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Speaker 1: Can't I am six forty. You're listening to the John

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Speaker 1: Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Last hour, right at

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Speaker 1: the top of the hour one o'clock, we had Jay

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Speaker 1: Bodicheria on. He is the new director of the National

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Speaker 1: Institutes of Health, replacing Anthony Fauci. We had him on

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Speaker 1: for half an hour. He was the leading voice against

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Speaker 1: all the COVID insanity, the lockdowns, and the restrictions that

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Speaker 1: devastated our entire society. And he was speaking out against

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Speaker 1: it and paid quite a public price for it because

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Speaker 1: he was shouted down and censored and criticized, but he survived.

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Speaker 1: He's running ANIH now and I think you'll really enjoy

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Speaker 1: listening to that interview on the podcast being posted after

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Speaker 1: four o'clock on the iHeartRadio app. Now, we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the new amended lawsuit against the City of

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles LEDWP because the attorneys and investigators representing many

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Speaker 1: of the Power of Saints residents have made new discoveries

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Speaker 1: as to what happened in the run up and during

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Speaker 1: the fire itself. And let's talk to Roger Bailey again,

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Speaker 1: one of the attorneys involved in this suit.

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Speaker 2: Roger how are you I'm good, John, How you doing.

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Speaker 1: I'm good. So you discovered some new information which you've

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Speaker 1: put into this amended lawsuit. Let me ask you first

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Speaker 1: about the LEDWP worker who took a long time to

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Speaker 1: de energize the power lines and then tried to cover

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Speaker 1: up that long delay. Can you describe what's in the lawsuit?

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Speaker 2: Sure? So, we sent what's called a public records request

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Speaker 2: to the DWP and have been receiving documents from them,

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Speaker 2: which included a log book from a substation in the

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Speaker 2: heart of the Palace. It's called DS twenty nine. We

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Speaker 2: looked at that with great interest because that was where

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Speaker 2: we had video a lot of power lines sparking and

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Speaker 2: sparking and starting new fires. When we looked at the

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Speaker 2: log book, it goes through and explains how on the

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Speaker 2: seventh of January there was a request to turn the

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Speaker 2: power off. There looked like there was a long delay

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Speaker 2: in getting anybody out there to do it, and ultimately

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Speaker 2: the conclusion is sorry, the fires too closed, we can't

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Speaker 2: be energize the power grid, and the power remained on.

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Speaker 2: But most importantly, the very last entry in that log

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Speaker 2: shows that twenty two days later, an employee of the

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Speaker 2: DWP went back into the log and changed the time

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Speaker 2: of the very first entry in our view to try

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Speaker 2: to make it look like they had been working on

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Speaker 2: this for hours and hours, when in fact, it looks

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Speaker 2: like they were late in even recognizing the need and

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Speaker 2: by the time they acted it was too late. Power

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Speaker 2: remained on and we have all of the spotfires that

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Speaker 2: we talked about last time. So very odd that they'd

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Speaker 2: send somebody in twenty two days later to change a

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Speaker 2: log book to make it look like they were working

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Speaker 2: real hard for hours to shut the power off.

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Speaker 1: Originally in the log book he showed up at six

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Speaker 1: eighteen pm on the day of the fire. He changed

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Speaker 1: that to one forty seven pm. Why one forty seven?

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Speaker 3: It's a bit we're scratching our head.

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Speaker 2: What's magic about one forty seven?

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Speaker 1: It's such a specific time.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, it could be that they didn't want

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Speaker 2: to pick a round number to make it look more like,

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Speaker 2: you know, this was a real time entry, but it was.

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Speaker 2: We've had the same question, why would you pick one

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Speaker 2: forty seven? But he did, and that's the very first

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Speaker 2: entry to make it look like they were working on

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Speaker 2: this for five and a half hours. But in reality,

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Speaker 2: as the last entry states, he changed that from six

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Speaker 2: eighteen in the evening to one forty seven.

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Speaker 1: Now, if he had turned off the power at one

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Speaker 1: forty seven, what does that change about the development of

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Speaker 1: the fire. Is there any way to know that? Have

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Speaker 1: you investigated that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well we have. As I talked about last time,

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Speaker 2: we have video from all over the Palisades that into

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Speaker 2: the afternoon and evening the power remained on and separate

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Speaker 2: spotfires started independent of the fire that was going on

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Speaker 2: at ten thirty in the morning. So if this technician

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Speaker 2: had in fact shown up at one forty seven, the

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Speaker 2: fire wasn't anywhere close to that substation and turned the

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Speaker 2: power off. It's his old equipment. He had to manually

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Speaker 2: shut it off. If he had shut the power off,

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Speaker 2: as they want us to believe, then that would have

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Speaker 2: stopped all of these other spotfires from me ever starting.

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Speaker 2: And of course the power remained on all night. We

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Speaker 2: have new ignitions up in the highlands, we have ignitions

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Speaker 2: and into people's houses. So that was a critical failure

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Speaker 2: that resulted in multiple new fires starting in addition to

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Speaker 2: the main fire in the morning.

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Speaker 1: Another part of the lawsuit is the Santenez reservoir. We

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Speaker 1: know that it was supposed to hold one hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventeen million gallons. It was dry. They had drained it

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Speaker 1: nine months earlier. They had to repair the cover. What

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Speaker 1: did you find new to amend the lawsuit? Some new information?

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so again we got records from the DWP,

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Speaker 2: including some emails. There were two things that we thought

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Speaker 2: were critical. One is that the ladwp's own policy required

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Speaker 2: that a surface inspection be performed monthly on the cover

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Speaker 2: on the Saninez Reservoir. Secondly, at least annually, their own

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Speaker 2: policy required that they perform an underwater inspection to identify

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Speaker 2: tears as early as possible. The DWP in twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: four and email exchanges admits that they hadn't done any

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Speaker 2: inspection since twenty twenty one, so for three years they

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Speaker 2: hadn't followed their own policy. Had they followed the policy,

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Speaker 2: they would have quickly identified a tear and would have

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Speaker 2: had it fixed when it was still small. So they

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Speaker 2: didn't do any inspections for three years. Worse, they then

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Speaker 2: say internally in twenty twenty four, this is November and

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Speaker 2: December of twenty twenty four, right before the fire. You

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Speaker 2: know what we ought to do. Let's just revise our

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Speaker 2: policy since we haven't done anything for three years, rather

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Speaker 2: than admitting we haven't followed our own policy, let's just

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Speaker 2: change the policy to make the inspections every three years.

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Speaker 2: So the fact that they didn't acknowledge that they hadn't

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Speaker 2: followed their own policy and that they wanted to just

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Speaker 2: change the policy to make it look like they were

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Speaker 2: compliant to us was absolutely stunning.

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Speaker 1: Right, so they could tell the world that all we've

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Speaker 1: complied with the existing policy, but actually they'd blown through

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Speaker 1: it by several years.

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Speaker 2: That's right, And remember, had they done it if they

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Speaker 2: followed their own policy. That rip that they somebody else

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Speaker 2: reported in early twenty four the Saninaz reservoir offline and

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Speaker 2: drained for eleven months. That tear could have been fixed

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Speaker 2: in a matter of weeks or a month, and the

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Speaker 2: water remains in the reservoir and available for firefighters.

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Speaker 1: We found you go ahead, Sorry.

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Speaker 3: No, I just said.

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Speaker 2: The second thing that we found is that in June

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Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, there's an email from DWP that says,

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Speaker 2: because Santa Inez is now offline and drained, Palisades faces

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Speaker 2: a water shortage and to address that water shortage. We

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Speaker 2: need to restart the Chattaquar sometimes called the Palisades Reservoir

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Speaker 2: until Santanez comes back online. So there's an acknowledgment in June.

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Speaker 2: June sixth to twenty twenty four. Hey, while Santanez is down,

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Speaker 2: the Palisades Face is a critical water shortage. We need

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Speaker 2: to start up the Palisades Reservoir, get that thing filled

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Speaker 2: and provide an alternate source of water. That was ignored

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Speaker 2: from June until the fire. Nobody did anything about it,

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Speaker 2: even though they acknowledged the need.

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Speaker 1: So they didn't have the Palisades Reservoir ready either.

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Speaker 2: No, that one remained empty also, so you had two

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Speaker 2: reservoirs empty.

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Speaker 1: But what did they do all day? There must be

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Speaker 1: a reservoir department at the DWP, and you've got two

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Speaker 1: major reservoirs empty, You got fire season approaching, you have

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Speaker 1: a possible water shortage that they acknowledge. Why not just

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Speaker 1: fill the reservoirs. It's not that complicated, just common sense.

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Speaker 1: What else do you do with the DWP but keep

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Speaker 1: the reservoirs full?

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 2: We're asking those Thame questions and as yet we've received

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Speaker 2: any answers from the DWP. It's been a lot of

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Speaker 2: deflection and the system formed as designed. You know, they

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Speaker 2: admit twenty percent of their hydrants weren't working at all,

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Speaker 2: were in desperate need to repair. So the entire system failed,

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Speaker 2: and it's failed unnecessarily. Had they maintained it according to

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Speaker 2: their own protocol, had they kept set in as filled,

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Speaker 2: even just for fire protection and not necessarily drinking, that

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Speaker 2: would have helped. If they filled the Palisade reservoir, that

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Speaker 2: would have helped.

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Speaker 3: They did neither.

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Speaker 2: They did everything wrong that you could do in the

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Speaker 2: face of a natural disaster like we had in January.

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Speaker 1: Can you hang on for another segment because I want

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Speaker 1: to ask you about the origin of the fire and

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Speaker 1: which has not been nailed down yet. And I also

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Speaker 1: want to talk to you about the general feelings that

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Speaker 1: the Palisage residents have after six months and to this day,

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Speaker 1: you know, the permits are dribbling out one by one.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of frustration with the insurance companies. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of roadblocks to rebuilding, and I understand everybody's

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Speaker 1: very very angry in the Palisades.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John cobelt on demand from KFI A

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Speaker 4: M six forty.

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Speaker 1: Let's continue now with Roger Bailey, an attorney involved in

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Speaker 1: a big lawsuit. Many people in the Palisades are suing

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Speaker 1: the city l a Department of Water and Power over

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Speaker 1: the lack of preparation, the botched, the botched response to

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Speaker 1: the to the terrible fires. Back on January seventh, we

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Speaker 1: were talking about the lack of water, the empty reservoir.

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Speaker 1: One element I saw which I hadn't thought of, is

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Speaker 1: because that Santiinez reservoir was empty. This is PERI your lawsuit.

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Speaker 1: Water dropper. Water dropping helicopters had to fly long distances

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Speaker 1: around the fire zone to reseal their tanks. They lost

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Speaker 1: a total of almost six and a half hours in

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Speaker 1: the early moments of the fire. And you know that

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Speaker 1: that didn't it didn't even occur to me that, right,

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Speaker 1: The helicopters had nowhere to resell their tanks, so it

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Speaker 1: took a lot longer to go back and forth to

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Speaker 1: do another dump.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 2: Uh, you know, even worse as the LADWP did not

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Speaker 2: tell la FD that San in Is was drained. So

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Speaker 2: the first few helicopters, there's a helipad up on San

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Speaker 2: in is the first few helicopters drop in expecting to

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Speaker 2: have water available and discover there is no water. So,

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Speaker 2: as you say, they had to relocate to distant reservoirs

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Speaker 2: to pick water up, and all combined it took an

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Speaker 2: additional six and a half hours of travel time, and

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Speaker 2: in those first few minutes and hours of firefighting, especially

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Speaker 2: from the air, are critical to slow the spread. When

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Speaker 2: you've got helicopters that could have been dropping water at

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Speaker 2: a rate of, you know, every two minutes, and now

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Speaker 2: it's every twenty minutes because they're flying to distant reservoirs,

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Speaker 2: your ability to slow the spread drops dramatically. So that's another,

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Speaker 2: you know, an act of not having water.

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Speaker 1: And I hear some idiots in government saying, well, the

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Speaker 1: reservoir wouldn't have made a difference. Well, of course it

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Speaker 1: would have made a difference. The helicopters lost six hours

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Speaker 1: of refilling their tanks trying to find some water. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's just such nonsense. The origin of the fire is

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Speaker 1: it the rekindling of the New Year's fire, the kids

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Speaker 1: and the fireworks? Is it that story? Or did somebody

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Speaker 1: else set the fire? In January seventh, another vagrant an

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Speaker 1: arsonist or is there another option out there? With all

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Speaker 1: your investigating although the investigating you've done, are you any

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Speaker 1: closer to an answer on this? Have any ceilings leanings?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: So we had investigators up on the ridge above the

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Speaker 2: Highlands on the eighth while the fire was still raging,

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Speaker 2: and began our surveying and investigation. It turns out that

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Speaker 2: that eight acre brush fire that started on New Year's even,

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Speaker 2: the New Year's Day, called the Lochman Fire, was thought

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Speaker 2: to have been extinguished on January one, But as anybody

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Speaker 2: that knows wildfires will tell you, those embers can remain

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Speaker 2: active and capable of reignition for up to two weeks.

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Speaker 2: So the Lochman fires believed to have been extinguished January one.

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Speaker 2: Everybody then leaves the scene, and then we get on

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Speaker 2: the fourth of January the red flag warning that we

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Speaker 2: all remember saying we're going to have unprecedented sant Ana wins.

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Speaker 2: That's when there should have been watchcrew's positioned to make

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Speaker 2: sure that fire didn't rekindle. And the Lockman fire, the

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Speaker 2: New Year's Day fire, was on state land. California law

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Speaker 2: is clear when a fire burns on state land, it's

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Speaker 2: the state's obligation to make sure that fire does not

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Speaker 2: rekindle or restart. It turns out that the state had

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Speaker 2: nobody up on that ridge between January.

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Speaker 3: One and the seventh.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we should have had Newsom himself up there

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Speaker 2: with a hose in the face of the red flag warnings,

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Speaker 2: ready to start putting flames out. When that thing rekindled,

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Speaker 2: they had nobody up there, and it grew instantly spread

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Speaker 2: off of state land and on property and homes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, he's busy running for president of South Carolina.

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Speaker 1: Now exactly one more thing before you go, because we're

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Speaker 1: tight on time. One of the other attorneys on this case,

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Speaker 1: Alexander Robertson, was quoted in the paper as saying, I've

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Speaker 1: been doing wildfire cases and I've never seen the level

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Speaker 1: of anger and mistrust from my clients towards the defendants.

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Speaker 1: People were angry before, but now to learn these new

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Speaker 1: facts that you and I have been talking about, they

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Speaker 1: are livid. This is salt in a very raw wound.

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Speaker 1: Is that what you're encountering with your clients? There is

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Speaker 1: the anger just somehow seems to be increasing and deepening.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, alex is my co counsel in the case. Then

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Speaker 2: we've been working the case from day one together, and

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Speaker 2: as Alex said, we represent over three thousand, three hundred

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Speaker 2: Palisags fire victims. The anger has only grown since the fire.

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Speaker 2: The DWP and the government continues to deflect that there's

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Speaker 2: no accountability and the rebuilding process, although represented to be

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Speaker 2: you know, swift and easy, is anything but that. It's

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Speaker 2: just added to frustrations and people are more they ever were.

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Speaker 2: And I agree this is anger on a level I

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Speaker 2: haven't seen in my thirty one years of practice.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, let's keep talking. Roger Bailey, the attorney

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Speaker 1: who is representing many Palisades residents against the city and

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Speaker 1: the DWP over everything to do with the Palisades fire.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Roger for coming on.

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Speaker 2: You're welcome.

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Speaker 1: Oh you see that. I'll do some's campaigning in South Carolina.

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Speaker 1: It turns out the likely rekindling of the fire happened

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Speaker 1: on state land and there were no state fire officials

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Speaker 1: or firefighters monitoring that fire. All you had to do

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Speaker 1: is send you know, a crew over there to monitor

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Speaker 1: the origins of the fire, and they could have if

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Speaker 1: that is where it rekindled. When the winds blew big

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Speaker 1: on January seventh. That could have been put out right away,

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Speaker 1: just had a few people standing there. But Newson didn't

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Speaker 1: have that done, did he. But he's got beautiful hair

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Speaker 1: and a nice smile and a nice smile, strong jaw line.

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Speaker 1: So go back to swooning, everybody, go back to blacking out, fainting,

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Speaker 1: swooning when we come back, all right. Karen Bass gave

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Speaker 1: a long interview to a Telmundo reporter about the fire

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Speaker 1: about Ice. We'll do the fire clips coming up.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI Am sixty.

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Speaker 1: We're going to get to Karen Bass's clip about the fire.

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Speaker 1: She was on an interview with the Telmundo reporter yesterday.

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Speaker 1: By the way, she's running for reelection. First off, I

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Speaker 1: want to talk here with Don Mahallick, the retired Secret

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Speaker 1: Service agent, and he's the law enforcement contributor for ABC News,

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Speaker 1: because there was a big news yesterday in Secret Service circles.

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Speaker 1: Six agents suspended. They were on duty when Trump got

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Speaker 1: winged by that bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, almost exactly a

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Speaker 1: year ago. Let's talk to Don Mahallick about that.

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Speaker 3: Well, how are you good John, how about you.

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Speaker 1: I'm all right. Suspensions range from ten to forty two days,

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Speaker 1: and when they come back to work, they've all been demoted.

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Speaker 1: That's what I read is that. Does that sound right?

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Speaker 3: I don't know about the demotion part. I know the

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Speaker 3: suspension part sounds accurate. Now, this is the end result

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Speaker 3: of the Secret Services internal affairs process. They called it

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Speaker 3: an inspection process. So and the government's discipline process is

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Speaker 3: a little wonky. This investigation started after Butler at some

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Speaker 3: point last year. They were given proposals of discipline and

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Speaker 3: then it's an appeals process and that goes back and forth,

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Speaker 3: and then once the appeals process hits its hits its end,

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Speaker 3: it was a final discipline and that's what we saw today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the term they're using is restricted roles

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Speaker 1: they will have after this suspension. What how could you

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Speaker 1: have an operational failure involving so many people when you,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you live this life. You get up in

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Speaker 1: the morning, the president has a big rally in an

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Speaker 1: open air space. You've got one job keep them from

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Speaker 1: getting killed. And how could so many people screw up

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Speaker 1: that one mission?

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Speaker 3: Well, it's one mission, but there's multiple facets to the mission.

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Speaker 3: And the other thing is that some of these issues

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Speaker 3: that they pointed out are issues that have been previously

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Speaker 3: pointed out, most recently in the twenty fourteen Protective Mission

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Speaker 3: Panel report when a secret service out a bunch of

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Speaker 3: people jumping over the White House fence. So some of

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Speaker 3: these issues are what I would say legacy secret service

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Speaker 3: issues do the lack of funding and investment and personnel.

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Speaker 3: And in a case of Butler, you were talking a

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Speaker 3: very arduous campaign three hundred days out of the road.

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Speaker 3: For most of these agents under a dynamic were reduced manpower,

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Speaker 3: reduced personnel, and people get tired, and when you get tired,

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Speaker 3: you make mistakes. So it's a you know, not to

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Speaker 3: make an excuse, but that's the situation, that's the facts

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Speaker 3: on the ground. As they say that they were working

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Speaker 3: working around and the mistakes came down to generally commanding control,

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Speaker 3: taking control of the site, making sure people there understood

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Speaker 3: what was going on, making sure and then communication, making

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Speaker 3: sure the lines of communication were clear, the reporting process

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Speaker 3: was clear, people understood their roles, and then making sure

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Speaker 3: that you addressed any of the issues that came up

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Speaker 3: at the site, whether it was the line of site

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Speaker 3: issue or whatever with with with some with some technologies,

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Speaker 3: what was what.

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Speaker 1: Was the main failure that kept that the roof of

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Speaker 1: that building, what was left unattended, unobserved.

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Speaker 3: That So the main failure, from my understanding, was there

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Speaker 3: was a plan in place to either put people on

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Speaker 3: the roof or have the roof what we call block

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Speaker 3: the line of sight, have a bunch of things in

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Speaker 3: front of the roof to block the site line from

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Speaker 3: the roof to the stage on game day, the line

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Speaker 3: of sight blockage never materialized, and it's still unclear why

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Speaker 3: nobody and I think it was supposed to be a

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Speaker 3: local police post while nobody was actually on the roof,

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Speaker 3: So that's why nobody was on the roof, but on

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Speaker 3: the communication piece. Ninety minutes prior to the locals had

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Speaker 3: identified the shooter as suspicious, had communicated about it within

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Speaker 3: their own text rauter which did not include the Secret Service,

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Speaker 3: and didn't give that information to the Secret Service until

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Speaker 3: almost the last minute, which goes to streamlining and unifying

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Speaker 3: the communication chain of protection protective sites.

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Speaker 1: And you mentioned early on the lack of funding over

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Speaker 1: the years. Why a lack of funding since we overspend

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Speaker 1: trillions of dollars every year. Why would they stint on

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Speaker 1: Secret Service protection for the president, any president, for a candidate, like,

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Speaker 1: of all of all things to cheap out on.

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Speaker 3: I don't understand you're preaching to the choir. I've asked

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Speaker 3: that question for over twenty years, and I tell people,

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Speaker 3: September twelve, two thousand and one, we went from having

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Speaker 3: twenty something to protect these to forty five. But the

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Speaker 3: agency's manpower and budget never doubled, and in the twenty

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Speaker 3: plus years since, the budget has never met the expanded

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Speaker 3: mission the Secret Service has. And people want to blame

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Speaker 3: the merger into DHS. That could be part of it,

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Speaker 3: because it's a you know, DHS has a lot of

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Speaker 3: important missions and it's very competitive for funding.

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Speaker 1: Might have bottom line, but this is the president.

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Speaker 3: The president's important right, the president's important tea, what they

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Speaker 3: need to do the job.

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Speaker 1: When people hear the phrase secret Service, first thing they

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Speaker 1: think of, maybe the only thing they think of, Oh,

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Speaker 1: those are the guys and women around the president. Now,

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Speaker 1: I know you have a lot of other functions in

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Speaker 1: government as well, but that's the number one. And I

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Speaker 1: would think in Washington, d C. The people in Congress

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Speaker 1: would make sure that that's a line item that's funded.

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Speaker 1: The people running DHS would say, Okay, are most one

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Speaker 1: of our most important divisions here? Secret Service? What do

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Speaker 1: they do?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Number one? They protect the President. How does that slip

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Speaker 1: by for so many years without funding? That seems impossible

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Speaker 1: to me.

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Speaker 3: Listen, I can point to you back in the Obama

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Speaker 3: years where there was three or four years in a

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Speaker 3: row where the Secret Service, after you took a cut

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Speaker 3: and funding, they actually had less funding the year after

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Speaker 3: than the year before because of different budget priorities and sequestration,

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Speaker 3: a bunch of other issues that had nothing to do

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Speaker 3: with the Secret Service but had everything to do with

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Speaker 3: the way the government was being run and running at

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Speaker 3: that point time. It makes no sense to me. I've

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Speaker 3: scratched my head for twenty years. Hopefully now post Butler,

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Speaker 3: that's not a problem with the Secret Service anymore.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of baffling things going on in

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Speaker 1: the world. Don, always good talking to you. Don Mahallak,

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Speaker 1: retired Senior Secret Service agent, ABC News Law Enforcement contributor,

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Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on again.

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Speaker 3: Thanks John, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: Man all right, when we come back. Karen Bass, she

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Speaker 1: got questioned on a lot of things. Next segment, why

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Speaker 1: did she choose to go to Africa when the fires

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Speaker 1: were breaking down? This is from Telemundo reporter Enrique Chiabra.

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Speaker 1: Play that next.

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Speaker 4: You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM sixty.

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Speaker 1: Tomorrow's Moistline Friday. We have any more room on the

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Speaker 1: moistline or I don't know.

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Speaker 5: It's crowded. It's very crowded. But if you got something good,

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Speaker 5: you might as well send that.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna have to give us the submission of your

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Speaker 1: life to get through this crowd eight seven seven moist

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Speaker 1: eighty six, eight seven seven moist eighty six or six

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Speaker 1: six four seven eight eighty six. Karen Bass not doing

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Speaker 1: well on the moistline. That's putting it lightly. Yeah, all right,

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Speaker 1: so we got a lot of Karen Bass to play,

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Speaker 1: and I want to play one clip now while we

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Speaker 1: have a chance. We spent the first half hour with

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Speaker 1: an attorney, Roger Bailey, who's representing a lot of Palisades

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Speaker 1: residents who were extremely angry. More and more has come

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Speaker 1: out about the incompetence of the DWP and the City

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Speaker 1: of Los Angeles in the preparation and response to the fire.

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Speaker 1: The latest thing is some dope at DWP who was

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Speaker 1: supposed to turn off the electricity to some of the

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Speaker 1: lines didn't and then went back and doctored the records,

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Speaker 1: claiming that he went to that I don't know what

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Speaker 1: you call it, whatever the building was which had the

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Speaker 1: dials where he was supposed to turn off the electricity.

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Speaker 1: He didn't get there a till about quarter after six,

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Speaker 1: and by then the fire prevented him from accessing what

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Speaker 1: he needed to access. He put down. He went back

436
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: into the records and said, oh, I went there about

437
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: a quarter to two because he didn't want everybody to

438
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 1: know that he was four and a half hours late.

439
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: And god knows how much damage was done in those

440
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: four and a half hours because the electrical lines were

441
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: spawning new fires. And what struck me too when Roger

442
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 1: Bailey was on is that he had to turn off

443
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 1: the electricity by hand. He had to go to some

444
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: DWP building and turn it off by hand. They can't

445
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: do it remotely electronically. I mean, they have a lot

446
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 1: of people I know have security alarms now that you

447
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: could turn on and off from the other side of

448
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 1: the world through the internet. But in La A major

449
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 1: electrical substation. Guy's got to walk in there in the

450
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: middle of a fire, like they never thought, well, what

451
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: happens at the whole neighborhood where this structure is on fire?

452
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 1: How's he going to get in there? Why isn't done remotely?

453
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: Why is everything so left up? Anyway, here's Karen bass

454
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: on with Telemando reporter Enrique Chiabra about why she was

455
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 1: in Africa when the fire broke out.

456
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 6: There's been so many with the fires. You know you

457
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 6: were here, but then when the first started you were

458
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,400
Speaker 6: in Africa. There was a lot of controversy about why

459
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 6: you were away, How can you respond to that and

460
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:20,160
Speaker 6: what else?

461
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 7: Just let me just say why I was away, President Biden.

462
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 7: A few days before I left to go to Africa,

463
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 7: it was major news that I was going to Africa

464
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 7: because the White House issued a press release saying that

465
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 7: I was included and invited on a delegation to represent

466
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 7: our country at the inauguration of the Ghanaian president.

467
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,680
Speaker 6: Right, but then the fire started on the six, which

468
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 6: was a Tuesday. We knew the alerts were happening the

469
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 6: week before that, but then you left, So there was

470
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 6: a lot of controversy and criticism towards you.

471
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: Why were you gone give.

472
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 7: Me let me just let me just tell you that

473
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 7: the alerts that were issued through emails the.

474
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 1: City or the count and social media, the city.

475
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 7: And the county, nobody was prepared for a weather event

476
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 7: that had never happened in our lifetime, which is hurricane

477
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 7: strength wins. So it was an alert mentioned around Santa

478
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 7: Anna wins that happened frequently, yes, but it was not

479
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 7: elevated to the point of a critical situation. Otherwise the

480
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 7: county and the city would have gone into emergency mode.

481
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:36,959
Speaker 7: So when I learned fires, I was actually three hours

482
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 7: from boarding a plane to come home. I think what

483
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 7: a lot of people didn't realize is number one the

484
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 7: time difference between the United States and Africa, and two

485
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 7: how long it takes to travel. So I got back

486
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 7: as soon as I could.

487
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: Now we know how how the time different worked. The

488
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: time difference works when you're in Africa. She totally we

489
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: lied there. You would know you were here. You were

490
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: reading all the warnings.

491
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 8: We was gonna say warnings for days. We knew that

492
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 8: this was not a normal Santa Anna wind event. We

493
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 8: knew with the low humidity that we hadn't had rain

494
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 8: in such a long time. We knew this was going

495
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 8: to be bad.

496
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: They've had one hundred mile an hour winds frequently during

497
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: these Santa Ana periods. I have seen these paper clippings

498
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: going back to at least nineteen thirty eight, where you

499
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 1: had winds in thee hundred mile an hour range. It

500
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: has happened, So it's not something we've never seen before.

501
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: Yes we have. And they were warned. They were using

502
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: the most extreme language, the most extreme warning that they could.

503
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 1: There weren't any words left in the English language to

504
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: warn people how bad the winds were going to be

505
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: and how extreme the fire danger was. They nailed it

506
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. She didn't care, and she goes, oh, oh,

507
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: you know the county email email. It was constantly on

508
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: the news.

509
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 8: It was the lead story of everybody's news for days.

510
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: We were sitting waiting to see how bad it was

511
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 1: gonna be, if this was gonna be something catastrophic. I

512
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: remember clearly feeling that. I remember feeling that the morning

513
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: of the seventh, because I was in the Palisades and

514
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: the wind started to blow. My wife even took video.

515
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: We were in this on this hike and we both

516
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: talked about it. It's like something bad is going to

517
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: happen today. Because I'd heard all the warnings, I knew

518
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: if we were going to get these excessive winds, very

519
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: good chance that the town's in the foothills like the

520
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: Palisades were gonna burn.

521
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 2: Wow.

522
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 5: On January sixth, twenty twenty five this year, obviously, National

523
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 5: Weather Service Los Angeles tweeted heads up in all caps

524
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 5: with three XRA alimation points all caps. A life threatening, destructive,

525
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 5: widespread windstorm is expected Tuesday afternoon Wednesday morning across much

526
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 5: of Ventura and La County areas not typically windy will

527
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 5: be impacted.

528
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: And she wasn't here for it, and there was nobody

529
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: else in government filling in the acting. There was supposed

530
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: to be Marquise Harris Dawson, completely missing in action. The

531
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 1: guy who is in charge in the Mayor's office overseeing

532
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 1: the fire and police department was Brian Williams. He was

533
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,719
Speaker 1: on leave for calling in bomb threats, which he has

534
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: since pleaded guilty to. There was nobody in charge of

535
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: the city. There was as we told you last hour.

536
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: Roger Bailey, the attorney, says that cal Fire should have

537
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 1: been monitoring the fireworks fire from January first, to see

538
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: if the new winds were going to whip up the

539
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: blaze all over again. There was nobody stationed there. Nobody

540
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: was assigned by CalFire, nobody was assigned in the LA

541
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: Fire Department. Christine Crowley didn't send anybody there. Newsom failed,

542
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: they had a CalFire failed, Kristin Crowley failed, Bass failed,

543
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: or Keith Harris Gauson failed. They didn't do anything. They

544
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: don't care. And then she goes on It's like, well,

545
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: you know, as you know, she's got this smug arrogant

546
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: attitude about her.

547
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 8: Well, she made it seem that it was so important

548
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 8: for her to go to Africa, that it was such

549
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 8: a good thing for us, it.

550
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: Was so representing the United States exactly in Ghana. Yet

551
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: find one person in the entire nation that gave a

552
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: rats ass about that. Nobody, nobody cares that you were

553
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: selected by Joe Biden to go to Ghana to have

554
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: drinks at a cocktail party for the Ghanian president. We

555
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: got more Bass talking about ice coming up. But first

556
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: after Deborah's news, I talked about this yesterday, and this

557
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: is something else we're going to be exploring a lot.

558
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: Chris Lagrave, the journalist, is coming on. I told you

559
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: about Scott Wiener's bill sent It Bill seventy nine, forcing

560
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: single family neighborhoods to accept high rise apartment buildings for

561
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: low income people. And I suspect this is why in

562
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: the Palisades they're slow walking all the permits. Is because

563
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: they want the homeowners to give up, sell it to

564
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: developers who will then start planting these low income apartment

565
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 1: buildings all over the Palisades and get all those wealthy

566
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: people out of town, make them go away, Give that

567
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 1: beautiful view over to the low income, the low income residents.

568
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: Deborah Mark live in the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey,

569
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the John Covelt Show podcast. You

570
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: can always hear the show live on ai AM six

571
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,

572
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app