Internal correspondence has revealed that the office of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was informed of “critical” fire risks ahead of the Palisades Fire, contradicting the mayor’s assertion that she was unaware of the danger when she opted to travel to Africa.
Emails retrieved by the LA Times indicate that the city’s Emergency Management Department alerted the mayor’s office on January 3, a day before she departed for Ghana’s presidential inauguration, warning of “damaging winds and elevated fire conditions” expected in the coming week.
One of the emails, sent to over 100 officials from various departments, included a National Weather Service attachment, displaying a large red flame icon and a warning about “critical fire conditions,” which anticipated 80-mph winds on January 7.
Officials from the Emergency Management Department also reached out directly to two of Bass’s aides, requesting to arrange a “tentative” coordination meeting to address the situation.
However, the mayor was not informed, and instead found herself attending a party at the U.S. Embassy while Los Angeles was in the midst of a devastating fire nearly 7,500 miles away.
Bass later shifted the responsibility to Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who was dismissed by the mayor last month due to her inadequate response to the fire, which led to the destruction of homes and the loss of 12 lives.
In a Fox 11 interview, Bass blamed the chief for failing to “predict the seriousness” of the crisis, adding that had the fire department notified her of the impending danger, she would not have left the city.
Deputy Mayor Zach Seidl, who was aware of the emails from the Emergency Management Department, confessed to the LA Times that he did not inform the mayor about the warning prior to her departure.
He explained that the use of the word “tentative” in the request for a coordination meeting made him feel the situation was not as urgent as it seemed.
The Emergency Management Department responded by clarifying that “tentative” referred to the timing of the meeting and not the urgency of the fire threat.
When the Times asked why Bass’s team failed to alert her about the fire risk before her trip to Africa, Seidl also placed the blame on Crowley.
“Before other major weather emergencies, the Mayor — or at minimum, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff — has received a direct call from the Fire Chief, flagging the severity of the situation. This time, that call never came,” he stated.
Nonetheless, even if Crowley did not make the call, the Emergency Management Department had already provided a warning.
“This windstorm event has the potential to produce life-threatening and destructive wind gusts of 80 to 100 mph,” EMD officials cautioned in the meeting on January 6, as noted in a summary acquired by the Times.
{Matzav.com}