Catastrophes and capitalism: can capital markets protect people from disasters?

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• 00:03

  The Economist. Right now I'm standing in Altadena with some contractors and some folks from the Environmental Protection Agency watching them do hazardous waste removal.

• 00:20

  Aaron Braun is The Economist's West Coast correspondent.

• 00:24

  She's been to one of the neighborhoods ravaged by the L.A. fires to see the recovery process.

• 00:30

  So they were honestly digging through with their hands and with shovels.

• 00:35

  One of the lots here to see if there's anything that might explode that's hazardous,

• 00:42

  pesticides, paint cans, lithium batteries, that kind of thing.

• 00:46

  I'm Harry Allen.

• 00:48

  I'm an EPA on-scene coordinator.

• 00:51

  What are the risks there with the batteries?

• 00:53

  Yeah, so if you have a fire that's... partially consumes a lithium-ion battery array,

• 01:00

  whether it's in a tool or a toy or an EV, those batteries can react without warning.

• 01:07

  And when they react, they heat up and they start to expand.

• 01:11

  The top pops off and then there's a jet fire.

• 01:15

  So like a little Roman candle.

• 01:17

  And if you've got thousands of these, you've got thousands of jet fires.

• 01:21

  The lot that I'm at right now,

• 01:23

  the only thing that's still standing is part of the chimney.

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  And that's something that's been really characteristic of these fires where I'm looking around the neighborhood right now and you can just see chimney,

• 01:34

  chimney, chimney, and everything below it is just rubble.

• 01:40

  So hazardous waste removal is the first phase of cleanup for these fires.

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