"...But meanwhile, in the real (dry) world, did Brown’s state prepare for such a disaster during either its recent four-year dry spell or its near-record wet year in 2016?
Hardly.
Over some 50 consecutive months of drought, California did not start work on a single major reservoir — though many had long ago been planned and designed.Instead, given the lack of water-storage capacity, and due to environmental diversions, tens of millions of acre-feet of precious runoff water last year were simply let out to the ocean.
This year, the state may want all of that water back.
...The hillsides are overgrown with drought-stricken scrub and half-dead trees, in part due to restrictions on grazing, brush removal, and logging.
They prove to be veritable kindling that fuels raging fires.
Coastal California is hilly, difficult to build on, and prone to devastating earthquakes.
It is semi-arid, without much of an aquifer.
The life-giving watershed of the Sierra Nevada is more than 200 miles away.
In other words, some of the people most eager to offer green sermons to others live in one of the most artificial and ecologically fragile environments on the planet.
What are the lessons for the nation from these random glimpses of 21st-century California?..."
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