GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: What Blue Zone Collapse Looks Like.

In 2019, a house started burning on Bethel Island, out at the eastern edges of the Bay Area. The East Contra Costa Fire Protection District — which no longer exists, for reasons that will be clear enough — had been eroding for years, closing one fire station after another as funding ran short. In 2019, ten firefighters (three each on three fire engines plus one battalion chief) covered 250 square miles, much of it well-populated. Bethel Island no longer had a fire station. Scroll to page two on this later report that discussed the reform of fire agencies in Contra Costa County, and you’ll find the fire department’s average response time to major emergencies on Bethel Island: a little under 14 minutes for the arrival of the first engine. So there was a house fire, which spread and turned into several house fires, and that cluster of fires was finally brought under control about three hours after the first house started burning. But the fire department existed. It didn’t collapse. In a serious emergency, an adequate response could be summoned in an hour or two.

One you start looking for this — government agencies that exist but are entirely inadequate for the performance of their basic responsibilities — you can find it everywhere.

Read the whole thing.