Disaster-prone California should adopt a preventive approach, rather than a reactive one

As horrific as they may be, the wildfires sweeping through Los Angeles neighborhoods, destroying homes and businesses and killing dozens of people, are certainly not unprecedented.

Rather, they join a California continuum of natural and human-caused disasters that have afflicted the state throughout its history — fires most recently, but also earthquakes, floods, dam collapses and deadly riots. It’s as if Californians must endure periodic calamities as the cosmic cost of enjoying unmatched attributes of weather, scenic beauty, mineral wealth and enormous amounts of arable land.

Precisely 60 years ago, for example, the ruggedly beautiful northwestern corner of California coped with immensely destructive flooding from epic storms. The Eel River basin received 22 inches of rain in just two days.

Several small towns along the Eel and Klamath rivers were destroyed, drowned in as much as 50 feet of water, and dozens of state and local bridges were demolished, isolating the region. The federal government even sent naval ships, including an aircraft carrier, to bring relief supplies and assist in search and rescue efforts.

Less than a year earlier, Crescent City, a Del Norte County town afflicted by the floods, had been clobbered by a tsunami touched off by a massive earthquake in Alaska.

The persistence of disasters befalling California is underscored by just one data point: During Pete Wilson’s governorship in the 1990s, every California county was declared a disaster area at least once, and several times in some counties.

Wilson’s emergencies included the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, the 1992 Rodney King riots and heavy flooding in 1997 that sparked disaster declarations in 48 of the state’s 58 counties.

Simultaneously during his time in office, California experienced the worst recession since the Great Depression, a severe drought and was just beginning to recover from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area that destroyed a section of the Bay Bridge, among other things.

It was as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse were galloping across California, dragging Wilson behind them.

To his credit, Wilson figuratively shrugged his shoulders and assumed the role of crisis manager, even though, ironically, the disasters undermined his plans for “preventive government” that would deal with issues before they became crises.

If disasters of one kind or another are baked into California’s existence, what could be done to mitigate their impacts?

When it comes to floods and wildfires, we could — if we had the political will — either stop building homes in areas prone to flood or fire, or at least impose strict standards on construction to make buildings less vulnerable, as we do for earthquakes.

There is some anecdotal evidence that homes built with fire-resistant materials, including non-flammable roofs, have fared better in the Los Angeles fires. We could start by imposing tough new building standards when neighborhoods scorched by current fires are rebuilt.

Read More: Map: How big are the LA fires? Use this tool to overlay them atop where you live

We also need to plan for better escape routes and install better systems for warning people to evacuate. The narrow winding streets in Southern California’s upscale communities became death traps for some.

Finally, we need a new approach to insurance coverage. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is finalizing a new regulatory system that would let insurers include estimates of future losses and costs of reinsurance in their premiums, hoping that it would prop up a very unstable market.

Maybe we should go beyond that. Maybe we need the state to provide basic casualty coverage in a master statewide policy financed by mandatory fees on property, with the option for property owners to purchase supplemental coverage.

If disasters are unavoidable in California, we need to accept that fact and adopt Pete Wilson’s preventive approach, rather than merely reacting after the fact.