Los Angeles Is Burning, and Leaderless
Pray that the citizens survive, and that these leaders be removed.
I am sitting in an intact house in Northern Alabama, watching the snow fall through my patio door. I am also watching the destruction of my beloved Los Angeles and frankly, fuming over the uselessness of the so-called leaders of of the city and the county who engineered this destruction. If I still lived there, I would be beyond fuming; I would be enraged.
Lynn and I have lived all over Southern California. The Eaton Fire, which from the last report I heard, is at three percent containment, has burned more than 13,690 acres. The out-of-control wildfire has impacted La Crescenta, Pasadena, Altadena, and last I heard was threatening Mt. Wilson, which has major communication towers. Pasadena was the last place in L.A. County that we lived before moving to Orange County, and then out of the state. I still keep in touch with the woman who bought the house we rented: an over 100-year old structure that she loved and restored back to its original glory. When the warnings were issued on Tuesday, she had to evacuate and was quite frightened over the prospect of losing her home. Thankfully, once the evacuation order was lifted, she was able to return to her home, and found it unchanged by fire. What a blessing, and I rejoiced with her.
Other people we know were not so fortunate. I found out a couple I knew and worked with in the early ‘90s, lost their beautiful Altadena home. Some of my Yoga students and colleagues were also impacted and lost their homes. Many of our favorite haunts and restaurants in Altadena are gutted; some will probably never be able to rebuild and reopen.
Then there is the Palisades Fire, which has burned 19,978 acres and is eight percent contained. It literally has felled Malibu and the Pacific Palisades, an area where in my single girl days I would housesit quite a bit. I have the most fond memories of spending time in this area, especially around food, family, and friends. The Reel Inn was an iconic restaurant that stood on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) for 35 years. My good friends Greg and Kathy Wolf introduced me to it, and I would take my sister June, her daughter Gabi, and many of my friends there for coast getaways or celebrations. So many fond memories. Sadly, The Reel Inn burned to the ground, along with much of the houses along the coast. My RedState colleague Buzz Patterson, who lives in Ventura County on the way toward Santa Barbara, posted a video of the fire damage in Malibu. It scrolled by a particular area on PCH, and I immediately recognized it because of the burned out, barely stable lifeguard tower. It was a particular part of PCH which offered a unique view of the Pacific, but was a less populated part of beach. Me and my friend would grab tacos from a great stand in Studio City, then head up PCH to find that lifeguard tower. We had long talks and tacos, while we watched whales and the sunset. Now all that is left are the memories, because the tower and the area have literally been obliterated.
That is the two major fires, but there are three more building strength and causing destruction, and several more flaring up.
For those who are outside of the Los Angeles area and aren’t glued to their devices like me, here’s some updated coverage. This is a good ABC update on the major fires and the horrific response by local, county, state and federal electeds who are supposed to protect the people, protect the infrastructure, and ensure the firefighters, police, and first responders have all the help and resources they need to get it done.
KCAL and KTLA, the local news stalwarts, have been doing yeoman’s work in covering the disaster. The highest praise goes to the valiant firefighters and first responders who are working above and beyond to bring all these fires into full containment.
WATCH:
People have died or are still dying. People have lost property that they have owned for much of their adult lives. Familiar places full of memories, not to mention the actual photographs and memories that they had no chance to grab in their rush to evacuate. What are President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris rambling about? Climate Change and investing in adaptation and resilience. Someone in the room should have grabbed them by the shoulders, shaken them both, and told them to snap out of it. Just like the Governor of California, they apparently exist in an alternate universe. In the case of Newsom, it was reflected clearly in this Sky News live report. Palisades resident Rachel Darvish lost her home, and her daughter’s school was also lost in the fire. Darvish was with a Sky News crew, looking over her community’s destruction, when she recognized the governor and his detail. The news crew stopped, and they exited the car, camera rolling, as Darvish ran to confront him.
WATCH:
The dearth of leadership in this epic disaster only grows worse. Not only was there no water in the hydrants, but a further investigation uncovered that the Santa Ynez Reservoir, which should have been full of water in preparation for fire mitigation for the region was offline and bone dry.
A large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the Los Angeles water supply system was out of use when a ferocious wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures nearby.
Officials told The Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades.
The revelation comes among growing questions about why firefighters ran out of water while battling the blaze. Numerous fire hydrants in higher-elevation streets of the Palisades went dry, leaving firefighters struggling with low water pressure as they combated the flames.
Because of this, and other abject failures in preparedness, an entire community has been devastated. The Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass is also a special brand of ineptitude. Let’s put aside the DEI hire who was installed as the Fire Chief under her watch. Bass cut the fire budget by $17 million which in turn cut into the resource and readiness of the department. As my RedState colleague Mike Miller just reported on Friday, a leaked memo shows that a day before the Palisades fire erupted on January 7, Bass planned to cut another $49 million!
Bass was aware of the adverse and unprecedented wind conditions which forecasted a higher than average chance of sparking wildfires. But Bass wanted to be Mayor of the World, rather than Mayor of Los Angeles. On the behest of President Biden, she went went to an inauguration of the President of Ghana. Even after Bass was made fully aware of the chaos in the eruption of the Eaton and Palisades fires, and knowing that she had no deputy mayor to back her up (another story for another day), Bass still didn’t rush back to the United States. When she finally decided to make the trek across the Atlantic back to the Pacific, she was not in the mode to lead—not that she ever was. Just watch this horrific response (or lack thereof) when a Sky News reporter (they truly are on it with this story) cornered her as she tried to exit the airport.
WATCH:
You are the elected head of a city in flames and you have no response? Newsom at least has down the useless spitballing that politicians do, but Bass couldn’t even say, “No comment” or “I’m here now to handle the situation”?
If you thought that was bottom, you would be wrong. Instead of reaching higher, Bass just kept on digging. At a Thursday press conference with the Los Angeles City and County “leaders”, Bass was asked about the 17 million in cuts, and she didn’t spitball: she flat-out lied.
WATCH:
Now on Friday, the memo dropped showing just how outrageous the lie was.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass demanded her Fire Department make an extra $49million of budget cuts last week, a leaked memo revealed.
This cut is already on top of $17.6million of cuts in her latest budget.
The extra cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swathes of Los Angeles, would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department's ability to respond to emergencies, sources said.
DailyMail.com interviewed current and former senior LAFD officers briefed on the shocking proposed cuts, and exclusively obtained the memo from an LA Fire Department (LAFD) whistleblower who posts on social media under the moniker 'LAFD Watchdog'.
The memo is dated January 6, only a day before the devastating Palisades Fire started.
According to the sources, it was sent from LAFD 'top brass' at City Hall to division chiefs and captains - after a fraught meeting the previous Friday between Chief Kristin Crowley and Mayor Bass.
'The LAFD is still going through a FY [financial year] 2024/2025 $48.8million budget reduction exercise with the CAO [City Attorney's Office],' the document said.
'The only way to provide a cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations (not resources, fire stations); this equates to at least one fire station per City Council District.
Meanwhile, back on the planet where Newsom, Biden and Harris reside, Newsom did a videoconference call on Friday with the President and the VP, begging for money not to combat the wildfires, but to combat disinformation?!
On that call, Newsom said people want relief from: Hurricane force winds of mis- and disinformation. No, what all Californians want is relief from a governor who doesn’t govern, then sweeps in for the cameras bringing havoc and further destruction in his wake. Newsom is begging because he knows that in 10 days, he won’t have that option anymore, especially after trying to blame the incoming president, Donald J. Trump for woes that he created himself.
To say that his aspirations, especially of becoming president, are over is probably an understatement. Same with Karen Bass; the first Black female Mayor of Los Angeles is dead politician walking and she knows it. It’s not a question of if, but when.
But the failure. ineptitude and incessant scrambling by these leaders to save face and their careers is of no help to the suffering that is still ongoing in the Los Angeles area, and could even grow worse. My prayers continue to go out to friends, family, and all the communities under threat, traumatized, and clinging to hope that things will turn around.