July 10, 2025 • 34 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (07/10) - Attorney Roger Behle comes on the show to talk about a lawsuit that alleges a coverup by LADWP as one of the big missteps in the Palisades Fire. Don Mihalek comes on the show to talk about the Secret Service agents who were suspended because of the assassination attempt on Pres. Trump's life last year in Butler, PA during the campaign. Mayor Karen Bass was pressed by Telemundo reporter Enrique Chiabra about her response to the fires and why she was in Africa when the fires broke out.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't I am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Last hour, right at
the top of the hour one o'clock, we had Jay
Bodicheria on. He is the new director of the National
Institutes of Health, replacing Anthony Fauci. We had him on
for half an hour. He was the leading voice against
all the COVID insanity, the lockdowns, and the restrictions that
(00:23):
devastated our entire society. And he was speaking out against
it and paid quite a public price for it because
he was shouted down and censored and criticized, but he survived.
He's running ANIH now and I think you'll really enjoy
listening to that interview on the podcast being posted after
four o'clock on the iHeartRadio app. Now, we're going to
(00:46):
talk about the new amended lawsuit against the City of
Los Angeles LEDWP because the attorneys and investigators representing many
of the Power of Saints residents have made new discoveries
as to what happened in the run up and during
(01:07):
the fire itself. And let's talk to Roger Bailey again,
one of the attorneys involved in this suit.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Roger how are you I'm good, John, How you doing.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I'm good. So you discovered some new information which you've
put into this amended lawsuit. Let me ask you first
about the LEDWP worker who took a long time to
de energize the power lines and then tried to cover
up that long delay. Can you describe what's in the lawsuit?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Sure? So, we sent what's called a public records request
to the DWP and have been receiving documents from them,
which included a log book from a substation in the
heart of the Palace. It's called DS twenty nine. We
looked at that with great interest because that was where
we had video a lot of power lines sparking and
(02:02):
sparking and starting new fires. When we looked at the
log book, it goes through and explains how on the
seventh of January there was a request to turn the
power off. There looked like there was a long delay
in getting anybody out there to do it, and ultimately
the conclusion is sorry, the fires too closed, we can't
be energize the power grid, and the power remained on.
(02:25):
But most importantly, the very last entry in that log
shows that twenty two days later, an employee of the
DWP went back into the log and changed the time
of the very first entry in our view to try
to make it look like they had been working on
this for hours and hours, when in fact, it looks
(02:46):
like they were late in even recognizing the need and
by the time they acted it was too late. Power
remained on and we have all of the spotfires that
we talked about last time. So very odd that they'd
send somebody in twenty two days later to change a
log book to make it look like they were working
real hard for hours to shut the power off.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Originally in the log book he showed up at six
eighteen pm on the day of the fire. He changed
that to one forty seven pm. Why one forty seven?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It's a bit we're scratching our head.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
What's magic about one forty seven?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
It's such a specific time.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, you know, it could be that they didn't want
to pick a round number to make it look more like,
you know, this was a real time entry, but it was.
We've had the same question, why would you pick one
forty seven? But he did, and that's the very first
entry to make it look like they were working on
this for five and a half hours. But in reality,
as the last entry states, he changed that from six
(03:49):
eighteen in the evening to one forty seven.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now, if he had turned off the power at one
forty seven, what does that change about the development of
the fire. Is there any way to know that? Have
you investigated that?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, well we have. As I talked about last time,
we have video from all over the Palisades that into
the afternoon and evening the power remained on and separate
spotfires started independent of the fire that was going on
at ten thirty in the morning. So if this technician
had in fact shown up at one forty seven, the
(04:25):
fire wasn't anywhere close to that substation and turned the
power off. It's his old equipment. He had to manually
shut it off. If he had shut the power off,
as they want us to believe, then that would have
stopped all of these other spotfires from me ever starting.
And of course the power remained on all night. We
have new ignitions up in the highlands, we have ignitions
(04:48):
and into people's houses. So that was a critical failure
that resulted in multiple new fires starting in addition to
the main fire in the morning.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Another part of the lawsuit is the Santenez reservoir. We
know that it was supposed to hold one hundred and
seventeen million gallons. It was dry. They had drained it
nine months earlier. They had to repair the cover. What
did you find new to amend the lawsuit? Some new information?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, yeah, so again we got records from the DWP,
including some emails. There were two things that we thought
were critical. One is that the ladwp's own policy required
that a surface inspection be performed monthly on the cover
on the Saninez Reservoir. Secondly, at least annually, their own
(05:43):
policy required that they perform an underwater inspection to identify
tears as early as possible. The DWP in twenty twenty
four and email exchanges admits that they hadn't done any
inspection since twenty twenty one, so for three years they
hadn't followed their own policy. Had they followed the policy,
(06:05):
they would have quickly identified a tear and would have
had it fixed when it was still small. So they
didn't do any inspections for three years. Worse, they then
say internally in twenty twenty four, this is November and
December of twenty twenty four, right before the fire. You
know what we ought to do. Let's just revise our
(06:26):
policy since we haven't done anything for three years, rather
than admitting we haven't followed our own policy, let's just
change the policy to make the inspections every three years.
So the fact that they didn't acknowledge that they hadn't
followed their own policy and that they wanted to just
change the policy to make it look like they were
compliant to us was absolutely stunning.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Right, so they could tell the world that all we've
complied with the existing policy, but actually they'd blown through
it by several years.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's right, And remember, had they done it if they
followed their own policy. That rip that they somebody else
reported in early twenty four the Saninaz reservoir offline and
drained for eleven months. That tear could have been fixed
in a matter of weeks or a month, and the
water remains in the reservoir and available for firefighters.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
We found you go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
No, I just said.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
The second thing that we found is that in June
of twenty twenty four, there's an email from DWP that says,
because Santa Inez is now offline and drained, Palisades faces
a water shortage and to address that water shortage. We
need to restart the Chattaquar sometimes called the Palisades Reservoir
(07:48):
until Santanez comes back online. So there's an acknowledgment in June.
June sixth to twenty twenty four. Hey, while Santanez is down,
the Palisades Face is a critical water shortage. We need
to start up the Palisades Reservoir, get that thing filled
and provide an alternate source of water. That was ignored
(08:09):
from June until the fire. Nobody did anything about it,
even though they acknowledged the need.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So they didn't have the Palisades Reservoir ready either.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
No, that one remained empty also, so you had two
reservoirs empty.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
But what did they do all day? There must be
a reservoir department at the DWP, and you've got two
major reservoirs empty, You got fire season approaching, you have
a possible water shortage that they acknowledge. Why not just
fill the reservoirs. It's not that complicated, just common sense.
(08:43):
What else do you do with the DWP but keep
the reservoirs full?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
We're asking those Thame questions and as yet we've received
any answers from the DWP. It's been a lot of
deflection and the system formed as designed. You know, they
admit twenty percent of their hydrants weren't working at all,
were in desperate need to repair. So the entire system failed,
(09:10):
and it's failed unnecessarily. Had they maintained it according to
their own protocol, had they kept set in as filled,
even just for fire protection and not necessarily drinking, that
would have helped. If they filled the Palisade reservoir, that
would have helped.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
They did neither.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
They did everything wrong that you could do in the
face of a natural disaster like we had in January.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Can you hang on for another segment because I want
to ask you about the origin of the fire and
which has not been nailed down yet. And I also
want to talk to you about the general feelings that
the Palisage residents have after six months and to this day,
you know, the permits are dribbling out one by one.
(09:59):
There's a lot of frustration with the insurance companies. There's
a lot of roadblocks to rebuilding, and I understand everybody's
very very angry in the Palisades.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
You're listening to John cobelt on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Let's continue now with Roger Bailey, an attorney involved in
a big lawsuit. Many people in the Palisades are suing
the city l a Department of Water and Power over
the lack of preparation, the botched, the botched response to
the to the terrible fires. Back on January seventh, we
(10:42):
were talking about the lack of water, the empty reservoir.
One element I saw which I hadn't thought of, is
because that Santiinez reservoir was empty. This is PERI your lawsuit.
Water dropper. Water dropping helicopters had to fly long distances
around the fire zone to reseal their tanks. They lost
(11:04):
a total of almost six and a half hours in
the early moments of the fire. And you know that
that didn't it didn't even occur to me that, right,
The helicopters had nowhere to resell their tanks, so it
took a lot longer to go back and forth to
do another dump.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Uh, you know, even worse as the LADWP did not
tell la FD that San in Is was drained. So
the first few helicopters, there's a helipad up on San
in is the first few helicopters drop in expecting to
have water available and discover there is no water. So,
as you say, they had to relocate to distant reservoirs
(11:47):
to pick water up, and all combined it took an
additional six and a half hours of travel time, and
in those first few minutes and hours of firefighting, especially
from the air, are critical to slow the spread. When
you've got helicopters that could have been dropping water at
a rate of, you know, every two minutes, and now
it's every twenty minutes because they're flying to distant reservoirs,
(12:11):
your ability to slow the spread drops dramatically. So that's another,
you know, an act of not having water.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And I hear some idiots in government saying, well, the
reservoir wouldn't have made a difference. Well, of course it
would have made a difference. The helicopters lost six hours
of refilling their tanks trying to find some water. I mean,
that's just such nonsense. The origin of the fire is
it the rekindling of the New Year's fire, the kids
(12:41):
and the fireworks? Is it that story? Or did somebody
else set the fire? In January seventh, another vagrant an
arsonist or is there another option out there? With all
your investigating although the investigating you've done, are you any
closer to an answer on this? Have any ceilings leanings?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
So we had investigators up on the ridge above the
Highlands on the eighth while the fire was still raging,
and began our surveying and investigation. It turns out that
that eight acre brush fire that started on New Year's even,
the New Year's Day, called the Lochman Fire, was thought
(13:26):
to have been extinguished on January one, But as anybody
that knows wildfires will tell you, those embers can remain
active and capable of reignition for up to two weeks.
So the Lochman fires believed to have been extinguished January one.
Everybody then leaves the scene, and then we get on
(13:49):
the fourth of January the red flag warning that we
all remember saying we're going to have unprecedented sant Ana wins.
That's when there should have been watchcrew's positioned to make
sure that fire didn't rekindle. And the Lockman fire, the
New Year's Day fire, was on state land. California law
(14:11):
is clear when a fire burns on state land, it's
the state's obligation to make sure that fire does not
rekindle or restart. It turns out that the state had
nobody up on that ridge between January.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
One and the seventh.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, we should have had Newsom himself up there
with a hose in the face of the red flag warnings,
ready to start putting flames out. When that thing rekindled,
they had nobody up there, and it grew instantly spread
off of state land and on property and homes.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah. Well, he's busy running for president of South Carolina.
Now exactly one more thing before you go, because we're
tight on time. One of the other attorneys on this case,
Alexander Robertson, was quoted in the paper as saying, I've
been doing wildfire cases and I've never seen the level
of anger and mistrust from my clients towards the defendants.
(15:09):
People were angry before, but now to learn these new
facts that you and I have been talking about, they
are livid. This is salt in a very raw wound.
Is that what you're encountering with your clients? There is
the anger just somehow seems to be increasing and deepening.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, alex is my co counsel in the case. Then
we've been working the case from day one together, and
as Alex said, we represent over three thousand, three hundred
Palisags fire victims. The anger has only grown since the fire.
The DWP and the government continues to deflect that there's
(15:47):
no accountability and the rebuilding process, although represented to be
you know, swift and easy, is anything but that. It's
just added to frustrations and people are more they ever were.
And I agree this is anger on a level I
haven't seen in my thirty one years of practice.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
All right, well, let's keep talking. Roger Bailey, the attorney
who is representing many Palisades residents against the city and
the DWP over everything to do with the Palisades fire.
Thank you, Roger for coming on.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Oh you see that. I'll do some's campaigning in South Carolina.
It turns out the likely rekindling of the fire happened
on state land and there were no state fire officials
or firefighters monitoring that fire. All you had to do
is send you know, a crew over there to monitor
(16:45):
the origins of the fire, and they could have if
that is where it rekindled. When the winds blew big
on January seventh. That could have been put out right away,
just had a few people standing there. But Newson didn't
have that done, did he. But he's got beautiful hair
and a nice smile and a nice smile, strong jaw line.
(17:06):
So go back to swooning, everybody, go back to blacking out, fainting,
swooning when we come back, all right. Karen Bass gave
a long interview to a Telmundo reporter about the fire
about Ice. We'll do the fire clips coming up.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
We're going to get to Karen Bass's clip about the fire.
She was on an interview with the Telmundo reporter yesterday.
By the way, she's running for reelection. First off, I
want to talk here with Don Mahallick, the retired Secret
Service agent, and he's the law enforcement contributor for ABC News,
(17:47):
because there was a big news yesterday in Secret Service circles.
Six agents suspended. They were on duty when Trump got
winged by that bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, almost exactly a
year ago. Let's talk to Don Mahallick about that.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Well, how are you good John, how about you.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I'm all right. Suspensions range from ten to forty two days,
and when they come back to work, they've all been demoted.
That's what I read is that. Does that sound right?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I don't know about the demotion part. I know the
suspension part sounds accurate. Now, this is the end result
of the Secret Services internal affairs process. They called it
an inspection process. So and the government's discipline process is
a little wonky. This investigation started after Butler at some
point last year. They were given proposals of discipline and
(18:45):
then it's an appeals process and that goes back and forth,
and then once the appeals process hits its hits its end,
it was a final discipline and that's what we saw today.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I guess the term they're using is restricted roles
they will have after this suspension. What how could you
have an operational failure involving so many people when you,
I mean, you live this life. You get up in
the morning, the president has a big rally in an
open air space. You've got one job keep them from
(19:19):
getting killed. And how could so many people screw up
that one mission?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, it's one mission, but there's multiple facets to the mission.
And the other thing is that some of these issues
that they pointed out are issues that have been previously
pointed out, most recently in the twenty fourteen Protective Mission
Panel report when a secret service out a bunch of
people jumping over the White House fence. So some of
these issues are what I would say legacy secret service
(19:49):
issues do the lack of funding and investment and personnel.
And in a case of Butler, you were talking a
very arduous campaign three hundred days out of the road.
For most of these agents under a dynamic were reduced manpower,
reduced personnel, and people get tired, and when you get tired,
you make mistakes. So it's a you know, not to
(20:11):
make an excuse, but that's the situation, that's the facts
on the ground. As they say that they were working
working around and the mistakes came down to generally commanding control,
taking control of the site, making sure people there understood
what was going on, making sure and then communication, making
sure the lines of communication were clear, the reporting process
(20:32):
was clear, people understood their roles, and then making sure
that you addressed any of the issues that came up
at the site, whether it was the line of site
issue or whatever with with with some with some technologies,
what was what.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Was the main failure that kept that the roof of
that building, what was left unattended, unobserved.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
That So the main failure, from my understanding, was there
was a plan in place to either put people on
the roof or have the roof what we call block
the line of sight, have a bunch of things in
front of the roof to block the site line from
the roof to the stage on game day, the line
(21:15):
of sight blockage never materialized, and it's still unclear why
nobody and I think it was supposed to be a
local police post while nobody was actually on the roof,
So that's why nobody was on the roof, but on
the communication piece. Ninety minutes prior to the locals had
identified the shooter as suspicious, had communicated about it within
(21:38):
their own text rauter which did not include the Secret Service,
and didn't give that information to the Secret Service until
almost the last minute, which goes to streamlining and unifying
the communication chain of protection protective sites.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And you mentioned early on the lack of funding over
the years. Why a lack of funding since we overspend
trillions of dollars every year. Why would they stint on
Secret Service protection for the president, any president, for a candidate, like,
of all of all things to cheap out on.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I don't understand you're preaching to the choir. I've asked
that question for over twenty years, and I tell people,
September twelve, two thousand and one, we went from having
twenty something to protect these to forty five. But the
agency's manpower and budget never doubled, and in the twenty
plus years since, the budget has never met the expanded
(22:35):
mission the Secret Service has. And people want to blame
the merger into DHS. That could be part of it,
because it's a you know, DHS has a lot of
important missions and it's very competitive for funding.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Might have bottom line, but this is the president.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
The president's important right, the president's important tea, what they
need to do the job.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
When people hear the phrase secret Service, first thing they
think of, maybe the only thing they think of, Oh,
those are the guys and women around the president. Now,
I know you have a lot of other functions in
government as well, but that's the number one. And I
would think in Washington, d C. The people in Congress
would make sure that that's a line item that's funded.
The people running DHS would say, Okay, are most one
(23:18):
of our most important divisions here? Secret Service? What do
they do?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Number one? They protect the President. How does that slip
by for so many years without funding? That seems impossible
to me.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Listen, I can point to you back in the Obama
years where there was three or four years in a
row where the Secret Service, after you took a cut
and funding, they actually had less funding the year after
than the year before because of different budget priorities and sequestration,
a bunch of other issues that had nothing to do
with the Secret Service but had everything to do with
the way the government was being run and running at
that point time. It makes no sense to me. I've
(23:51):
scratched my head for twenty years. Hopefully now post Butler,
that's not a problem with the Secret Service anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of baffling things going on in
the world. Don, always good talking to you. Don Mahallak,
retired Senior Secret Service agent, ABC News Law Enforcement contributor,
Thank you for coming on again.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Thanks John, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Man all right, when we come back. Karen Bass, she
got questioned on a lot of things. Next segment, why
did she choose to go to Africa when the fires
were breaking down? This is from Telemundo reporter Enrique Chiabra.
Play that next.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Tomorrow's Moistline Friday. We have any more room on the
moistline or I don't know.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
It's crowded. It's very crowded. But if you got something good,
you might as well send that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You're gonna have to give us the submission of your
life to get through this crowd eight seven seven moist
eighty six, eight seven seven moist eighty six or six
six four seven eight eighty six. Karen Bass not doing
well on the moistline. That's putting it lightly. Yeah, all right,
so we got a lot of Karen Bass to play,
(25:03):
and I want to play one clip now while we
have a chance. We spent the first half hour with
an attorney, Roger Bailey, who's representing a lot of Palisades
residents who were extremely angry. More and more has come
out about the incompetence of the DWP and the City
of Los Angeles in the preparation and response to the fire.
(25:25):
The latest thing is some dope at DWP who was
supposed to turn off the electricity to some of the
lines didn't and then went back and doctored the records,
claiming that he went to that I don't know what
you call it, whatever the building was which had the
(25:47):
dials where he was supposed to turn off the electricity.
He didn't get there a till about quarter after six,
and by then the fire prevented him from accessing what
he needed to access. He put down. He went back
into the records and said, oh, I went there about
a quarter to two because he didn't want everybody to
know that he was four and a half hours late.
(26:08):
And god knows how much damage was done in those
four and a half hours because the electrical lines were
spawning new fires. And what struck me too when Roger
Bailey was on is that he had to turn off
the electricity by hand. He had to go to some
DWP building and turn it off by hand. They can't
(26:29):
do it remotely electronically. I mean, they have a lot
of people I know have security alarms now that you
could turn on and off from the other side of
the world through the internet. But in La A major
electrical substation. Guy's got to walk in there in the
middle of a fire, like they never thought, well, what
happens at the whole neighborhood where this structure is on fire?
(26:53):
How's he going to get in there? Why isn't done remotely?
Why is everything so left up? Anyway, here's Karen bass
on with Telemando reporter Enrique Chiabra about why she was
in Africa when the fire broke out.
Speaker 6 (27:09):
There's been so many with the fires. You know you
were here, but then when the first started you were
in Africa. There was a lot of controversy about why
you were away, How can you respond to that and
what else?
Speaker 7 (27:20):
Just let me just say why I was away, President Biden.
A few days before I left to go to Africa,
it was major news that I was going to Africa
because the White House issued a press release saying that
I was included and invited on a delegation to represent
our country at the inauguration of the Ghanaian president.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
Right, but then the fire started on the six, which
was a Tuesday. We knew the alerts were happening the
week before that, but then you left, So there was
a lot of controversy and criticism towards you.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Why were you gone give.
Speaker 7 (27:56):
Me let me just let me just tell you that
the alerts that were issued through emails the.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
City or the count and social media, the city.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
And the county, nobody was prepared for a weather event
that had never happened in our lifetime, which is hurricane
strength wins. So it was an alert mentioned around Santa
Anna wins that happened frequently, yes, but it was not
elevated to the point of a critical situation. Otherwise the
(28:29):
county and the city would have gone into emergency mode.
So when I learned fires, I was actually three hours
from boarding a plane to come home. I think what
a lot of people didn't realize is number one the
time difference between the United States and Africa, and two
how long it takes to travel. So I got back
as soon as I could.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Now we know how how the time different worked. The
time difference works when you're in Africa. She totally we
lied there. You would know you were here. You were
reading all the warnings.
Speaker 8 (29:05):
We was gonna say warnings for days. We knew that
this was not a normal Santa Anna wind event. We
knew with the low humidity that we hadn't had rain
in such a long time. We knew this was going
to be bad.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
They've had one hundred mile an hour winds frequently during
these Santa Ana periods. I have seen these paper clippings
going back to at least nineteen thirty eight, where you
had winds in thee hundred mile an hour range. It
has happened, So it's not something we've never seen before.
Yes we have. And they were warned. They were using
(29:42):
the most extreme language, the most extreme warning that they could.
There weren't any words left in the English language to
warn people how bad the winds were going to be
and how extreme the fire danger was. They nailed it
one hundred percent. She didn't care, and she goes, oh, oh,
you know the county email email. It was constantly on
(30:08):
the news.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
It was the lead story of everybody's news for days.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
We were sitting waiting to see how bad it was
gonna be, if this was gonna be something catastrophic. I
remember clearly feeling that. I remember feeling that the morning
of the seventh, because I was in the Palisades and
the wind started to blow. My wife even took video.
We were in this on this hike and we both
(30:35):
talked about it. It's like something bad is going to
happen today. Because I'd heard all the warnings, I knew
if we were going to get these excessive winds, very
good chance that the town's in the foothills like the
Palisades were gonna burn.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
On January sixth, twenty twenty five this year, obviously, National
Weather Service Los Angeles tweeted heads up in all caps
with three XRA alimation points all caps. A life threatening, destructive,
widespread windstorm is expected Tuesday afternoon Wednesday morning across much
of Ventura and La County areas not typically windy will
(31:13):
be impacted.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And she wasn't here for it, and there was nobody
else in government filling in the acting. There was supposed
to be Marquise Harris Dawson, completely missing in action. The
guy who is in charge in the Mayor's office overseeing
the fire and police department was Brian Williams. He was
(31:39):
on leave for calling in bomb threats, which he has
since pleaded guilty to. There was nobody in charge of
the city. There was as we told you last hour.
Roger Bailey, the attorney, says that cal Fire should have
been monitoring the fireworks fire from January first, to see
if the new winds were going to whip up the
(32:00):
blaze all over again. There was nobody stationed there. Nobody
was assigned by CalFire, nobody was assigned in the LA
Fire Department. Christine Crowley didn't send anybody there. Newsom failed,
they had a CalFire failed, Kristin Crowley failed, Bass failed,
or Keith Harris Gauson failed. They didn't do anything. They
(32:21):
don't care. And then she goes on It's like, well,
you know, as you know, she's got this smug arrogant
attitude about her.
Speaker 8 (32:33):
Well, she made it seem that it was so important
for her to go to Africa, that it was such
a good thing for us, it.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Was so representing the United States exactly in Ghana. Yet
find one person in the entire nation that gave a
rats ass about that. Nobody, nobody cares that you were
selected by Joe Biden to go to Ghana to have
drinks at a cocktail party for the Ghanian president. We
got more Bass talking about ice coming up. But first
(33:05):
after Deborah's news, I talked about this yesterday, and this
is something else we're going to be exploring a lot.
Chris Lagrave, the journalist, is coming on. I told you
about Scott Wiener's bill sent It Bill seventy nine, forcing
single family neighborhoods to accept high rise apartment buildings for
low income people. And I suspect this is why in
(33:26):
the Palisades they're slow walking all the permits. Is because
they want the homeowners to give up, sell it to
developers who will then start planting these low income apartment
buildings all over the Palisades and get all those wealthy
people out of town, make them go away, Give that
(33:48):
beautiful view over to the low income, the low income residents.
Deborah Mark live in the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey,
you've been listening to the John Covelt Show podcast. You
can always hear the show live on ai AM six
forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't I am six forty. You're listening to the John
Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Last hour, right at
the top of the hour one o'clock, we had Jay
Bodicheria on. He is the new director of the National
Institutes of Health, replacing Anthony Fauci. We had him on
for half an hour. He was the leading voice against
all the COVID insanity, the lockdowns, and the restrictions that
(00:23):
devastated our entire society. And he was speaking out against
it and paid quite a public price for it because
he was shouted down and censored and criticized, but he survived.
He's running ANIH now and I think you'll really enjoy
listening to that interview on the podcast being posted after
four o'clock on the iHeartRadio app. Now, we're going to
(00:46):
talk about the new amended lawsuit against the City of
Los Angeles LEDWP because the attorneys and investigators representing many
of the Power of Saints residents have made new discoveries
as to what happened in the run up and during
(01:07):
the fire itself. And let's talk to Roger Bailey again,
one of the attorneys involved in this suit.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Roger how are you I'm good, John, How you doing.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I'm good. So you discovered some new information which you've
put into this amended lawsuit. Let me ask you first
about the LEDWP worker who took a long time to
de energize the power lines and then tried to cover
up that long delay. Can you describe what's in the lawsuit?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Sure? So, we sent what's called a public records request
to the DWP and have been receiving documents from them,
which included a log book from a substation in the
heart of the Palace. It's called DS twenty nine. We
looked at that with great interest because that was where
we had video a lot of power lines sparking and
(02:02):
sparking and starting new fires. When we looked at the
log book, it goes through and explains how on the
seventh of January there was a request to turn the
power off. There looked like there was a long delay
in getting anybody out there to do it, and ultimately
the conclusion is sorry, the fires too closed, we can't
be energize the power grid, and the power remained on.
(02:25):
But most importantly, the very last entry in that log
shows that twenty two days later, an employee of the
DWP went back into the log and changed the time
of the very first entry in our view to try
to make it look like they had been working on
this for hours and hours, when in fact, it looks
(02:46):
like they were late in even recognizing the need and
by the time they acted it was too late. Power
remained on and we have all of the spotfires that
we talked about last time. So very odd that they'd
send somebody in twenty two days later to change a
log book to make it look like they were working
real hard for hours to shut the power off.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Originally in the log book he showed up at six
eighteen pm on the day of the fire. He changed
that to one forty seven pm. Why one forty seven?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
It's a bit we're scratching our head.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
What's magic about one forty seven?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
It's such a specific time.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, you know, it could be that they didn't want
to pick a round number to make it look more like,
you know, this was a real time entry, but it was.
We've had the same question, why would you pick one
forty seven? But he did, and that's the very first
entry to make it look like they were working on
this for five and a half hours. But in reality,
as the last entry states, he changed that from six
(03:49):
eighteen in the evening to one forty seven.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now, if he had turned off the power at one
forty seven, what does that change about the development of
the fire. Is there any way to know that? Have
you investigated that?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, well we have. As I talked about last time,
we have video from all over the Palisades that into
the afternoon and evening the power remained on and separate
spotfires started independent of the fire that was going on
at ten thirty in the morning. So if this technician
had in fact shown up at one forty seven, the
(04:25):
fire wasn't anywhere close to that substation and turned the
power off. It's his old equipment. He had to manually
shut it off. If he had shut the power off,
as they want us to believe, then that would have
stopped all of these other spotfires from me ever starting.
And of course the power remained on all night. We
have new ignitions up in the highlands, we have ignitions
(04:48):
and into people's houses. So that was a critical failure
that resulted in multiple new fires starting in addition to
the main fire in the morning.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Another part of the lawsuit is the Santenez reservoir. We
know that it was supposed to hold one hundred and
seventeen million gallons. It was dry. They had drained it
nine months earlier. They had to repair the cover. What
did you find new to amend the lawsuit? Some new information?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, yeah, so again we got records from the DWP,
including some emails. There were two things that we thought
were critical. One is that the ladwp's own policy required
that a surface inspection be performed monthly on the cover
on the Saninez Reservoir. Secondly, at least annually, their own
(05:43):
policy required that they perform an underwater inspection to identify
tears as early as possible. The DWP in twenty twenty
four and email exchanges admits that they hadn't done any
inspection since twenty twenty one, so for three years they
hadn't followed their own policy. Had they followed the policy,
(06:05):
they would have quickly identified a tear and would have
had it fixed when it was still small. So they
didn't do any inspections for three years. Worse, they then
say internally in twenty twenty four, this is November and
December of twenty twenty four, right before the fire. You
know what we ought to do. Let's just revise our
(06:26):
policy since we haven't done anything for three years, rather
than admitting we haven't followed our own policy, let's just
change the policy to make the inspections every three years.
So the fact that they didn't acknowledge that they hadn't
followed their own policy and that they wanted to just
change the policy to make it look like they were
compliant to us was absolutely stunning.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Right, so they could tell the world that all we've
complied with the existing policy, but actually they'd blown through
it by several years.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That's right, And remember, had they done it if they
followed their own policy. That rip that they somebody else
reported in early twenty four the Saninaz reservoir offline and
drained for eleven months. That tear could have been fixed
in a matter of weeks or a month, and the
water remains in the reservoir and available for firefighters.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
We found you go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
No, I just said.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
The second thing that we found is that in June
of twenty twenty four, there's an email from DWP that says,
because Santa Inez is now offline and drained, Palisades faces
a water shortage and to address that water shortage. We
need to restart the Chattaquar sometimes called the Palisades Reservoir
(07:48):
until Santanez comes back online. So there's an acknowledgment in June.
June sixth to twenty twenty four. Hey, while Santanez is down,
the Palisades Face is a critical water shortage. We need
to start up the Palisades Reservoir, get that thing filled
and provide an alternate source of water. That was ignored
(08:09):
from June until the fire. Nobody did anything about it,
even though they acknowledged the need.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So they didn't have the Palisades Reservoir ready either.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
No, that one remained empty also, so you had two
reservoirs empty.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
But what did they do all day? There must be
a reservoir department at the DWP, and you've got two
major reservoirs empty, You got fire season approaching, you have
a possible water shortage that they acknowledge. Why not just
fill the reservoirs. It's not that complicated, just common sense.
(08:43):
What else do you do with the DWP but keep
the reservoirs full?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
We're asking those Thame questions and as yet we've received
any answers from the DWP. It's been a lot of
deflection and the system formed as designed. You know, they
admit twenty percent of their hydrants weren't working at all,
were in desperate need to repair. So the entire system failed,
(09:10):
and it's failed unnecessarily. Had they maintained it according to
their own protocol, had they kept set in as filled,
even just for fire protection and not necessarily drinking, that
would have helped. If they filled the Palisade reservoir, that
would have helped.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
They did neither.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
They did everything wrong that you could do in the
face of a natural disaster like we had in January.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Can you hang on for another segment because I want
to ask you about the origin of the fire and
which has not been nailed down yet. And I also
want to talk to you about the general feelings that
the Palisage residents have after six months and to this day,
you know, the permits are dribbling out one by one.
(09:59):
There's a lot of frustration with the insurance companies. There's
a lot of roadblocks to rebuilding, and I understand everybody's
very very angry in the Palisades.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
You're listening to John cobelt on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Let's continue now with Roger Bailey, an attorney involved in
a big lawsuit. Many people in the Palisades are suing
the city l a Department of Water and Power over
the lack of preparation, the botched, the botched response to
the to the terrible fires. Back on January seventh, we
(10:42):
were talking about the lack of water, the empty reservoir.
One element I saw which I hadn't thought of, is
because that Santiinez reservoir was empty. This is PERI your lawsuit.
Water dropper. Water dropping helicopters had to fly long distances
around the fire zone to reseal their tanks. They lost
(11:04):
a total of almost six and a half hours in
the early moments of the fire. And you know that
that didn't it didn't even occur to me that, right,
The helicopters had nowhere to resell their tanks, so it
took a lot longer to go back and forth to
do another dump.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Uh, you know, even worse as the LADWP did not
tell la FD that San in Is was drained. So
the first few helicopters, there's a helipad up on San
in is the first few helicopters drop in expecting to
have water available and discover there is no water. So,
as you say, they had to relocate to distant reservoirs
(11:47):
to pick water up, and all combined it took an
additional six and a half hours of travel time, and
in those first few minutes and hours of firefighting, especially
from the air, are critical to slow the spread. When
you've got helicopters that could have been dropping water at
a rate of, you know, every two minutes, and now
it's every twenty minutes because they're flying to distant reservoirs,
(12:11):
your ability to slow the spread drops dramatically. So that's another,
you know, an act of not having water.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
And I hear some idiots in government saying, well, the
reservoir wouldn't have made a difference. Well, of course it
would have made a difference. The helicopters lost six hours
of refilling their tanks trying to find some water. I mean,
that's just such nonsense. The origin of the fire is
it the rekindling of the New Year's fire, the kids
(12:41):
and the fireworks? Is it that story? Or did somebody
else set the fire? In January seventh, another vagrant an
arsonist or is there another option out there? With all
your investigating although the investigating you've done, are you any
closer to an answer on this? Have any ceilings leanings?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
So we had investigators up on the ridge above the
Highlands on the eighth while the fire was still raging,
and began our surveying and investigation. It turns out that
that eight acre brush fire that started on New Year's even,
the New Year's Day, called the Lochman Fire, was thought
(13:26):
to have been extinguished on January one, But as anybody
that knows wildfires will tell you, those embers can remain
active and capable of reignition for up to two weeks.
So the Lochman fires believed to have been extinguished January one.
Everybody then leaves the scene, and then we get on
(13:49):
the fourth of January the red flag warning that we
all remember saying we're going to have unprecedented sant Ana wins.
That's when there should have been watchcrew's positioned to make
sure that fire didn't rekindle. And the Lockman fire, the
New Year's Day fire, was on state land. California law
(14:11):
is clear when a fire burns on state land, it's
the state's obligation to make sure that fire does not
rekindle or restart. It turns out that the state had
nobody up on that ridge between January.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
One and the seventh.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, we should have had Newsom himself up there
with a hose in the face of the red flag warnings,
ready to start putting flames out. When that thing rekindled,
they had nobody up there, and it grew instantly spread
off of state land and on property and homes.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah. Well, he's busy running for president of South Carolina.
Now exactly one more thing before you go, because we're
tight on time. One of the other attorneys on this case,
Alexander Robertson, was quoted in the paper as saying, I've
been doing wildfire cases and I've never seen the level
of anger and mistrust from my clients towards the defendants.
(15:09):
People were angry before, but now to learn these new
facts that you and I have been talking about, they
are livid. This is salt in a very raw wound.
Is that what you're encountering with your clients? There is
the anger just somehow seems to be increasing and deepening.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, alex is my co counsel in the case. Then
we've been working the case from day one together, and
as Alex said, we represent over three thousand, three hundred
Palisags fire victims. The anger has only grown since the fire.
The DWP and the government continues to deflect that there's
(15:47):
no accountability and the rebuilding process, although represented to be
you know, swift and easy, is anything but that. It's
just added to frustrations and people are more they ever were.
And I agree this is anger on a level I
haven't seen in my thirty one years of practice.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
All right, well, let's keep talking. Roger Bailey, the attorney
who is representing many Palisades residents against the city and
the DWP over everything to do with the Palisades fire.
Thank you, Roger for coming on.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Oh you see that. I'll do some's campaigning in South Carolina.
It turns out the likely rekindling of the fire happened
on state land and there were no state fire officials
or firefighters monitoring that fire. All you had to do
is send you know, a crew over there to monitor
(16:45):
the origins of the fire, and they could have if
that is where it rekindled. When the winds blew big
on January seventh. That could have been put out right away,
just had a few people standing there. But Newson didn't
have that done, did he. But he's got beautiful hair
and a nice smile and a nice smile, strong jaw line.
(17:06):
So go back to swooning, everybody, go back to blacking out, fainting,
swooning when we come back, all right. Karen Bass gave
a long interview to a Telmundo reporter about the fire
about Ice. We'll do the fire clips coming up.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
We're going to get to Karen Bass's clip about the fire.
She was on an interview with the Telmundo reporter yesterday.
By the way, she's running for reelection. First off, I
want to talk here with Don Mahallick, the retired Secret
Service agent, and he's the law enforcement contributor for ABC News,
(17:47):
because there was a big news yesterday in Secret Service circles.
Six agents suspended. They were on duty when Trump got
winged by that bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, almost exactly a
year ago. Let's talk to Don Mahallick about that.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Well, how are you good John, how about you.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I'm all right. Suspensions range from ten to forty two days,
and when they come back to work, they've all been demoted.
That's what I read is that. Does that sound right?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I don't know about the demotion part. I know the
suspension part sounds accurate. Now, this is the end result
of the Secret Services internal affairs process. They called it
an inspection process. So and the government's discipline process is
a little wonky. This investigation started after Butler at some
point last year. They were given proposals of discipline and
(18:45):
then it's an appeals process and that goes back and forth,
and then once the appeals process hits its hits its end,
it was a final discipline and that's what we saw today.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I guess the term they're using is restricted roles
they will have after this suspension. What how could you
have an operational failure involving so many people when you,
I mean, you live this life. You get up in
the morning, the president has a big rally in an
open air space. You've got one job keep them from
(19:19):
getting killed. And how could so many people screw up
that one mission?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, it's one mission, but there's multiple facets to the mission.
And the other thing is that some of these issues
that they pointed out are issues that have been previously
pointed out, most recently in the twenty fourteen Protective Mission
Panel report when a secret service out a bunch of
people jumping over the White House fence. So some of
these issues are what I would say legacy secret service
(19:49):
issues do the lack of funding and investment and personnel.
And in a case of Butler, you were talking a
very arduous campaign three hundred days out of the road.
For most of these agents under a dynamic were reduced manpower,
reduced personnel, and people get tired, and when you get tired,
you make mistakes. So it's a you know, not to
(20:11):
make an excuse, but that's the situation, that's the facts
on the ground. As they say that they were working
working around and the mistakes came down to generally commanding control,
taking control of the site, making sure people there understood
what was going on, making sure and then communication, making
sure the lines of communication were clear, the reporting process
(20:32):
was clear, people understood their roles, and then making sure
that you addressed any of the issues that came up
at the site, whether it was the line of site
issue or whatever with with with some with some technologies,
what was what.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Was the main failure that kept that the roof of
that building, what was left unattended, unobserved.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
That So the main failure, from my understanding, was there
was a plan in place to either put people on
the roof or have the roof what we call block
the line of sight, have a bunch of things in
front of the roof to block the site line from
the roof to the stage on game day, the line
(21:15):
of sight blockage never materialized, and it's still unclear why
nobody and I think it was supposed to be a
local police post while nobody was actually on the roof,
So that's why nobody was on the roof, but on
the communication piece. Ninety minutes prior to the locals had
identified the shooter as suspicious, had communicated about it within
(21:38):
their own text rauter which did not include the Secret Service,
and didn't give that information to the Secret Service until
almost the last minute, which goes to streamlining and unifying
the communication chain of protection protective sites.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And you mentioned early on the lack of funding over
the years. Why a lack of funding since we overspend
trillions of dollars every year. Why would they stint on
Secret Service protection for the president, any president, for a candidate, like,
of all of all things to cheap out on.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I don't understand you're preaching to the choir. I've asked
that question for over twenty years, and I tell people,
September twelve, two thousand and one, we went from having
twenty something to protect these to forty five. But the
agency's manpower and budget never doubled, and in the twenty
plus years since, the budget has never met the expanded
(22:35):
mission the Secret Service has. And people want to blame
the merger into DHS. That could be part of it,
because it's a you know, DHS has a lot of
important missions and it's very competitive for funding.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Might have bottom line, but this is the president.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
The president's important right, the president's important tea, what they
need to do the job.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
When people hear the phrase secret Service, first thing they
think of, maybe the only thing they think of, Oh,
those are the guys and women around the president. Now,
I know you have a lot of other functions in
government as well, but that's the number one. And I
would think in Washington, d C. The people in Congress
would make sure that that's a line item that's funded.
The people running DHS would say, Okay, are most one
(23:18):
of our most important divisions here? Secret Service? What do
they do?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Number one? They protect the President. How does that slip
by for so many years without funding? That seems impossible
to me.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Listen, I can point to you back in the Obama
years where there was three or four years in a
row where the Secret Service, after you took a cut
and funding, they actually had less funding the year after
than the year before because of different budget priorities and sequestration,
a bunch of other issues that had nothing to do
with the Secret Service but had everything to do with
the way the government was being run and running at
that point time. It makes no sense to me. I've
(23:51):
scratched my head for twenty years. Hopefully now post Butler,
that's not a problem with the Secret Service anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of baffling things going on in
the world. Don, always good talking to you. Don Mahallak,
retired Senior Secret Service agent, ABC News Law Enforcement contributor,
Thank you for coming on again.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Thanks John, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Man all right, when we come back. Karen Bass, she
got questioned on a lot of things. Next segment, why
did she choose to go to Africa when the fires
were breaking down? This is from Telemundo reporter Enrique Chiabra.
Play that next.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Tomorrow's Moistline Friday. We have any more room on the
moistline or I don't know.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
It's crowded. It's very crowded. But if you got something good,
you might as well send that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You're gonna have to give us the submission of your
life to get through this crowd eight seven seven moist
eighty six, eight seven seven moist eighty six or six
six four seven eight eighty six. Karen Bass not doing
well on the moistline. That's putting it lightly. Yeah, all right,
so we got a lot of Karen Bass to play,
(25:03):
and I want to play one clip now while we
have a chance. We spent the first half hour with
an attorney, Roger Bailey, who's representing a lot of Palisades
residents who were extremely angry. More and more has come
out about the incompetence of the DWP and the City
of Los Angeles in the preparation and response to the fire.
(25:25):
The latest thing is some dope at DWP who was
supposed to turn off the electricity to some of the
lines didn't and then went back and doctored the records,
claiming that he went to that I don't know what
you call it, whatever the building was which had the
(25:47):
dials where he was supposed to turn off the electricity.
He didn't get there a till about quarter after six,
and by then the fire prevented him from accessing what
he needed to access. He put down. He went back
into the records and said, oh, I went there about
a quarter to two because he didn't want everybody to
know that he was four and a half hours late.
(26:08):
And god knows how much damage was done in those
four and a half hours because the electrical lines were
spawning new fires. And what struck me too when Roger
Bailey was on is that he had to turn off
the electricity by hand. He had to go to some
DWP building and turn it off by hand. They can't
(26:29):
do it remotely electronically. I mean, they have a lot
of people I know have security alarms now that you
could turn on and off from the other side of
the world through the internet. But in La A major
electrical substation. Guy's got to walk in there in the
middle of a fire, like they never thought, well, what
happens at the whole neighborhood where this structure is on fire?
(26:53):
How's he going to get in there? Why isn't done remotely?
Why is everything so left up? Anyway, here's Karen bass
on with Telemando reporter Enrique Chiabra about why she was
in Africa when the fire broke out.
Speaker 6 (27:09):
There's been so many with the fires. You know you
were here, but then when the first started you were
in Africa. There was a lot of controversy about why
you were away, How can you respond to that and
what else?
Speaker 7 (27:20):
Just let me just say why I was away, President Biden.
A few days before I left to go to Africa,
it was major news that I was going to Africa
because the White House issued a press release saying that
I was included and invited on a delegation to represent
our country at the inauguration of the Ghanaian president.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
Right, but then the fire started on the six, which
was a Tuesday. We knew the alerts were happening the
week before that, but then you left, So there was
a lot of controversy and criticism towards you.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Why were you gone give.
Speaker 7 (27:56):
Me let me just let me just tell you that
the alerts that were issued through emails the.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
City or the count and social media, the city.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
And the county, nobody was prepared for a weather event
that had never happened in our lifetime, which is hurricane
strength wins. So it was an alert mentioned around Santa
Anna wins that happened frequently, yes, but it was not
elevated to the point of a critical situation. Otherwise the
(28:29):
county and the city would have gone into emergency mode.
So when I learned fires, I was actually three hours
from boarding a plane to come home. I think what
a lot of people didn't realize is number one the
time difference between the United States and Africa, and two
how long it takes to travel. So I got back
as soon as I could.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Now we know how how the time different worked. The
time difference works when you're in Africa. She totally we
lied there. You would know you were here. You were
reading all the warnings.
Speaker 8 (29:05):
We was gonna say warnings for days. We knew that
this was not a normal Santa Anna wind event. We
knew with the low humidity that we hadn't had rain
in such a long time. We knew this was going
to be bad.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
They've had one hundred mile an hour winds frequently during
these Santa Ana periods. I have seen these paper clippings
going back to at least nineteen thirty eight, where you
had winds in thee hundred mile an hour range. It
has happened, So it's not something we've never seen before.
Yes we have. And they were warned. They were using
(29:42):
the most extreme language, the most extreme warning that they could.
There weren't any words left in the English language to
warn people how bad the winds were going to be
and how extreme the fire danger was. They nailed it
one hundred percent. She didn't care, and she goes, oh, oh,
you know the county email email. It was constantly on
(30:08):
the news.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
It was the lead story of everybody's news for days.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
We were sitting waiting to see how bad it was
gonna be, if this was gonna be something catastrophic. I
remember clearly feeling that. I remember feeling that the morning
of the seventh, because I was in the Palisades and
the wind started to blow. My wife even took video.
We were in this on this hike and we both
(30:35):
talked about it. It's like something bad is going to
happen today. Because I'd heard all the warnings, I knew
if we were going to get these excessive winds, very
good chance that the town's in the foothills like the
Palisades were gonna burn.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
On January sixth, twenty twenty five this year, obviously, National
Weather Service Los Angeles tweeted heads up in all caps
with three XRA alimation points all caps. A life threatening, destructive,
widespread windstorm is expected Tuesday afternoon Wednesday morning across much
of Ventura and La County areas not typically windy will
(31:13):
be impacted.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And she wasn't here for it, and there was nobody
else in government filling in the acting. There was supposed
to be Marquise Harris Dawson, completely missing in action. The
guy who is in charge in the Mayor's office overseeing
the fire and police department was Brian Williams. He was
(31:39):
on leave for calling in bomb threats, which he has
since pleaded guilty to. There was nobody in charge of
the city. There was as we told you last hour.
Roger Bailey, the attorney, says that cal Fire should have
been monitoring the fireworks fire from January first, to see
if the new winds were going to whip up the
(32:00):
blaze all over again. There was nobody stationed there. Nobody
was assigned by CalFire, nobody was assigned in the LA
Fire Department. Christine Crowley didn't send anybody there. Newsom failed,
they had a CalFire failed, Kristin Crowley failed, Bass failed,
or Keith Harris Gauson failed. They didn't do anything. They
(32:21):
don't care. And then she goes on It's like, well,
you know, as you know, she's got this smug arrogant
attitude about her.
Speaker 8 (32:33):
Well, she made it seem that it was so important
for her to go to Africa, that it was such
a good thing for us, it.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Was so representing the United States exactly in Ghana. Yet
find one person in the entire nation that gave a
rats ass about that. Nobody, nobody cares that you were
selected by Joe Biden to go to Ghana to have
drinks at a cocktail party for the Ghanian president. We
got more Bass talking about ice coming up. But first
(33:05):
after Deborah's news, I talked about this yesterday, and this
is something else we're going to be exploring a lot.
Chris Lagrave, the journalist, is coming on. I told you
about Scott Wiener's bill sent It Bill seventy nine, forcing
single family neighborhoods to accept high rise apartment buildings for
low income people. And I suspect this is why in
(33:26):
the Palisades they're slow walking all the permits. Is because
they want the homeowners to give up, sell it to
developers who will then start planting these low income apartment
buildings all over the Palisades and get all those wealthy
people out of town, make them go away, Give that
(33:48):
beautiful view over to the low income, the low income residents.
Deborah Mark live in the KFI twenty four our newsroom. Hey,
you've been listening to the John Covelt Show podcast. You
can always hear the show live on ai AM six
forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
The John Kobylt Show News
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John Kobylt
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