Big fan but…Unfair, Steve. January is certainly NOT fire season in LA. Yes, The winds are certainly seasonal…but these fires came quick and fierce and sudden. And we have not had rain.
The water pressure issue is complex in this situation with the degree of use in so many places all at once. Bass is on her way back of course.
She may or may not be “mediocre” as you say, but no Mayor can always “know” exactly when they should “stay in town” or go on an out of town mission to create relations between LA and another country or international city. It’s not like the fires started and THEN she left.
No, I believe he was born in NJ but he was married in second marriage in Alameda, CA to a Canadian woman. Whether he still lives there is anyone’s guess. If he wants anyone to know where he lives, he’s not shy, he’ll tell us.
Peter B, You are 100% correct.Steve is picking on the wrong person. The cause of these horrendous wild-fires lies with right-wing GOP/Maga climate change deniers. Blaming the mayor for not being there is beyond ridiculous.
I completely disagree with you, Peter B. She is the Mayor and the buck stops with her. We have so many issues here in Los Angeles; I can't imagine any justification for the Mayor of LA traveling to Africa. It's inexcusable that we don't have enough water to fight the fires. At least some of us are completely disgusted with incompetent, unaccountable politicians. I doubt the residents of the Palisades will remain silent about Karen Bass' extreme negligence. She deserves to be recalled.
Mayor Bass is not the mayor of Pacific Palisades but of the city of Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades is a city in Los Angeles County. Eugene Levy is mayor of Pacific Palisades. The other fire which is in Malibu is also not in Mayor Bass’ purview. The Pacific Palisades fire has not entered the city of LA.
I hear what you are saying but I wonder what Mayor Bass should have done? It is reported that the brush has not been cut for 30-40 years. I would be surprised that was on her radar. Maybe she should have made it a priority. What are some other things that would help when fires strike like this?
Who said she should never leave the city? My point was she evidently did not assess whether we were adequately resourced and how we would respond in the event of a major fire emergency — a known risk in light of the extremely dry weather conditions and months-long lack of rainfall. It’s inexcusable that the firefighters did not have enough water to fight the fires. That’s was a foreseeable risk — why wasn’t it addressed? She didn’t plan or lead any planning for this disaster. This person has extraordinarily deep experience in government so I don’t think it’s reasonable to disagree that as Mayor, the buck stopped on her desk. But she was MIA.
Juliet Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, now at the Harvard Kennedy School:
“The sort of metropolitan municipal water system is not built for that kind of capacity. So, basically, what happened is, there's enough water. This has nothing to do with the supply of water. It has to do with the pressure in the system. Everyone was grabbing it at the same time. So it's not able to refill.”
Ridiculous attack. She has been a great Mayor, she has taken 21,000 people off the streets into safe housing in her first year. The winds usually arrive later, no one saw this coming. And listen to the LA Fire Chief-- never has there been multiple fires with city water running for 16 hours in an urban environment. Get a grip. Caruso lost, he's the hack. Shame on him and you for taking advantage of a tragedy.
I have to disagree with you here. Fire season is normally well over by January. These are NOT the most dangerous months for fires. If there had been normal rain, there would not have been a fire risk. Also, the Santa Ana winds are not normally in January.
Yes, she should be there, but this was not expected.
Obviously we have had very little rain. In any case we have Santa Ana's all year 'round now, likely due to climate change. Stop making excuses for these unaccountable idiots in government.
You may not be from the LA area to know that the Santa Ana’s blow usually during certain times of years and not in a specific rhythm. So no one could know when they are coming.
I am a fan of yours but I believe you have stated some unfair comments. Rick Caruso took advantage of a disaster to trash Karen Bass. He lost to Karen Bass in the last mayor of LA election. I heard his comments last night on NBC. His daughter had lost her home in the Palisades on Tuesday and he stated that possibly his son too. I believe you get all your facts before making strong statements but you have not quoted any comments from the mayors office.
I live in LA county and a family member has lost her home in the Palisades. Get all your facts before recalling a Mayor Bass. She could not have done anything different than was done in the emergency situation.
Steve, your commentary is typically right on point. However, I believe your blaming Mayor Bass for low or no water pressure in the LA City fire hydrants may be a bit of a reach.
If you open a few of your faucets in your house your water pressure will drop. Depending on the size of your main supply line your pressure may drop a little or a lot.
The City of LA’s water system is no different. Open dozens and dozens of fire hydrants and eventually if you open enough hydrant the pressure will drop.
This is not your typical fire event. In fact, it’s probably a 100 year event. In other words, it’s impossible to be fully prepared to respond effectively to such an event. I do not believe any City’s water infrastructure would be capable of providing enough water to address the needs for these fires.
Because they couldn’t access the three water storage tank pumps because of the intense fire. And, there was no air support/water or retardant drops to protect their ingress to said pumps. This was not malfeasance, this was a wind driven fire storm. Ever been in one? It’s not puppies and rainbows. Do you believe that LA fire purposely allowed the water tanks to go dry, which in turn put their own peoples live at risk. Get a grip on reality.
I literally upgraded to paid so I could leave comments here.
Steve, you are so off base with your comments. I was a constituent of Karen Bass and she is an amazing public servant. She would come to our neighborhood meetings to address our concerns. She and her staff are top notch. She has been engaged on this tragedy…stop politicizing this. It’s disgusting. And it’s wrong.
Why don’t you talk about the fact that we’re about to inaugurate a bunch of climate deniers who have ZERO plans to address climate change, which is the cause of all of this dry brush fueling the fires. Our fire season is now year round!
Why don’t you discuss the fact that California is going to have to rely on Trump and a bunch of lackies who have zero interest in helping us rebuild despite the fact that we pay the most in FEDERAL taxes of any state?
Discuss what matters and cut the bullshit about Karen Bass. You are embarrassing yourself.
Hint: if you are saying the same things as Musk and Trump, you're most likely wrong. And you are Steve.
Another thing, water is an issue in California in case you didn’t know.
And it’s a political issue.
Mayors, whether it’s LA or any other city, have ZERO control of the flow of water. We have water districts in California that are very powerful and THEY DECIDE (along with some other state and federal agencies) where the water goes.
Don’t believe these charlatans like Rick Caruso who try to tell you Karen Bass is at fault for some reservoir being empty. That’s complete horse shit being sold by people are don’t even care enough to know how things work before they start spewing their nonsense.
Yes, Steve, please use your history researching skills to do research, to retrieve some real world facts on the water supply situation, including climate change atmospheric drought and extraordinary simultaneous use of fire-fighting water (including water pressure being depleted by desperate homeowners hosing down their homes), the fire season months for southern and northern CA, and not be so fast on the draw to draw conclusions or to support an idiot opportunist (a phrase you would normally use) politico like Caruso - on Fox News by the way. Bass should have been flying back to LA as soon as the first whiff of fire - yes, she should have been, and she's remiss for that. Be on deck right away. Clearing brush? Yes, around homes helps to a small degree, but a tornado/hurricane fire just makes that futile work. I did it around my home in northern California. But I knew if a big fire came, it would make no difference. I had my go-bag ready including everything I would need for my rescue beagle. And I normally relax in January because it is not the fire season.
I’m sure Bass is trying to get home as soon as she possibly can. Having visited South Africa once (not where Bass is visiting) I know plane schedules can be few and far between.
Glad to hear it, Tiffany. She's a good mayor and doing what good mayors do in smoozing for more economic opportunity for LA, and I'm optimistic about her long-term response to the fires (4). Palisades fire broke out yesterday, Tuesday, at 10:30 am, according to reports. Super fast growth. That's when she should have got on the plane (doing whatever needed to be done to get on the commercial flights heading back). I've had to do that from India - extremely fast exit from a country.
Are you aware that Pacific Palisades is in the City of Los Angeles? So many people are quick to excuse Karen Bass’ complete lack of leadership, shocking negligence and apparent absence of any advance contingency planning. We don’t even have sufficient water to fight these fires! I wasn’t aware we are actually living in a Third World
country here in the City of LA. Does that work for you? I for one think it’s completely unacceptable!
Are you aware that the Mayor of Los Angeles has nothing to do with the flow of water? I am just curious what you think would have been handled differently had Mayor Bass been on the ground in LA? Go ahead and answer...we're waiting.
Steve - unfortunately your self righteous arrogance in slamming everyone (but the kitchen sink, well you did include fire hydrants in this rant) is getting VERY old.
They had water supply in tanks that were quickly drained by 15 hours of constant use, which is not the normal rate of use. Refill the reservoirs? That IS done by rainfall, not wells or the ocean, and Southern California has had no rain this year. This is a combination of unfortunate events. All individuals can do is clear their own properties to be fire safe. LA has drained water from the Eastern Sierra for decades so everyone can have a pool. Lord Man has totally fucked up our environment. It's likely too late for change.
yeah, i live in SoCal (north of LA). This is not Santa Ana season, so get your facts straight. And, as soon as u said "Caruso" (another greedy-ass real estate billionaire) i nearly vomitted! I'm tapping out and will cancel my subscription if this kinda revanchist tripe continues...
Be careful you do not become part of the disinformation mill Steve. I suspect your source of information is the guy who ran unsuccessfully against Bass for Mayor. All water storage tanks which hold about 1 million gallons each were reported to be full just prior to the fire. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure,” according to Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
I’m not sure Bass should have predicted this conflagration. 1) Unusually dry fall season. Do they do controlled burns in a draught situation, especially when they thought rain would soon come? Do they do controlled burns inside well-developed neighborhoods? 2) Extreme high winds that are not at all normal. Would Mayor Bass know that was going to happen before she left for Africa? 3) They couldn’t get aircraft in the air to help fight the fires as they normally would because of high winds. 4) They had fire fighters from other jurisdictions prepositioned in areas that are prone to fires before fires started when they understood there would be high winds. But the fires started in other places.
One could argue that infrastructure is chronically underfunded. I don’t know anything about that. But Bass has only been in office two years.
I say all this as I receive texts from my sister whose house burned down and car broke down during the getaway. I’m not indifferent to the shortcomings.
The reservoirs are used to fill the tanks. The tanks will go down from water usage, but if there isn't any water in the reservoirs them there is no way to refill the tanks.
I understand that part. I also understand there is some friction over how much water to release to keep dams functioning vs reservoirs full. But water storage tanks were full when fires started. The tanks ran out of water and water pressure in 15 hours. I admit, I spend time in CA but don’t live there. I might not be the most well-informed person on this subject. Are you saying that the water storage tanks ran out of water because the reservoirs ran out of water and so they had no water to refill tanks during that 15 hour period?
The water ran out in the tanks because of the mass use of water in a short period of time, but those tanks needed a certain amount of water in the reservoirs to be able to replenish the tanks for continued firefighting. In particular the places that were at higher elevation in the Palisades. The Palisades at lower elevations had the good water pressure for fighting the fire.
Reservoirs had water but not at full capacity to help with pressure to move the water faster. And maybe there were pumps that couldn't keep up because they were old. The infrastructure, like in many older cities, is old and out of date.
Yes, more likely that system was not designed for such a massive fire. If they had good water pressure at lower elevation it didn't help much. The fire jumped the PCH and went all the way to the ocean, as I'm sure everyone is aware. This is what Janisse Quiñones, DWP chief executive and chief engineer, told Los Angeles Times: The three large water tanks that supply hydrants in Palisades ran dry "because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used. ... we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough. So, the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in a trunk line." So, definitely an infrastructure problem but not a reservoir level problem according to this.
You suggest she deserves some kind of dispensation because she’s been Mayor for “two years.” But it’s not like she was a complete amateur or her experience was limited to high school student body president. She was in Congress for 11 years and in the CA State Assembly for 6 years. Karen Bass is a seasoned pol who SHOULD HAVE KNOWN she had an obligation to stay seated and deal with our extreme fire danger created by the lack of rainfall and seriously dry weather. She should have been LEADING efforts to mitigate the many risks created by all these circumstances. No excuses!
I’m not saying she’s a rookie learning on the job. I’m saying it’s not a lot of time to turn things around in a city that size. What, in your opinion should she have been doing?
Steve, I am surprised you are spreading misinformation. Usually you do your research first and not from an opponent. What the heck is going on with you? I don’t even think Bass is the mayor of those communities, is she? I will check. Are you familiar with the Santa Ana’s? What about the water crisis? Is the mayor never allowed to leave the city during her term? I am sure she is racing back as quickly as the airline schedules in Africa will allow. It is a 16 hour trip from Wisconsin. Maybe more or less to LA? The fire began yesterday.
Mayor Eugene Levy is who should be the recipient of your angst, Steve. He is the mayor of Pacific Palisades. Maybe you can get a follow up with Caruso and actually ask the questions instead of getting your info from FOX.
Fire season starts usually in September and goes through November when we usually start getting rain. We have had almost NO rain. Our fire season has now started much earlier in JULY and evidently now goes to January? Your assessment of her is pure opportunism. Don’t pile on her- are you critiquing her actions? Not predicting a disaster? Or can you check yourself- also are you self aware enough to look for racism or misogyny in your critique?
Not what I said… I asked if he was self aware enough to check himself for racism and misogyny. Because he didn’t bother to check on the FACTS of L.A.’s fire season before critiquing the mayor of Los Angeles and PRESUMING he knew when fire season was- and criticized her for “being out of the country during fire season”. If he even BOTHERED to check before mansplaining fire season to us angelenos, I would have given the benefit of the doubt that he’s just another pundit doing dumb pundit things. But the mansplaining is what prompted the question about his self awareness.
So now Steve is guilty of "mansplaining". What a croc! That is why public discourse will continue to decline. Resorting to charged up definitions and cliques does nothing for communicating and finding reasonable discourse.
What would you call it then? You are coming after me because YOU presumed I was centering racism and sexism- when that was NOT what I was doing. I was focused on his self awareness- YOU are the one who took offense!
It's really unfortunate to see this example of knee-jerk dismissal of another person's critical remarks by immediately writing them off as "racist" and "misogynist". How convenient to not have to actually think about the substance of the other person's remarks. What a shame. This is how the Democrats lost the election to people who actually are awful and crazy.
Now why would you have the need to focus on HIS self-awareness. In all the time, a few years now, that I have been reading his Substack, Steve's writings have never gone down the path of racism OR sexism. You seem to be a master at turning the tables from yourself to me. Kind of interesting.
YOU CAME AFTER ME! My goodness! Surely you’re not so myopic as to not have noticed that Steve can be pedantic and inflated? I’ve been a fan for a long time- I can be a fan, pay for a subscription, and STILL EXPECT HIM TO CHECK HIMSELF. Why do you care that I’m asking him to be self aware? I’m a paying subscriber! I pay for the privilege of commenting in these forums. It’s not so I can just tell him how great he is! Mary, please!
Feels like for all of us. I read the news every day and find myself appalled and worried about who we have in government. It gets worse with each election cycle. We keep reaching down further and elevating the brainless.
Hi John, as I watched this fire video/and news, I feel sorry for the people who are being affected, but the dread has to do with how much worse things like this will become under Trump, Musk, and cohorts. Dread.
You can't fix stupid, especially when stupid does not want to be fixed. I am reminded of when Sarah Palin excoriated intellect and intelliigence. Stupid is terrified of smart people. Now, we have a whole lot of stupids in line to run/ruin our country.
I agree, Vince, but please be careful not to stereotype people who live in trailers. Many people suffer from this housing crisis and have to do anything, including living in a trailer, to survive. Thanks.
Bill Mahrer, now a smug "I told you so/I'm smarter than everyone else" comedian, did a movie framed as a documentary a few years ago called Religulous. An atheist, he mocked many religions in this movie. In an interview with (I believe) a House rep from TN, the rep made a few goofy comments, followed by an admission: "There is no intelligence test to be in Congress." Mahrer just looked at him in disbelief that the rep said this, almost proudly, with a smirk.
Don’t forget about Cancun Cruz! He is one of our Texas senators who flew to Cancun during the freeze in Texas that killed hundreds and caused untold damage and chaos. He couldn’t be bothered to stay in Texas so we had him on film, jetting off to Cancun. To make matters worse, my fellow Texans just reelected this jackass by a fairly wide margin. It’s too bad that everyone has to suffer when these stupid decisions are made. My heart too goes out to the people of Los Angeles County.
Steve, very unfair comments on your part. I have been through 3 major fires In Malibu, these are not planned events, people make plans, the mayor had obviously prearranged travel plans and shit happened and she has returned. Let’s take a deep breath and just focus on the jerk about to take office….
And let's not forget the horror that will be coming back to the oval office on January 20th. We all know Trump's "fondness" for blue states, so CA might not get much or all the federal aid they may need after Biden leaves office. Just the thought of that possibility makes me sick. Maybe Trump will say that if southern CA would just clean up all the dry grass and brush, they wouldn't be in this situation -- not unlike his stupid comments when he last disgraced the White House that CA should clean all their heavily forested areas of debris so fire has "nothing" to burn!!! Idiocy in action.
Agree. Caruso says the Palisades area should have been cleared of brush decades ago. Where did we hear this before? Didn’t know of him before now, and when it’s revealed at the end of the clip that he’s running for mayor and maybe governor, all the red flags 🚩 went up for me.
It is dealt with. All residents have to clear brush within a certain perimeter of the house or we are fined. You can’t clear all the “brush” on wild hillsides. That’s all they are. Brush. It’s like Trump saying they should “rake the forests”. Idiocy.
Big fan but…Unfair, Steve. January is certainly NOT fire season in LA. Yes, The winds are certainly seasonal…but these fires came quick and fierce and sudden. And we have not had rain.
The water pressure issue is complex in this situation with the degree of use in so many places all at once. Bass is on her way back of course.
She may or may not be “mediocre” as you say, but no Mayor can always “know” exactly when they should “stay in town” or go on an out of town mission to create relations between LA and another country or international city. It’s not like the fires started and THEN she left.
Steve is not from California. The Santana winds are usually in September and October. I hope he doesn't start rooting for Caruso, please, oh my God.
No, I believe he was born in NJ but he was married in second marriage in Alameda, CA to a Canadian woman. Whether he still lives there is anyone’s guess. If he wants anyone to know where he lives, he’s not shy, he’ll tell us.
Peter B, You are 100% correct.Steve is picking on the wrong person. The cause of these horrendous wild-fires lies with right-wing GOP/Maga climate change deniers. Blaming the mayor for not being there is beyond ridiculous.
I feel the same today about this post by Steve. Thank you.
I completely disagree with you, Peter B. She is the Mayor and the buck stops with her. We have so many issues here in Los Angeles; I can't imagine any justification for the Mayor of LA traveling to Africa. It's inexcusable that we don't have enough water to fight the fires. At least some of us are completely disgusted with incompetent, unaccountable politicians. I doubt the residents of the Palisades will remain silent about Karen Bass' extreme negligence. She deserves to be recalled.
Mayor Bass is not the mayor of Pacific Palisades but of the city of Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades is a city in Los Angeles County. Eugene Levy is mayor of Pacific Palisades. The other fire which is in Malibu is also not in Mayor Bass’ purview. The Pacific Palisades fire has not entered the city of LA.
I am sorry, I said that Eugene Levy is the mayor but it is a honorary title only. Mayor Bass is the mayor. I apologize for getting this wrong.
I hear what you are saying but I wonder what Mayor Bass should have done? It is reported that the brush has not been cut for 30-40 years. I would be surprised that was on her radar. Maybe she should have made it a priority. What are some other things that would help when fires strike like this?
Having the reservoir filled in a timely manner!! That's in her purview.
They were all full.
No they weren't.
Every single reservoir in the L A basin was filled. Just because billionaire Rick Caruso says different, does not make it true.
That is what the fire commissioner (think that is his title) said.
Irrelevant. The LA area gets its water from a canal east of the Sierras and from the Colorado River.
Sounds like you’re having trouble with the mayor who should never leave the city, and jumping the gun on what is actually factual. Why is that?
Who said she should never leave the city? My point was she evidently did not assess whether we were adequately resourced and how we would respond in the event of a major fire emergency — a known risk in light of the extremely dry weather conditions and months-long lack of rainfall. It’s inexcusable that the firefighters did not have enough water to fight the fires. That’s was a foreseeable risk — why wasn’t it addressed? She didn’t plan or lead any planning for this disaster. This person has extraordinarily deep experience in government so I don’t think it’s reasonable to disagree that as Mayor, the buck stopped on her desk. But she was MIA.
Adding more words to your position does not appear to answer the question.
Juliet Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, now at the Harvard Kennedy School:
“The sort of metropolitan municipal water system is not built for that kind of capacity. So, basically, what happened is, there's enough water. This has nothing to do with the supply of water. It has to do with the pressure in the system. Everyone was grabbing it at the same time. So it's not able to refill.”
Ridiculous attack. She has been a great Mayor, she has taken 21,000 people off the streets into safe housing in her first year. The winds usually arrive later, no one saw this coming. And listen to the LA Fire Chief-- never has there been multiple fires with city water running for 16 hours in an urban environment. Get a grip. Caruso lost, he's the hack. Shame on him and you for taking advantage of a tragedy.
I have to disagree with you here. Fire season is normally well over by January. These are NOT the most dangerous months for fires. If there had been normal rain, there would not have been a fire risk. Also, the Santa Ana winds are not normally in January.
Yes, she should be there, but this was not expected.
Obviously we have had very little rain. In any case we have Santa Ana's all year 'round now, likely due to climate change. Stop making excuses for these unaccountable idiots in government.
Shouldn’t she have known that the area was NOW at risk of fires before she left?
No. This is a highly unusual situation. January has never been fire season.
right. cuz the mayor has a crystal ball???
You may not be from the LA area to know that the Santa Ana’s blow usually during certain times of years and not in a specific rhythm. So no one could know when they are coming.
I am a fan of yours but I believe you have stated some unfair comments. Rick Caruso took advantage of a disaster to trash Karen Bass. He lost to Karen Bass in the last mayor of LA election. I heard his comments last night on NBC. His daughter had lost her home in the Palisades on Tuesday and he stated that possibly his son too. I believe you get all your facts before making strong statements but you have not quoted any comments from the mayors office.
I live in LA county and a family member has lost her home in the Palisades. Get all your facts before recalling a Mayor Bass. She could not have done anything different than was done in the emergency situation.
Steve, your commentary is typically right on point. However, I believe your blaming Mayor Bass for low or no water pressure in the LA City fire hydrants may be a bit of a reach.
If you open a few of your faucets in your house your water pressure will drop. Depending on the size of your main supply line your pressure may drop a little or a lot.
The City of LA’s water system is no different. Open dozens and dozens of fire hydrants and eventually if you open enough hydrant the pressure will drop.
This is not your typical fire event. In fact, it’s probably a 100 year event. In other words, it’s impossible to be fully prepared to respond effectively to such an event. I do not believe any City’s water infrastructure would be capable of providing enough water to address the needs for these fires.
The reservoir wasn't filled in a timely manner.
Mayor’s don’t control water in California, Water districts do. Please stop this madness if you don’t understand how things work here in California.
But the incompetent water "Czar" Quinones, was recommended by the incompetent Mayor Bass
https://mayor.lacity.gov/news/mayor-bass-announces-recommendation-los-angeles-department-water-and-power-ceo-general-manager
and who was responsible for hiring this Quinones water czar?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/la-water-chief-was-aware-of-broken-hydrants-months-before-fires/ar-BB1rfveC?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=8f0d315e5ab248868b3bac4c4132a005&ei=329
none other than the incompetent Mayor Bass
https://mayor.lacity.gov/news/mayor-bass-announces-recommendation-los-angeles-department-water-and-power-ceo-general-manager
Because they couldn’t access the three water storage tank pumps because of the intense fire. And, there was no air support/water or retardant drops to protect their ingress to said pumps. This was not malfeasance, this was a wind driven fire storm. Ever been in one? It’s not puppies and rainbows. Do you believe that LA fire purposely allowed the water tanks to go dry, which in turn put their own peoples live at risk. Get a grip on reality.
You keep saying that but without a source. My source is the captain of the LAFD.
I literally upgraded to paid so I could leave comments here.
Steve, you are so off base with your comments. I was a constituent of Karen Bass and she is an amazing public servant. She would come to our neighborhood meetings to address our concerns. She and her staff are top notch. She has been engaged on this tragedy…stop politicizing this. It’s disgusting. And it’s wrong.
Why don’t you talk about the fact that we’re about to inaugurate a bunch of climate deniers who have ZERO plans to address climate change, which is the cause of all of this dry brush fueling the fires. Our fire season is now year round!
Why don’t you discuss the fact that California is going to have to rely on Trump and a bunch of lackies who have zero interest in helping us rebuild despite the fact that we pay the most in FEDERAL taxes of any state?
Discuss what matters and cut the bullshit about Karen Bass. You are embarrassing yourself.
Hint: if you are saying the same things as Musk and Trump, you're most likely wrong. And you are Steve.
Another thing, water is an issue in California in case you didn’t know.
And it’s a political issue.
Mayors, whether it’s LA or any other city, have ZERO control of the flow of water. We have water districts in California that are very powerful and THEY DECIDE (along with some other state and federal agencies) where the water goes.
Don’t believe these charlatans like Rick Caruso who try to tell you Karen Bass is at fault for some reservoir being empty. That’s complete horse shit being sold by people are don’t even care enough to know how things work before they start spewing their nonsense.
My understanding is that years ago the county only planned for two major fires at a time, not 3, 4 or more. Blaming the current mayor is ridiculous.
Anyone seen an apology or at least correction from Steve on his attack on Karen Bass?
Yes, Steve, please use your history researching skills to do research, to retrieve some real world facts on the water supply situation, including climate change atmospheric drought and extraordinary simultaneous use of fire-fighting water (including water pressure being depleted by desperate homeowners hosing down their homes), the fire season months for southern and northern CA, and not be so fast on the draw to draw conclusions or to support an idiot opportunist (a phrase you would normally use) politico like Caruso - on Fox News by the way. Bass should have been flying back to LA as soon as the first whiff of fire - yes, she should have been, and she's remiss for that. Be on deck right away. Clearing brush? Yes, around homes helps to a small degree, but a tornado/hurricane fire just makes that futile work. I did it around my home in northern California. But I knew if a big fire came, it would make no difference. I had my go-bag ready including everything I would need for my rescue beagle. And I normally relax in January because it is not the fire season.
I’m sure Bass is trying to get home as soon as she possibly can. Having visited South Africa once (not where Bass is visiting) I know plane schedules can be few and far between.
She’s actually back in LA now. I hope people will now focus on what’s important.
Glad to hear it, Tiffany. She's a good mayor and doing what good mayors do in smoozing for more economic opportunity for LA, and I'm optimistic about her long-term response to the fires (4). Palisades fire broke out yesterday, Tuesday, at 10:30 am, according to reports. Super fast growth. That's when she should have got on the plane (doing whatever needed to be done to get on the commercial flights heading back). I've had to do that from India - extremely fast exit from a country.
Especially since she isn’t the mayor of Pacific Palisades.
Ya exactly…LA isn’t on fire. The cities surrounding LA are.
Are you aware that Pacific Palisades is in the City of Los Angeles? So many people are quick to excuse Karen Bass’ complete lack of leadership, shocking negligence and apparent absence of any advance contingency planning. We don’t even have sufficient water to fight these fires! I wasn’t aware we are actually living in a Third World
country here in the City of LA. Does that work for you? I for one think it’s completely unacceptable!
You are just a troll looking for a fight that I am not going to have with you. Don’t like Mayor Bass, vote against her. Next.
Are you aware that the Mayor of Los Angeles has nothing to do with the flow of water? I am just curious what you think would have been handled differently had Mayor Bass been on the ground in LA? Go ahead and answer...we're waiting.
Steve - unfortunately your self righteous arrogance in slamming everyone (but the kitchen sink, well you did include fire hydrants in this rant) is getting VERY old.
They had water supply in tanks that were quickly drained by 15 hours of constant use, which is not the normal rate of use. Refill the reservoirs? That IS done by rainfall, not wells or the ocean, and Southern California has had no rain this year. This is a combination of unfortunate events. All individuals can do is clear their own properties to be fire safe. LA has drained water from the Eastern Sierra for decades so everyone can have a pool. Lord Man has totally fucked up our environment. It's likely too late for change.
It's done by the Colorado river system. LA metro area gets a ton of our Colorado river water.
True, and the Mayor has nothing to do with the distribution of water. LADWP and our metropolitan water district does.
The incompetent Mayor Bass recommended the incompetent water "Czar" Quinones for hire . . .
https://mayor.lacity.gov/news/mayor-bass-announces-recommendation-los-angeles-department-water-and-power-ceo-general-manager
yeah, i live in SoCal (north of LA). This is not Santa Ana season, so get your facts straight. And, as soon as u said "Caruso" (another greedy-ass real estate billionaire) i nearly vomitted! I'm tapping out and will cancel my subscription if this kinda revanchist tripe continues...
Be careful you do not become part of the disinformation mill Steve. I suspect your source of information is the guy who ran unsuccessfully against Bass for Mayor. All water storage tanks which hold about 1 million gallons each were reported to be full just prior to the fire. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure,” according to Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
I’m not sure Bass should have predicted this conflagration. 1) Unusually dry fall season. Do they do controlled burns in a draught situation, especially when they thought rain would soon come? Do they do controlled burns inside well-developed neighborhoods? 2) Extreme high winds that are not at all normal. Would Mayor Bass know that was going to happen before she left for Africa? 3) They couldn’t get aircraft in the air to help fight the fires as they normally would because of high winds. 4) They had fire fighters from other jurisdictions prepositioned in areas that are prone to fires before fires started when they understood there would be high winds. But the fires started in other places.
One could argue that infrastructure is chronically underfunded. I don’t know anything about that. But Bass has only been in office two years.
I say all this as I receive texts from my sister whose house burned down and car broke down during the getaway. I’m not indifferent to the shortcomings.
Storage "tanks" are different than "reservoirs".
Agreed. And your point is what? Not being snarky. Truly want to know.
The reservoirs are used to fill the tanks. The tanks will go down from water usage, but if there isn't any water in the reservoirs them there is no way to refill the tanks.
I understand that part. I also understand there is some friction over how much water to release to keep dams functioning vs reservoirs full. But water storage tanks were full when fires started. The tanks ran out of water and water pressure in 15 hours. I admit, I spend time in CA but don’t live there. I might not be the most well-informed person on this subject. Are you saying that the water storage tanks ran out of water because the reservoirs ran out of water and so they had no water to refill tanks during that 15 hour period?
The water ran out in the tanks because of the mass use of water in a short period of time, but those tanks needed a certain amount of water in the reservoirs to be able to replenish the tanks for continued firefighting. In particular the places that were at higher elevation in the Palisades. The Palisades at lower elevations had the good water pressure for fighting the fire.
Reservoirs had water but not at full capacity to help with pressure to move the water faster. And maybe there were pumps that couldn't keep up because they were old. The infrastructure, like in many older cities, is old and out of date.
Yes, more likely that system was not designed for such a massive fire. If they had good water pressure at lower elevation it didn't help much. The fire jumped the PCH and went all the way to the ocean, as I'm sure everyone is aware. This is what Janisse Quiñones, DWP chief executive and chief engineer, told Los Angeles Times: The three large water tanks that supply hydrants in Palisades ran dry "because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used. ... we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough. So, the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in a trunk line." So, definitely an infrastructure problem but not a reservoir level problem according to this.
You suggest she deserves some kind of dispensation because she’s been Mayor for “two years.” But it’s not like she was a complete amateur or her experience was limited to high school student body president. She was in Congress for 11 years and in the CA State Assembly for 6 years. Karen Bass is a seasoned pol who SHOULD HAVE KNOWN she had an obligation to stay seated and deal with our extreme fire danger created by the lack of rainfall and seriously dry weather. She should have been LEADING efforts to mitigate the many risks created by all these circumstances. No excuses!
I’m not saying she’s a rookie learning on the job. I’m saying it’s not a lot of time to turn things around in a city that size. What, in your opinion should she have been doing?
Steve, I am surprised you are spreading misinformation. Usually you do your research first and not from an opponent. What the heck is going on with you? I don’t even think Bass is the mayor of those communities, is she? I will check. Are you familiar with the Santa Ana’s? What about the water crisis? Is the mayor never allowed to leave the city during her term? I am sure she is racing back as quickly as the airline schedules in Africa will allow. It is a 16 hour trip from Wisconsin. Maybe more or less to LA? The fire began yesterday.
Mayor Eugene Levy is who should be the recipient of your angst, Steve. He is the mayor of Pacific Palisades. Maybe you can get a follow up with Caruso and actually ask the questions instead of getting your info from FOX.
That is not an official title and Eugene Levy has no legal authority. Pacific Palisades is not a municipality. It is in the City of Los Angeles.
Fire season starts usually in September and goes through November when we usually start getting rain. We have had almost NO rain. Our fire season has now started much earlier in JULY and evidently now goes to January? Your assessment of her is pure opportunism. Don’t pile on her- are you critiquing her actions? Not predicting a disaster? Or can you check yourself- also are you self aware enough to look for racism or misogyny in your critique?
WOW! Just because there is critiquing of a female POC in an elected position it automatically becomes racism and misogyny?
Not what I said… I asked if he was self aware enough to check himself for racism and misogyny. Because he didn’t bother to check on the FACTS of L.A.’s fire season before critiquing the mayor of Los Angeles and PRESUMING he knew when fire season was- and criticized her for “being out of the country during fire season”. If he even BOTHERED to check before mansplaining fire season to us angelenos, I would have given the benefit of the doubt that he’s just another pundit doing dumb pundit things. But the mansplaining is what prompted the question about his self awareness.
So now Steve is guilty of "mansplaining". What a croc! That is why public discourse will continue to decline. Resorting to charged up definitions and cliques does nothing for communicating and finding reasonable discourse.
What would you call it then? You are coming after me because YOU presumed I was centering racism and sexism- when that was NOT what I was doing. I was focused on his self awareness- YOU are the one who took offense!
It's really unfortunate to see this example of knee-jerk dismissal of another person's critical remarks by immediately writing them off as "racist" and "misogynist". How convenient to not have to actually think about the substance of the other person's remarks. What a shame. This is how the Democrats lost the election to people who actually are awful and crazy.
Now why would you have the need to focus on HIS self-awareness. In all the time, a few years now, that I have been reading his Substack, Steve's writings have never gone down the path of racism OR sexism. You seem to be a master at turning the tables from yourself to me. Kind of interesting.
YOU CAME AFTER ME! My goodness! Surely you’re not so myopic as to not have noticed that Steve can be pedantic and inflated? I’ve been a fan for a long time- I can be a fan, pay for a subscription, and STILL EXPECT HIM TO CHECK HIMSELF. Why do you care that I’m asking him to be self aware? I’m a paying subscriber! I pay for the privilege of commenting in these forums. It’s not so I can just tell him how great he is! Mary, please!
In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.
— Napoleon
Actually, it is an attribute.
I have this feeling of a grave being dug that I cannot shake.
For whom is the grave?
Feels like for all of us. I read the news every day and find myself appalled and worried about who we have in government. It gets worse with each election cycle. We keep reaching down further and elevating the brainless.
Hi John, as I watched this fire video/and news, I feel sorry for the people who are being affected, but the dread has to do with how much worse things like this will become under Trump, Musk, and cohorts. Dread.
You can't fix stupid, especially when stupid does not want to be fixed. I am reminded of when Sarah Palin excoriated intellect and intelliigence. Stupid is terrified of smart people. Now, we have a whole lot of stupids in line to run/ruin our country.
And who brought us Sarah Palin? The guy who authored this attack on Bass. Always love me some Steve Schmit, but this essay blows.
I agree, Vince, but please be careful not to stereotype people who live in trailers. Many people suffer from this housing crisis and have to do anything, including living in a trailer, to survive. Thanks.
I’ve been feeling the same way.
Bill Mahrer, now a smug "I told you so/I'm smarter than everyone else" comedian, did a movie framed as a documentary a few years ago called Religulous. An atheist, he mocked many religions in this movie. In an interview with (I believe) a House rep from TN, the rep made a few goofy comments, followed by an admission: "There is no intelligence test to be in Congress." Mahrer just looked at him in disbelief that the rep said this, almost proudly, with a smirk.
Don’t forget about Cancun Cruz! He is one of our Texas senators who flew to Cancun during the freeze in Texas that killed hundreds and caused untold damage and chaos. He couldn’t be bothered to stay in Texas so we had him on film, jetting off to Cancun. To make matters worse, my fellow Texans just reelected this jackass by a fairly wide margin. It’s too bad that everyone has to suffer when these stupid decisions are made. My heart too goes out to the people of Los Angeles County.
Steve, very unfair comments on your part. I have been through 3 major fires In Malibu, these are not planned events, people make plans, the mayor had obviously prearranged travel plans and shit happened and she has returned. Let’s take a deep breath and just focus on the jerk about to take office….
Keep your eye on the ball.
And let's not forget the horror that will be coming back to the oval office on January 20th. We all know Trump's "fondness" for blue states, so CA might not get much or all the federal aid they may need after Biden leaves office. Just the thought of that possibility makes me sick. Maybe Trump will say that if southern CA would just clean up all the dry grass and brush, they wouldn't be in this situation -- not unlike his stupid comments when he last disgraced the White House that CA should clean all their heavily forested areas of debris so fire has "nothing" to burn!!! Idiocy in action.
Agree. Caruso says the Palisades area should have been cleared of brush decades ago. Where did we hear this before? Didn’t know of him before now, and when it’s revealed at the end of the clip that he’s running for mayor and maybe governor, all the red flags 🚩 went up for me.
Yes, it should - 30-40 years have passed. Were there other mayors who knew that, too?
Well the brush not being dealt with is a major problem. I hate it when Trump is right.
He was talking about forests in mountains where that is impossible to do, which he must not have known. He didn’t want to help a blue state.
It is dealt with. All residents have to clear brush within a certain perimeter of the house or we are fined. You can’t clear all the “brush” on wild hillsides. That’s all they are. Brush. It’s like Trump saying they should “rake the forests”. Idiocy.