LA Inferno: Who’s Accountable?

On Thursday, Jan. 2, in words that will live in LA infamy, the National Weather Service of Los Angeles warned of “extreme fire weather conditions” for the following Tuesday to Thursday— exactly when our city’s worst calamity became the biggest story on the planet.

By Sunday, Jan. 5, the warnings had become even more dire— “rapid fire growth and extreme behavior with any fire starts.” Why did our leaders not take advantage of these prescient warnings? And is it wrong to bring up such questions as the devastation continues and rescue efforts take top priority?

Maybe it is, but sooner or later, Angelenos will demand answers. They will want to know why, despite years of warnings, our city was not better prepared.

The horror scenes of the inferno were “years in the making,” according to a report in The New York Times: “Pacific Palisades residents had long pleaded for more attention to preparing for the fires that are striking the region with ever-greater frequency and ferocity. As recently as 2019, two fires that burned near parts of Pacific Palisades had shown the challenges of moving thousands of people through the area’s few escape routes.”

Traci Park, who has represented Pacific Palisades on the Los Angeles City Council since 2022, admitted to the Times that there had been a “chronic underinvestment” in essential infrastructure, including water systems, the electrical grid and resources for firefighting and other emergency response.

“What happened in the last 24 hours was not unforeseeable,” she said. “It was just a matter of time.”

These six words may haunt our city for years—”it was just a matter of time.”

Indeed the apocalyptic nature of the fires and their indelible images will follow our elected officials like a mark of shame until they come clean.

In a report in the New York Post titled, “How years of corruption and mismanagement led to LA running out of water in the middle of the Palisades wildfire,” Jared Downing gives us a glimpse of just one aspect of the breakdown: water.

“The water shortage was the result of years of mismanagement of LA’s water system — including a federal indictment of a leader and high-profile resignations — as well as major operational problems that drained reserves too quickly,” he writes.

“There’s no water in the fire hydrants,” former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso told the local media as the fires were raging. “The firefighters are there, and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning. … It should never happen.”

Downing writes that “when the same thing happened in neighboring Ventura County in November, humiliated officials blamed damaged pumps and overall lack of water — despite backup systems and protocols that allow firefighters to draw water from other sources.” 

In L.A., “those fail-safes should have been working and the hydrants should have stayed full,” Caruso told the Times. Of course, as anyone whose home burned down can tell you, those fail-safes failed.

And speaking of failure, let’s not forget the failed legacy of fire, forest and water management by the state of California and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who also owes us answers.

“California’s wildfire prevention efforts have been costly and impractical, with tragic results,” energy expert Jonathan Lesser writes in City Journal. “Whether sparked by fireworks, powerlines, lightning, or arson, the conflagrations devastating Los Angeles are just the latest result of decades of ill-conceived policies.”

In other words, there’s plenty of blame to go around, not least our own Mayor Karen Bass, who chose to go on a ceremonial trip to Africa despite the dire warnings, and who approved a $17.5 million budget cut to…yes, the fire department.

This is not about right or left, Democrat or Republican. This is about a government’s duty to protect its people, and our duty to hold responsible those who fail to do so— regardless of party..

For now, let’s root for our brave firefighters and first responders and volunteers and community members and organizations who have mobilized to assist those who have lost their homes and others who are in urgent need.

But let’s also root for the reporters, activists and investigators who will dig into the gross incompetence and negligence that have contributed to a disaster that will impact our beloved city for years to come.

Winds and fires are acts of God. But heeding warnings and mitigating their damage is the role of elected officials whose #1 job is to keep us safe— and who seem to forget that they report to us.

Will those responsible will be held accountable? Let’s hope it’s “just a matter of time.”