Trump opens the valve - How much damage has he done?

[keith99]

MSN

In short. He ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release large amounts of water with almost no warning.

Done after the Eaton and Palisades fires are 100% contained. Into rivers that do not go to Los Angeles.

But it gets better. This is water carefully managed so farmers will have it for their crops this coming summer. It is more likely that the unplanned release will cause damage than it doing any good for anyone.

 

[durangodawood]

He just walks around knocking things over.

 

[d taylor]

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Oh he is right on scheduled. After he gets through the republican party will be unelectable, that is for the office of president.

 

[Landon Caeli]

MSN

In short. He ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release large amounts of water with almost no warning.

Done after the Eaton and Palisades fires are 100% contained. Into rivers that do not go to Los Angeles.

But it gets better. This is water carefully managed so farmers will have it for their crops this coming summer. It is more likely that the unplanned release will cause damage than it doing any good for anyone.

Well, I mean you guys said you needed water down there... Sooo, there's the water.

...It's pure spring.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

As far as the damage done? That would remain to be seen, but it sounds like some local/state officials intervened to enough of a degree to where "disaster" has been mitigated.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/trump-california-water-00201909

But this is the "ready fire aim" approach he's become synonymous with.

Clearly California had some water resource management issues to iron out (firemen should never be running out of water to fight fires, especially not in a state that borders the largest body of water on the planet), but not every issue/problem lends itself well to the "over-correction, let's do the polar opposite" approach.

That "overcorrection leads to correction" approach typically only finds balance for social issues, not issues rooted in logistics, math, and hard sciences.


The analogy I'd use is the "antibiotics" analogy.

If your doctor erroneously prescribes you only 250MG for 7 days, and it's not enough to knock out the bacterial infection...that operational failure/breakdown doesn't mean a person should take 10,000MG for 60 days, as that overcorrection would create more problems than it solved.

 

[keith99]

Well, I mean you guys said you needed water down there... Sooo, there's the water.

...It's pure spring.

NO. Trump said we needed water. There was more than enough water in Stone Canyon. But water can only go through pipes so fast.

 

[durangodawood]

Ages ago I worked for a water district in an area that I can tell you is now fairly petrified by the prospect of wildfire. Municipal water systems were never designed so every hydrant for miles around could be opened and provide pressure at the same time. The idea was just to have a hydrant available every few hundred feet for a house fire here. Or there. Not houses threatened or burning all around for miles at the same time.

 

[Aaron112]

If your doctor erroneously prescribes you only 250MG for 7 days, and it's not enough to knock out the bacterial infection...that operational failure/breakdown doesn't mean a person should take 10,000MG for 60 days, as that overcorrection would create more problems than it solved.

Problem with anal-ogies like this is they ignore the widely available natural means that easily conquer the problems in a persons body, without causing much more serioius problems like normal med protocols in the usa.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Problem with anal-ogies like this is they ignore the widely available natural means that easily conquer the problems in a persons body, without causing much more serioius problems like normal med protocols in the usa.

That wasn't meant to start a side discussion about meds in American, it was merely to highlight that "overcorrection" isn't a good form of correction for certain issues.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Ages ago I worked for a water district in an area that I can tell you is now fairly petrified by the prospect of wildfire. Municipal water systems were never designed so every hydrant for miles around could be opened and provide pressure at the same time. The idea was just to have a hydrant available every few hundred feet for a house fire here. Or there. Not houses threatened or burning all around for miles at the same time.

Does no one remember the stories (perhaps apocryphal) about some municipal water systems losing pressure during the super bowl halftime? Or remember the "jokesters" who liked to flush the all toilets after gym class while others were showering?

You just can't all flush at once.

 

[BCP1928]

That's what happens in a "woke" state like California when you let so many people use the wrong bathrooms.

 

[loveofourlord]

Well, I mean you guys said you needed water down there... Sooo, there's the water.

...It's pure spring.

into FARMLANDS??

 

[Landon Caeli]

into FARMLANDS??

As long as the crops can hang on at their roots, it's gonna be fine!

 

[keith99]

...

Clearly California had some water resource management issues to iron out (firemen should never be running out of water to fight fires, especially not in a state that borders the largest body of water on the planet), but not every issue/problem lends itself well to the "over-correction, let's do the polar opposite" approach.

...

The issue was water pressure, not water. Stone Canyon holds over 3 billion gallons of water and is almost 1000 feet higher than sea level.

Any method that would have used sea water through the pipes would have worked much better using water from Stone Canyon.

I guess we could run a completely separate system of pipes for fire fighting. One 10 times as large as what exists now. Then add pumping stations with redundant power supplies. But that would still do little for the hillsides with no roads.

10 times the number of super scooper planes would have helped, a lot. But not in the crucial first hours when wind conditions had them grounded.

Replacing all the buildings with ones more fire resistant is the only thing I can think of that would have made a significant difference, but the cost would have been nearly as much as rebuilding now with such building will be.

 

[Yarddog]

MSN

In short. He ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release large amounts of water with almost no warning.

Done after the Eaton and Palisades fires are 100% contained. Into rivers that do not go to Los Angeles.

But it gets better. This is water carefully managed so farmers will have it for their crops this coming summer. It is more likely that the unplanned release will cause damage than it doing any good for anyone.

The water won't reach southern California.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Does no one remember the stories (perhaps apocryphal) about some municipal water systems losing pressure during the super bowl halftime? Or remember the "jokesters" who liked to flush the all toilets after gym class while others were showering?

You just can't all flush at once.

The only large scale usage stat I’ve heard correlated with the super bowl in the last several years has to do with traffic to AdultContentHub dot com.

 

[KCfromNC]

But it gets better. This is water carefully managed so farmers will have it for their crops this coming summer. It is more likely that the unplanned release will cause damage than it doing any good for anyone.

This will bring own egg prices, right?

 

[7thKeeper]

Well, I mean you guys said you needed water down there... Sooo, there's the water.

...It's pure spring.

Now this is just being ignorant or malicious about the issue...

 

[wing2000]

As far as the damage done? That would remain to be seen, but it sounds like some local/state officials intervened to enough of a degree to where "disaster" has been mitigated.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/trump-california-water-00201909

But this is the "ready fire aim" approach he's become synonymous with.

Aiming with no other purpose than support his false talking points. Directing the Army Corp of Engineers to release water when it's not needed is just stupid...and wasteful.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Well, I mean you guys said you needed water down there...

We did not. We tried to explain it to him at the roundtable with local leaders here, but Trump is incorrigible.