Angelenos are learning who their real friends are

Los Angeles witnessed something astonishing this week — ninety-mile-per-hour hurricane-force winds fanning the flames of uncontrollable wildfires. It is in extraordinary circumstances that the ordinary becomes all the more critical. Functioning fire hydrants, properly staffed public safety departments, an available mayor: all basics of government which citizens should come to expect. Yet Angelenos found the basics sorely lacking in response to the fires that ravaged the Palisades, Malibu and other coastal communities.  

While no single person or decision could have prevented the resulting devastation, an assessment of local government’s preparation for and response to this crisis shows a litany of failures that have become all-too familiar to Californians.  

“They’ve been warning us the fires were going to get worse and they did,” Brian Rapf, a Malibu resident, said. “Nothing was more frustrating than the water shutting off at 2 a.m. when we were trying to fight the fire.”

Last year Mayor Karen Bass announced $17 million in budget cuts to the city’s fire department. Only last month Fire Chief Kristin Crowley penned a public letter to Bass warning her of the strain this had put on basic staffing, training and ability to “respond to large-scale emergencies.” With Californians paying the second highest taxes in the nation (or highest, depending on the category you’re looking at), they are left to wonder why they are getting the discount-budget version of public safety services.  

As for Bass, she was on a taxpayer junket in Ghana — part of Joe Biden’s delegation to celebrate the inauguration of the Ghanian president. What does this have to do with the City of Los Angeles? A good question — one Los Angeles residents are still pondering. While no mayor is obligated to remain within the walls of their city for the entirety of their tenure, this trip smacks of vanity and frivolousness — and suggests Bass is more focused on burnishing a “citizen of the world” image than doing the hard work of governing.  

Once Bass returned to town, she did not exactly inspire confidence, fumbling teleprompter reads at a press conference and reacting sullen, silent and doughy-eyed when asked by a foreign reporter to explain the nature of her trip (and late return).  

The hydrants. A claim by former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso — later confirmed by firefighting personnel — that hydrants were out of water to fight the fires was particularly shocking. While you could imagine challenges in water access during a crisis situation, this becomes far less surprising when you realize water management has been on the state’s “to-do list” for quite some time. In 2014 California passed a $2.7 billion initiative for “Water Storage Investment” to update the state’s reservoirs and water systems. A decade later the projects have not been completed and are — according to the Los Angeles Times — “moving slowly.”  

Observers often scratch their heads at seemingly abstract issues to which Donald Trump attaches himself. One such cause is California forest management. In 2019 and again last year on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Trump admonished the state for failing to clear brush (in full Trumpian fashion, “you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests”), a traditional tactic to remove (or in “controlled burns” incinerate) potentially flammable materials. It is undisputed that California has been slacking in this department, with Patrick Brown the co-director of Clime and Energy at the Breakthrough Institute estimating that California should be thinning and burning roughly four times as much annual acreage as it currently is.  

Any of the above could be dismissed in a silo. But incompetence compounds, and the compounding effect does not appear to be something Los Angeles residents can, or will, ignore any longer.  

But failures of California’s governing class aside — the situation is dire. Malibu and the Pacific Palisades once idyllic stretches of sun and surf that typified the California dream — now lay in ruins. Vast stretches of coastline which featured rows of multi-million-dollar homes now resemble warzones. 

Residents are either stuck in shock or confusion. Shock that their homes and worldly possessions are gone. Or confusion on whether that is the case — as many residents cannot access their communities and don’t know whether their homes made it through.  

“Residents don’t have access to their neighborhoods,” said Caroline Damore. “There is zero information flowing to residents leading to a lot of inaccurate information and panic.”

If you’re looking for answers, good luck. The mayor is back in town and evacuation centers have been erected, but beyond that there is not much in the way of public services. There is no hotline or outlet to advise evacuated residents of whether their home is still standing.  

Former Palisades residents are strewn across Southern California in hotels, guest rooms or evacuation centers — left to check apps (of questionable accuracy) to let them know if their neighborhood got hit by the fires, or luck out that a neighbor slipped through the security wall to snap a picture of their street. Fires are still raging, albeit under greater control, but with unfavorable weather conditions anticipated for this weekend, Los Angeles is certainly not out of the woods yet.  

“There are entire communities that have been wiped out,” said Todd Rosen. “Pretty disturbing. And even if your house made it through… what do you have to come back to?”

Many long-term questions linger for victims — where do we live past next week? Where do our kids go to school? How do we replace all our worldly possessions? 

But those questions will have to wait for the moment as residents remain in fight-or-flight mode, dealing with emotions and reality of loss. The loss of home, the loss of memories, the loss of community.  

They say, “You learn who your real friends are in a crisis.” While government cannot stop the wind from blowing, this was a foreseeable crisis. And when Los Angeles residents looked around, they found friendship sorely lacking.