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Comment by sbuttgereit | Hacker News Reader

The reason this article is likely appearing now is because the Getty Center proper is currently in a zone which is under evacuation orders:

"The Getty Center, situated in Brentwood, draws 1.8 million visitors annually and houses hundreds of centuries-old art pieces from renowned artists such as Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Monet.

But even though as of Saturday, the center was included in a mandatory evacuation zone as a result of the Palisades Fire expansion into Brentwood, the center insisted its campus is the "safest place possible" for its massive art collection."

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/heres-how-the-getty...

This news report links the the article posted.

As of my check right now (1/12/25, noon Pacific Time), the Palisades Fire is still only 11% contained, so it's not yet over.

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Oh I know, I live very close to there. I just wanted to add insight for those that might not be familiar with those being two separate things.

Will it remain the safest place if there are no people left on-site to staff the fire-protection mechanisms because of a mandatory evacuation order?

The Getty has an endowment in the billions and an entire team devoted to this that is permitted to be on site, coordinates with local fire and police services, etc. The entire center is also built into the hillside, with fireproof vaults in the underground levels, so there is no real risk to any of the collections.

If people evacuate before putting the art in the vaults, the vaults won't work. Remember the Titanic when the life boats left half full?

"Yeah and what if you just forget to use your fancy equipment? Not so smart now, huh?!"

You totally showed them

An observation on how this has become extremely common nowadays.

Here, at work, in real life. People just argue with whatever dumb thing they can come up with, for the sake of arguing, it makes them feel smart. It's really hard to have a meaningful conversation with them.

I go to a couple philosophical discussion groups and the occasional town hall meeting. People just can't get their imaginary needs satisfied.

"But that area seems unsafe"

"We could hire a security guard to be around"

"But what if the security guard is a criminal, like in that one episode of muh favorite tv show"

"We could do an extensive background check, work with companies that have a good reputation, ..."

"But what if they make all that up, I saw that in a movie"

And nothing. ever. gets. done.

Btw, I've even seen people get a small round of applause by their peers after making one of such arguments irl. This comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn200lvmTZc.

This is basically how every discussion around building more transit in Seattle goes. The town hall meetings feel like an episode of Parks and Rec.

Isn’t it by definition that the median person making an argument will be mediocre?

> The Getty has […] an entire team devoted to this that is permitted to be on site.

Yes: you can notice this, for example, in the announcements they put out while the area around the Getty Villa evacuated and then burned, where they pointed out that non-emergency staff had evacuated. Similarly, I think JPL always had (emergency) staff present, and their own firefighting resources.

Having heard about wildfire policies for some high-profile institutions in fire-prone areas, they'll often have their own procedures, in coordination with local authorities, which may not involve evacuating when others do, and may involve people coming to the site when others are evacuating.

I imagine they have a number of life-support systems to ensure the staff can hang out in the building for a while in case of a severe natural disaster.

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