governments. But across the country, there may be a number of disasters every year, and the private companies can respond cross-jurisdictionally in a way that state and local governments can't.

A friend of mine works for a disaster response logistics group in Arlinton, DC. They fly across the country after disasters -- like the Olypmics bombing, hurricanes, fires, etc. -- to provide logistical support and emergency assistance. It seems to me that using private companies like this to fill in the holes in a state or city's emergency response just makes sense.

Ah. I see what you mean now. Thanks.