A new report has detailed how Los Angeles County officials ignored warnings of failing infrastructure water systems, which ultimately that led to one of the worst wildfires the area has ever seen.
According to the Los Angeles Times, L.A. County officials missed opportunities to upgrade water infrastructure, and experts are saying this could have helped fire fighters save more homes burned in the Pacific Palisades wildfires that left at least 11 people dead after hydrants ran dry within hours.
Thousands of pages of county records show the disaster could have been avoided if the necessary repairs and upgrades had been made, some of which had been earmarked as “high priority” since as early as 2013.
The L.A. Times reported government inaction, red tape, and budget shortfalls contributed to the work still not having broken ground when the fires ignited January 7, and the117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was completely dry after it had been emptied for maintenance.
As the outlet writes:
“But thousands of pages of state, county and municipal records reviewed by The Times show the disaster was years in the making. Red tape, budget shortfalls and government inaction repeatedly stymied plans for water system improvements — including some that specifically cited the need to boost firefighting capacity.”
The cost to make the necessary upgrades was an estimated $57 million and construction was reported to have taken approximately seven years to complete. The estimated damage to Los Angeles public facilities is around $350 million, while the total estimate of the fires which burned over 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 12,000 structures within the county, could cost upwards of $200 billion.
Furthermore, 1 million-gallon tanks that were supposed to be installed in Malibu and Topanga, which were also ravaged by fire, were left on the drawing board, according to the L.A. Times.
County records further showed replacements of “aging, and severely deteriorated” water tanks had been postponed, as well as upgrades to water lines, new connections to water sources, and pumping stations run by the Department of Public Works.
During an interview with the L.A. Times, County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella told the publication the water system in both Malibu and Topanga worked as they were designed – to fight fires at individual homes and structures.
“Could we do more? Every engineer, every firefighter’s going to tell you more is better,” Pestrella told L.A. Times, “When a firefighter says if he had more water he could have done more, that’s not necessarily true.”
Pestrella further said the neglected upgrades, had they been completed, would have only had a minor impact on the wildfires.
However, experts disagree, and said the upgrades would have had a significant impact to firefighters’ ability to put out the fires or even containing them more efficiently.
“Clearly it would have helped if many or all of these projects would have been built,” UCLA professor of urban planning Gregory Pierce told the outlet.
