They definitely do? Surplus is more than just extra shit sitting in storage until you need it. You gotta maintain that equipment, which requires people, time, and money. If the equipment isn't maintained it would be just as useless as not having it at all. Obviously there is a line somewhere when it becomes too costly to maintain surplus equipment and it's better to get rid of it.

I'm not saying LAFD is run well or defending any of this shit, but to call people morons (kinda ableist btw) over this is silly and you're wrong anyway

[–] AmarkuntheGatherer@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 2 days ago

Disaster management is preparing for the worst scenarios, that includes having more equipment then just enough for the people already signed up to do the work. I didn't say or imply that they should just hoard stuff and forget about it.

California has wildfires regularly. They should have a whole lot of people on the payroll as regular firefighters, train potential volunteers to assist in fires, and have trucks, planes etc ready for this exact situation. This state and its cities are extremely wealthy. I can criticise countries like Greece and Turkey when they make errors, call out blatant mistakes, but at the end of the day I won't call them imbeciles as I do people in charge in California and LA. One has all the resources in the world, the other doesn't.