January 13, 2025 • 42 mins
Meg Christie comes on the show to talk about Edison International not ruling out the possibility of their energy infrastructure playing a role in the Eaton Fire. More on the Santa Ynez Reservoir in Pacific Palisades being empty. David Howard, a Pacific Palisades resident and iHeartMedia LA employee comes on the show to talk about losing his home. More on the fires.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome,
Oh man, what a weekend. I've got much to tell
you because I'm right in the middle of things now.
We're on from one till four, then after four o'clock
John Cobelt Show on demand on the iHeart app and
I'll get to what's been going on living on the
(00:23):
West Side these days, which is apparently there's apparently no
lawful entity in charge of anything anymore on the West
side of Los Angeles. I'll explain that in a moment.
We're gonna start off though, because everybody's trying to figure
out what started these fires, and one possibility in the
(00:45):
Eaton fire. Oh yeah, we went through this many times
over the years. A power company Southern California, Edison, its
own its parent company is Edison International. The CEO and
president is Pedro Pizarro, and he talked with ABC News
and we have Meg Christi, the ABC News investigative journalists
(01:05):
on the line.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Now.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Meg, how are you well, Thanks for having me, good,
Thank you. How are you doing out there?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Not great?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Great?
Speaker 5 (01:16):
We are thinking about you guys NonStop.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, thank you. What did Pedro Pizzaro have to say?
Speaker 5 (01:25):
So, Patron appeared on Good Morning America with George Defanopolis
today and it was the first time since the fire
started that we really heard from him and sort of
the current status of their investigation. So what he told
us about, you know, the status of the Eton fire.
And now, just to set this up, we spoke with
(01:45):
a number of eyewitnesses who gave us videos and photos
that they believe appear to show the fire starting underneath
transmission lines that are owned by Edison, right, and you know,
we've confirmed, we've you've confirmed that investigators do have those
videos and they're part of their cause investigation. And Pedro
(02:08):
said that they've seen the videos, they know they're out there,
but that what their point of view is is that
they can't rule anything out until they're able to inspect
the equipment themselves. They still have not been able to
do that because the scene is too unsafe and it's
been courted off. But they do say that they've done
(02:30):
an initial examination of their data and that the electrical
anomaly they would typically see in a situation like this
they don't see. That's not to say that they're not
there and that they won't see them, you know, in
future future searches. But that's what they're telling us right now.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Have you seen there's already three lawsuits filed against Southern
California Edison prevent this moment.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Yes, I think just moments ago there was a yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
One of the attorneys is complaining that the fire was
ignited because of Southern California Edison's failure to de energize
its overhead wires which traverse Eating Canyon.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Right, so you know the public safety power shutoff programs, right,
I'm sure you guys in California there are no stranger
to these. So we don't yet know exactly how many
lines Edison de energized ahead of this. They have said
that they did deenergize some distribution lines to the west
(03:37):
of Eaton Canyon ahead of the fires, but we don't
know how many homes this pertain to, right, So you know,
this is definitely something investigators are looking at and we'll
be considering, and you know, they when Pedro appeared on
Good Morning America today, he said that they've already warned
with these impending windstorms picking up right, that they've already
(04:01):
worn four hundred and fifty thousand customers that they might
have to shut off their power going forward. It's something
that I think we're going to be hearing more about
as time goes on.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So the theory would be that the wires touched each
other a while it was while the wind was blowing,
or were there down wires, So.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
There are I do not believe that there are down
wires at that transmission power that we're talking about in
Eaton Canyon. Now what we've seen, there are so many
things that could have happened here right. A piece of
equipment could have come loose, the lines could have flap
together and generated sparks. You know, there are many A
(04:44):
tree ranch could fall and then catch on fire and
ignite the brush below. There are many different things we're
seeing or we've seen in the past, that they're definitely
looking at as part of these ongoing investigations. But they,
you know, these investigations are also being hampered by the
ongoing conditions there like this is this is really something
(05:08):
incredible we're seeing and you know, still very much active scenes.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I know, and we got another forty eight hours of
potential high winds.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Well, I know, it's really something I do just want
to tell you though, that you know, I think context
is really important. So we all want answers, right, we
all want to figure out as soon as possible what
caused these But these these investigations do take time. If
we look back at Lahina, for example, the fire there
broke out in August of twenty twenty three and we
(05:42):
didn't get an official cause until October of twenty twenty four,
so well over a year to complete. So I know that,
you know, everyone, everyone really wants to know what possibly
could have contributed to the ignitions here, but we're probably
in for the long haul, I would imagine.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
All right, Meg, thanks for coming on. Meg Chrispy, ABC
News investigative journalists reporting here on KFI. Thanks Meg for
coming on. I think I think the best summation on this.
Michael Ware is director of Climate and Energy Police Program
at Stanford, and he said it looks bad for Edison,
(06:24):
but do we know. There's a difference between looking bad
and knowing, and we don't know yet, but I have
a feeling they do know, because otherwise their CEO wouldn't
be appearing on Good Morning America trying to explain himself.
So it looks like they have a they have a
they have a really good idea what happened, and they
just need to confirm it and get all the details down.
(06:45):
But there's already four lawsuits that have been filed on
behalf of people who lost their homes in the Eaton
Canyon area in Altadena. In Pasadena. All right, now, let
me let me tell you what's going on the west side.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you, Uh, you know
what I see with my own eyes, what I'm seeing
(07:06):
on social media, and I I don't know what's true
and what's not true, and you don't I don't really
care anymore. I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell you what's
happening there. I don't understand a lot of it. I
can tell you that the power has been out since
overnight Friday into Saturday. So we're on the third day
(07:28):
with no power, and there are looters running amuck everywhere.
Uh they're they're on video photographs. There's friends of ours
who've been looted all the streets. We're connected to all
sorts of neighborhood apps and crime apps and whatever's out there, right,
(07:49):
and there's list all these streets where it happened here,
it happened there, happened there, and it's it's all over
the place and we're living in the middle of it,
and there's no police presence. And I guess I got
to put out all the usual caveats. I know the
police are overstressed, and you know, everybody's got acclaim and
(08:09):
blah blah blah. I'm just telling you that in our
neighborhood we need police badly. And I've been trying to
contact people privately on this, and I'm getting voicemail boxes full,
and I'm getting calls jumped to three one one and
then nobody answers three to one one. And there's people
starting fires on the West side. They're on video doing it,
(08:32):
and they're setting trees on fire there, They're setting garbage
on fire, trash.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Every lunatic, mental patient, drug addict, criminal that George Gascon
wouldn't put away, and that Eric Garcetti and Karen Bass
have run am UK.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
They're doing their thing.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
This is New Year's Eve and the Super Bowl and
Marti Gras all rolled into one for them and it's
going on and I don't know if it's showing up
in the statistics. I don't know if it's showing up
in the news. I don't know if anybody cares anymore.
But this is what we're living under, and you know,
I have to stress. I don't see the police round.
(09:15):
Everybody has hired security services, double security services, and those
guys are doing the best that they can. But there's
a sense of lawlessness. There's a sense that nobody in
the city is in charge. There's a sense that the
government has completely failed us. And I'll go one step further.
The government has completely failed us, not a sense not
(09:40):
it appears, not allegedly. The government is in a state
of failure here in Los Angeles. All these years of
progressive policies have finally crumbled. I talk about this all
the time with one of my friends, and I said
today the had to happen. For all the times we
(10:02):
talked about this, if we were right, this is the
only outcome. And we were right, and this is the
only outcome. It's collapsing now. It's what I've been telling
you about for a lot of years. I told you
Garcetti was a disaster, Karen Vass's disaster. Gavin Newsom is
a disaster. Their policies are horrible. Their whole ideology is
(10:26):
insane and sick, and you can get away with it
for a little while, but now it's all coming down
the fire department. Here's another caveat you got to put in.
I watched the firefighters perform over the weekend we didn't
have power. I was looking on my iPad. I spent
a lot of time in my car charging my iPad
so I could watch the the TV streaming coverage. And
(10:50):
what the firefighters did, especially in Mandeville Canyon, to block
that fire from going from west to east and jumping
Mandeville Canyon was spectacular. I felt like I was watching
an action movie with superheroes.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's incredible.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
And and they they are they these guys, I don't
know what they're made of, but it's it's tremendous. However,
starting with Karen Bass and much of the administration, this
this dopey fool Genie Quez running Department of Water and Power,
and uh, there must be some idiots running inside the
fire department as well in management. Uh that they that
(11:28):
the fire department did show up on time for the
people in Palisades. Police Department's not showing up around where
I live. And uh, it's nuts out there. It's just
absolutely nuts. And there's more wins coming and there's there's
no there's there's just nobody has any confidence in anything.
I've never felt a complete lack of confidence in the
(11:52):
whole system because it broke. And when you see Karen
Bass walking off the plane and refusing to speak to
a reporter when you should. Gavin Newsom lying to that
Pacific Palisades mother, I'm on the phone with Joe Biden.
Just an absolute, blatant idiotic lie. And when I'm going
to play a Tampa Denise Kenonez, this this dopey head
(12:16):
of the DWP. You got to hear her talk about
her number one issue as head of the d WP.
It's not providing water and it's not providing powder. Tell
you what that is coming up. But you know, it's
gotten to the point where the people who still support
(12:36):
Bass and Newsome it's either me or you. One of
us has to has to move. I don't want to
live with your government anymore. It's collapsed. I guess you
don't want to live with my government, which would be
normal like we used to have. So I guess one
of us has to go. Talk more coming up.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I'm going to tell talk a lot about the reservoir
right now, the San Santa Inez Reservoir. We let off
the show with this on Friday. This is a big deal,
a central reason as to why the fire was out
of control in the Palisades and LA Fire Department was
unable to stop it early on the Inez reservoir. If
(13:29):
you haven't heard sits in the heart of the Palisades,
one hundred and seventeen million gallons of water. Let me
give you a context on how much that is. There
were three tanks, but the LA Fire Department was using
(13:49):
in the Pacific Palisades and they held a million gallons each,
So there were three million gallons available for the fire
department once they got there. And those three tanks lasted
seventeen hours, from about ten thirty in the morning on
(14:10):
Tuesday to three am early Wednesday morning. Seventeen hours, three
million gallons. This reservoir holds one hundred and seventeen million
gallons and it could have been used to fight the fire,
but it was empty. It was empty. They closed it.
(14:35):
They closed it because there was a tear in the
cover that protects the water from getting contaminated. That cover
probably should have taken a month to fix. It's been
eleven months since they closed it. It hasn't been fixed.
(14:57):
The head of the DWP is Denise Kenonas. Jenez Kenonas
is ultimately responsible for this. She had a gigantic reservoir
unavailable for the Pacific Palisades residents because something that should
have been repaired in a month was not repaired after
(15:17):
eleven months, so the reservoir was closed and none of
that water was available. Emptying of the reservoir began in
February of last year. After and this according to the
La Times, after a tear in the footing cover several
feet wide allowed debris, bird droppings, and other objects to
(15:39):
enter the water supply, so they drained the site to
avoid contamination and comply with water regulations. DWP sought bids
for the repair in April, so they started the project
in February.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
They sought bids in April.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
It was supposed to cost eighty nine thousand dollars in
government terms pocket change, but the DWP and.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Genie Keinonias did not sign off on a contract for
until November. They sought bids in April.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
They didn't sign a contract until November for one hundred
and thirty thousand, So now all of a sudden it's
forty thousand dollars higher. And the contract was with a
company in Lakeside. Don't know the name of it. The
status of the repairs as of this weekend is still unclear,
(16:40):
according to the La Times. Here's Gus Corona, the business
manager of IBW Local eighteen, the DWP employee union. It's
completely unacceptable that this reservoir was empty for almost a
year for minor repairs. The work should have been done
in house. They should not have depended on a contractor
(17:01):
to do it. I truly believe it's something that could
have been avoided. And then you see these apologists and
the Only Times feels compelled to air these views that
maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. One hundred and
seventeen million gallons of water wouldn't have made a difference.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Tell me about tell me about how that works.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I see people in government saying the most absurd, most
stupid things, and I see the idiots of the La Times,
dutifully repeating their idiotic statements.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Without even challenging them.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
How could you say that one hundred and seventeen million
gallons would not have had an effect?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The problem was with water pressure.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
If you have tens of millions of gallons more, that's
going to dramatically increase the water pressure. But you know,
they expect everybody to get bored with the story and
after a few paragraphs click on to buy something on
Amazon or watch some porn. So they know nobody's going
to read this crap, but I do. So when we
(18:17):
come back, we'll wait. Actually, first when we talk to
David Howard, he's up one of the Kafi sales managers
here at iHeart, and.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
He lived in the Pacific Baalisades.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
His house is gone from what I understand, and I
want to put him on, and I want to continue
about Ginny's Kenonyez because I mentioned before she had one
job to give the people of La water and to
give them power.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I guess that's two jobs.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It was too much for her going to play a
clip of something she said on a podcast what her
number one priority was, and it was not giving us
water and not giving us power. Certainly wasn't repairing the
reservoir after eleven months, and Jenise Kinonias makes seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars of your money if you're a
DWP customer. More coming out as the world crumbles.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
When we entered the show on Friday, change dot org
had a petition signing going. The headline is demand the
immediate resignation of Mayor Karen Bass a change dot org.
And when I left it was at about forty thousand signatures.
(19:38):
It's tripled since then. It's now one hundred and twenty
three thousand and six fifty as if this print out,
it's probably higher than that. One hundred and twenty three
thousand plus. Demand the immediate resignation of Mayor Karen Bass.
Go to change dot org. This has no force of law.
(19:58):
This has to be a show of disgust to Karen
Bass's rain as mayor. Go to change dot orgon in
the search box, type Karen Bass and you'll get the
you'll get the petition and sign the thing online and
let's see if we can convince her to leave. All right,
(20:24):
I'm gonna I've got more. Oh, by the way, on
the reservoir, I just want to add one thing. Newsom
is called for an independent investigation as to why the
reservoir was empty, which shows you he knows this story
is true and it would have had a big effect
on fighting the fire. Everyone is talking about Rick Caruso
(20:45):
and how his Palisades shopping center survived because he had
a private fire crew, and you know what private fire
crews do. They bring their own water. They were able
to protect that because they brought their own water. Probably
used some of the general water. But I think he
(21:06):
pays enough in taxes. He's entitled to some of that
for that center, which employs a lot of people, and
that's the key. Water puts out the fires. You have
to have water no fires are going out. So there
should have been one hundred and seventeen million gallons of
water sitting in that reservoir, but it was empty. It
(21:29):
was empty because they had a one month job to
fix it back in February, and eleven months later it
wasn't fixed.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
That's the truth.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
That's why Newsom is having an investigation because he knows
what the story is and he wants to make sure
he's not tarred by it, that this was entirely a
local botch and it had nothing to do with him.
That's why he's calling for an investigation to protect himself
in case somebody tries to link him to the dry reservoir.
All right, let's get to well David Howard, he works
(21:58):
here to KFI iHeart for many years as a sales manager,
doing them for a long time and resident in Pacific
Palisades And David.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Welcome, Hey, John, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I'm really sorry what happened to you and your family? Yeah,
I guess the house is that the house is gone entirely.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Yeah, it's not just the house, John, it's the entire
town and the entire community. And you know, I'd be
willing to lose my house at the sake of saving
the community. And not to sound super noble, but I
don't think there's a resident in that neighborhood that wouldn't
say the same thing, that we're more devastated about the
loss of the town in the community than we are
in our own homes. And I think that speaks to
(22:41):
the kind of place it is. And I also want
to just recognize real quick alt the Dina as well,
because what they're going through, we all feel their pain
and their loss, and it's just a disaster. And I
listened to you talk about the DWP and inefficiency in Bass.
It just nothing makes me more angry because I've lived
in the Palisades for thirty years and I've seen many
(23:05):
fires and fire protection, structure protection, and there wasn't a
fire engine to be found. And it's not the fire
department's fault. The firefighters don't send up to be firefighters,
not to fight fires. They sign up to save homes
and save lives. And they were they were there one,
two hands tied behind their back.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, something went wrong in the dispatch and in the
strategy at the very beginning. I've read numerous reports where
a lot of residents said things were burning and nobody
was around, and that's.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I'm sorry, no, no, no, that story is going to come out.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
So I can speak to it personally. The fire was
blowing north northeast northeast from the majority of the day, which
means it was heading towards the ocean, and around four
o'clock the wind shifted. That's when the winds really started
to get out of control and one of my my
next door neighbors that lost their house. No, there's no
house standing. So it's not just my next door neighbor
(24:00):
to the right or left or you know, up or down.
It's blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks. And she
ran down to the where the Gelson's is in the
middle of the town on Sophomore and sunset, and she
said to the fire crews, Hey, the neighborhoods starting to
burn up there. You got to get some trucks up there.
And his response was, there's nothing we can do. We
(24:23):
have no water. Just get out of here before you
before it's too unsafe. And that's the same story that
no matter where your home was in what section of
the Palisades burnt down, there was no structure protection for
anybody because there was no water.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
There was no water. And this was in the afternoon
on Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
This was on Tuesday afternoon. I was actually at my
house trying to save it like an idiot, because it
was getting very dangerous. And within five minutes, and you
know the neighborhood very well, you know you're down the
street once it topped the ridge. At timescal I would
say five minutes, houses were starting to burn and just
(25:04):
light up like you know, like Christmas trees.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That is it was.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
It was insane. When I left the house, I couldn't
see two carlings in front of me due to the smoke.
And I'm like, I just hop to get out of here.
That's how fast it was. But to not have any
protection like you can it maybe it comes nobody wants
the firefighter to be put in harm's way or to
risk their lives or that that's not what anybody would want.
(25:29):
But to not have anybody there prior and at that
time they cut off the super scoopers were shut down.
There was no helicopters, and it's almost like they're like,
you know, let it burn, and I don't know. I
have to think it was because of the inefficiency of
the of the Department of Water Power and the broken
fire hydrants.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
The hot fire hydrants were broken and they're supposed to
normally inspect them and fix them. They didn't do that.
The Santa Inez Reservoir was empty because they hadn't fixed
the cover for now eleven months.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
That it all. That's their job.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Their job is to give us water and power and
to make sure that the infrastructure that carries the water
and power is always maintained and always repaired and always working.
How can you go eleven months and not have a
one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir filled?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
How is that possible?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
I know those reservoirs. I know those reservoirs very well.
We've we have friends that live around them. You can
see them when they're full. If you remember the Malibu
fire and Gosh ninety four, that was the first time
those reservoirs were being utilized because it was the first
time the fire department had night vision, and that reservoir
save that fire from dropping the Westerns line, which had
(26:41):
gone all the way back to bell Air and de Brentwood.
So when it's when it's filled, it works. When it's
not filled, it's not so fit, it's not so efficient.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Right, No, you know it's one if one thing. If
nature is so overwhelming that you suffer these kind of
losses and there's literally nothing you can do, right, the
power of nature is just too ferocious. But when when
they didn't even fill the reservoir with water, when the
firefighters were standing there saying we don't have any water,
(27:12):
that is inexcusable. Unforgivable criminal people who didn't fill a
reservoir to prison.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I agree with you. There was fire tricks on pch
that were heading towards Zoom the beach at the time
that the fire came into town. No, imagine this the
town for the people that don't know. The town is
not adjacent to brush. Okay, it's in the center of
town like any other town. It has buildings all around it.
(27:43):
It's not like a let's build a town in the forest.
The town is below the ridge line and below the mountain.
To not have the town itself saved, To not have
protection around Starbucks and buildings and banks and schools, it's
it's I don't even know what to say about that.
How can a town burn down? And I know there's embers,
(28:07):
I get it. I know embers can fly under eaves
and cause fires. But if and when that would have
happened and we had we had fire protection in town,
the town at least would have been saved and the
town was decimated. I mean, it looks like it literally
looks like a bomb was dropped. I got up there
on Tuesday night. I'm watching our cameras and I see,
(28:28):
you know what, looks like just it's almost look like
the Wizard of Oz were the winds, you know, hurling
and for debris flow is just in front of your camera.
And then it went dead, and I'm like, oh, maybe
it's just the internet. Maybe it's just the power line.
Wishful thinking. So the next so the next and I'm
sure that's when my house caught. Next morning, got up
with my younger son and my twenty four year old
(28:50):
We're staying at a friend's house in Chevy It. We
get through the barricades. I'm driving. I make a left
on a Malfie. I go through Santa Monical Canyon. There's
live fire on both sides of us Ember's blowing power
lines down, and we're like, where's the fire department? Where
is everybody? Homes are burning, burning and burning. I make
(29:11):
it right on Chautauqua to go to our neighborhood, and
I didn't know where I was because I had no
point of reference. I'm like, where are we? And then
it was like, you know, a two by two mile
square of utter devastation, and that was just one section
of the Palisades. Yeah, on section.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, I think it's good that you point out how
the town is in the flatland down below the ridge,
because originally people saw everyone fleeing Pacific Highlands, which is
enclave up in the hills Island Pallisa or sorry, Palisades Highlands,
and everybody was trying to get down that boulevard.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
After all, the cars were all people dis abandon their cars.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So yeah, that is a separate neighborhood up there. What
you're talking about is the main section of Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
The episode of the town right right.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And because I live in a similar situation where there
are mountains to the north of me, and I'm always figuring,
you know, Sunset Boulevard, that the fire department will be
able to make make a stand against the flames because
you have the big natural fire break, and uh, you know,
this is the first time I thought, well, maybe that's
not true, because I don't know who's who's who's directing
(30:26):
this strategy. I don't know why they showed up so late.
What you're saying, I have read in various reports all weekend.
Many people are quoted by name in the various news
outlets is saying nobody was showing up for hours.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
So I don't know if I don't. I know, I
can't count the number of people that I'm that I
have been family with that and friends with that have
lost homes. Right, every single person that I know is
saying the same thing. I do want to just touch
on for a second that you know, through through tragedy
and through horrific events, there are some you know, the
(31:04):
humanity does rise. There's a ton of mobilization going on,
I think in both the Palisades and then hopefully in Altadena.
I can't speak to that specifically, but the amount of support,
you know, neighbor by neighbor, friend by friend. I mean,
I have a million stories which we could talk about forever,
of people saving there's you know, people think the Palisades
(31:26):
is everyone's you know, living in a fifteen dollars million
dollar mansion and is a movie start. It's not the case.
The majority of the families are hardworking to you know,
moms and dads that are trying to make a good,
nice life for themselves, and they do it all the
way up to the elderly. Like some of these people
were already canceled by their by their insurance companies pre fire.
(31:48):
These seniors who've been in the let's say community for
fifty sixty years, right, they didn't probably have fire insurance
because once there's no mortgage on your house, you're not
required to have insurance. And those seniors used money or
equity in their homes to give money for the kids
to buy homes. So those people are done like they
have nothing left. And that's tragic, all right.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
That's the that's their major source of their.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Well set, and they're gonna some you know, someone's gonna
come in and try to raid them and give them
whatever they think that they can get. And most of
these people are going to, you know, take that little
that little amount of money. And what we're trying to
do is we're we're working behind the scenes right now
to protect as many people as we can. I was
at two meetings yesterday literally all day, not even taking
(32:37):
care of my own does get my own house in order,
but really trying to make sure that the community rallies.
There's a lot going on and a lot of things
are going to have to be discussed, and Tracy Park
is going to have to be a huge part of
that because she is an advocate. She's she's done so
far everything she said she was going to do. And
she's going to be fighting thirteen wherever many councilms.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
There are no No, she's got voted fourteen to one.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Right, it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
And as you know, and as you know, this is
going to be a fight because you know that the
the ULA tax, all that money that was put in
for tax should be going back to the Palisades immediately,
immediately to give to the people. Yeah, that's right, that
has to go back to the Palisades.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
You pay that tax and you don't get any fire protection.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Yeah, because guess what now we're homeless too.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, David, I gotta go. I have to cut you off.
I'm just running behind. We'll talk again soon.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Anything else I want, I want to give you a pick,
just one quick thing, if you don't mind the use
of the palisades are mobilizing and it's so beautiful to see,
and there's going to be a there's an active website
called Palisades Forever dot com.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
It was built by a bunch of twenty five to
thirty year olds and it's merchandise and all that money
that they collect is going to be going to all
the five one threes inside the Palisades that help run
the town and donate their to civic organization. So if
maybe we can just share it again palistates forever dot com.
So then I'm happy to jump on with you when
it's convenient over the next few days.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Okay, very good, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I'm so sorry about all the payview what everyone else
is suffering through David Howard, one of the sales managers
here at KFI, and iHeart.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
You're listening to John Cobel on demand from KFI. AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
The petition demanding that Mayor Karen Bass immediately resign on
change dot org up to one hundred and twenty six
one hundred and twenty six seventeen signatures change dot org
search for Karen Bass sign the petition.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
We need we need to have a new chapter.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Obviously, a complete failure is mayor Governor Gavin Us. I'm
a complete failure as governor, and I want to follow
up here on the reservoir issue because that is huge
and you you are going to hear people lie because
that's what they do. You're gonna people try to spin it,
which is a modern fancy word for a lie. People
(35:08):
try to give the other perspectives another sophisticated word for lie.
It's all lies. You cannot tell me that one hundred
and seventeen million gallons wouldn't make a difference in putting
out fires. I mean, that is so asinine and stupid
and absurd. I mean people will say anything in public,
no matter what their position, no matter what their title is,
(35:31):
no matter what their education level. When they're caught in
public screwing up and causing the destruction of thousands of homes,
they'll say anything to protect their ass. I'm going to
give you some facts, and I want to compliment. I
don't think I've done this in several years. The La
Times has actually done a really good job on this
reservoir story. They broke the original story. They had a
(35:52):
great follow up. This is the way it used to
be with the La Times. Maybe some sense has been
knocked into the staff by Patrick sun Chian the reservoir.
This is sent in as reservoir, and again I have
to stress if you're just tuning in, it was out
of service, closed for the last eleven months, one hundred
and seventeen million gallons because there was a tear in
(36:14):
the cover.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
It should have taken a month to fix it in house.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
According to one of the union leaders, they contracted out
and it was like only maybe one hundred and thirty
thousand dollars job at most, contracted it out. It's still
not fixed. It's eleven months later, it's still not fixed.
It's empty one hundred and seventeen million gallons. One hundred
and seventeen million. And again, remember the firefighters had three
million gallons available in their tanks and that ran out
(36:41):
in seventeen hours, so of course this would have a
huge effect. And yes, I'm utterly convinced that the fire
the firefighters were way late to putting it out. Again,
not the fault of the guys you see fighting it,
it's whoever is issuing the directives. Because I have read
and I've heard from too many people I know, read
too many quotes in the paper. Something went really wrong there.
(37:05):
And let me tell you, you ought to be listening
to us, because the way the media outlets are arranged,
most of the local TV stations are going to cover
the day to day drama. And you know, everybody's got
a different role in the media ecosystem. And if you
want to see what's happening visually, you know, you turn
on the television. But I'm going to be able to
(37:26):
go through, you know, dozens and dozens of sources and
go deep into the stories and find the stuff that
really matters, which sometimes is buried. Sometimes the significance is
overlooked by the headline writers because I know most people
just have time to glance at headlines and maybe two paragraphs.
This is really important to know about this sent Inez reservoir.
(37:47):
They have several across the city with a combined capacity
of more than four billion.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Gallons of water.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Including aqueduct reservoirs, the city can store more than ninety
one billion gallons across its infrastructure. The Santa Inez complex
is at one hundred and seventeen million gallons. It's one
of several sources of water in the area. There's a
large pipeline from Stone Canyon and a smaller site, the
palis Age Reservoir. In other words, there's plenty of water around.
(38:19):
We don't have a debilitating drought that has dried up
all the reservoirs. This is mismanagement. This is pure stupidity
on the part of Genisai kenon Yez and Karen Bass.
Karen Bass is in Ghana, What has Karen Bass been
doing for the last eleven months. Don't they have meetings
(38:40):
where Okay, fire seasons coming up?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Are we ready?
Speaker 3 (38:43):
I kept hearing Newsom saying, well, you know, all our
resources are prepositioned.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I kept hearing that word preposition No, they weren't.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
There's a limited number of towns that can be affected
by this kind of fire. It's the hounds at the
base of the Santa Monica Mountains here in La County.
It's not going to be Torrents, It's not going to
be her host Beach. It is going to be primarily
the town. And what did we have a few years ago?
(39:15):
We had a fire near the Getty Center, which was
over Brentwood got the Pacific Palisades Fire bel Air has
had historic fires. There was a fire in the Hollywood
Hills as part of this cluster last week. It's always
along that mountain range. So where were they prepositioned? Why
(39:37):
did it take hours to make it to Pacific Palisades?
Where were these prepositioned fire trucks and strike teams? Where
were they when they finally got going. They did a
hell of a job. I saw it with my own eyes.
But who is managing this, So did Karen Pass? Does
she have a monthly meeting? And she says, hey, Jenniese,
is that one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoirs that
(39:59):
filled up?
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yet you fix the cover?
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Do you need money? Need some help? Did they have
that meeting? Did they did con guys even know? This
is what's so crazy. This is not just some kind
of cheap political shot that she was in Africa. She
was in Africa, left for it after after extreme fire warnings.
(40:24):
What's the Weather Service supposed to do to alert a mayor?
They say extreme fire? What should they have said? Super
duper extreme fire, super duper colossal, enormous.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Gigantic fire risk. What do you want? What do you
need to know? What you need is water? Nobody checked.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Nobody checked to see if the biggest reservoir in the
Palisades was builled. Honest to god, I don't want to
hear what we're looking for. You know, we're gonna see
what works or what doesn't work. What doesn't work is
that people who currently run the government, and that includes
the infants and clowns on the city council outside of
(41:12):
Tracy Park and maybe one another guy. The rest of them,
all the socialists, you're all happy that the that the
wealthier side of town got burned to the ground. They're
probably doing a dance, aren't they. Do You probably just
wish Brentwood and bell Air got it too, don't you?
All the socialists Nitthia ram and Hugo Soda Martinez, Unice
(41:34):
Is Hernandez. There's another one too. They just elected another one.
His name I don't know. Oh my god. Notice how
quiet they are. All right, we come back. I'm gonna
play you. I'm gonna play you. Genisa Quinas, who is
on a radio show podcast uh recently, and she's the
(41:56):
one who let that reservoir one run dry, did not
fix in a month, and you saw what happened to Palisides.
You're going to see what her number one priority in
her job is. When we come back, Debor Mark is off.
We have Brigitta Diegostino live on KFI twenty four hour
CAFI News Center.
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome,
Oh man, what a weekend. I've got much to tell
you because I'm right in the middle of things now.
We're on from one till four, then after four o'clock
John Cobelt Show on demand on the iHeart app and
I'll get to what's been going on living on the
(00:23):
West Side these days, which is apparently there's apparently no
lawful entity in charge of anything anymore on the West
side of Los Angeles. I'll explain that in a moment.
We're gonna start off though, because everybody's trying to figure
out what started these fires, and one possibility in the
(00:45):
Eaton fire. Oh yeah, we went through this many times
over the years. A power company Southern California, Edison, its
own its parent company is Edison International. The CEO and
president is Pedro Pizarro, and he talked with ABC News
and we have Meg Christi, the ABC News investigative journalists
(01:05):
on the line.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Now.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Meg, how are you well, Thanks for having me, good,
Thank you. How are you doing out there?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Not great?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Great?
Speaker 5 (01:16):
We are thinking about you guys NonStop.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, thank you. What did Pedro Pizzaro have to say?
Speaker 5 (01:25):
So, Patron appeared on Good Morning America with George Defanopolis
today and it was the first time since the fire
started that we really heard from him and sort of
the current status of their investigation. So what he told
us about, you know, the status of the Eton fire.
And now, just to set this up, we spoke with
(01:45):
a number of eyewitnesses who gave us videos and photos
that they believe appear to show the fire starting underneath
transmission lines that are owned by Edison, right, and you know,
we've confirmed, we've you've confirmed that investigators do have those
videos and they're part of their cause investigation. And Pedro
(02:08):
said that they've seen the videos, they know they're out there,
but that what their point of view is is that
they can't rule anything out until they're able to inspect
the equipment themselves. They still have not been able to
do that because the scene is too unsafe and it's
been courted off. But they do say that they've done
(02:30):
an initial examination of their data and that the electrical
anomaly they would typically see in a situation like this
they don't see. That's not to say that they're not
there and that they won't see them, you know, in
future future searches. But that's what they're telling us right now.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Have you seen there's already three lawsuits filed against Southern
California Edison prevent this moment.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Yes, I think just moments ago there was a yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
One of the attorneys is complaining that the fire was
ignited because of Southern California Edison's failure to de energize
its overhead wires which traverse Eating Canyon.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Right, so you know the public safety power shutoff programs, right,
I'm sure you guys in California there are no stranger
to these. So we don't yet know exactly how many
lines Edison de energized ahead of this. They have said
that they did deenergize some distribution lines to the west
(03:37):
of Eaton Canyon ahead of the fires, but we don't
know how many homes this pertain to, right, So you know,
this is definitely something investigators are looking at and we'll
be considering, and you know, they when Pedro appeared on
Good Morning America today, he said that they've already warned
with these impending windstorms picking up right, that they've already
(04:01):
worn four hundred and fifty thousand customers that they might
have to shut off their power going forward. It's something
that I think we're going to be hearing more about
as time goes on.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So the theory would be that the wires touched each
other a while it was while the wind was blowing,
or were there down wires, So.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
There are I do not believe that there are down
wires at that transmission power that we're talking about in
Eaton Canyon. Now what we've seen, there are so many
things that could have happened here right. A piece of
equipment could have come loose, the lines could have flap
together and generated sparks. You know, there are many A
(04:44):
tree ranch could fall and then catch on fire and
ignite the brush below. There are many different things we're
seeing or we've seen in the past, that they're definitely
looking at as part of these ongoing investigations. But they,
you know, these investigations are also being hampered by the
ongoing conditions there like this is this is really something
(05:08):
incredible we're seeing and you know, still very much active scenes.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I know, and we got another forty eight hours of
potential high winds.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Well, I know, it's really something I do just want
to tell you though, that you know, I think context
is really important. So we all want answers, right, we
all want to figure out as soon as possible what
caused these But these these investigations do take time. If
we look back at Lahina, for example, the fire there
broke out in August of twenty twenty three and we
(05:42):
didn't get an official cause until October of twenty twenty four,
so well over a year to complete. So I know that,
you know, everyone, everyone really wants to know what possibly
could have contributed to the ignitions here, but we're probably
in for the long haul, I would imagine.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
All right, Meg, thanks for coming on. Meg Chrispy, ABC
News investigative journalists reporting here on KFI. Thanks Meg for
coming on. I think I think the best summation on this.
Michael Ware is director of Climate and Energy Police Program
at Stanford, and he said it looks bad for Edison,
(06:24):
but do we know. There's a difference between looking bad
and knowing, and we don't know yet, but I have
a feeling they do know, because otherwise their CEO wouldn't
be appearing on Good Morning America trying to explain himself.
So it looks like they have a they have a
they have a really good idea what happened, and they
just need to confirm it and get all the details down.
(06:45):
But there's already four lawsuits that have been filed on
behalf of people who lost their homes in the Eaton
Canyon area in Altadena. In Pasadena. All right, now, let
me let me tell you what's going on the west side.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you, Uh, you know
what I see with my own eyes, what I'm seeing
(07:06):
on social media, and I I don't know what's true
and what's not true, and you don't I don't really
care anymore. I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell you what's
happening there. I don't understand a lot of it. I
can tell you that the power has been out since
overnight Friday into Saturday. So we're on the third day
(07:28):
with no power, and there are looters running amuck everywhere.
Uh they're they're on video photographs. There's friends of ours
who've been looted all the streets. We're connected to all
sorts of neighborhood apps and crime apps and whatever's out there, right,
(07:49):
and there's list all these streets where it happened here,
it happened there, happened there, and it's it's all over
the place and we're living in the middle of it,
and there's no police presence. And I guess I got
to put out all the usual caveats. I know the
police are overstressed, and you know, everybody's got acclaim and
(08:09):
blah blah blah. I'm just telling you that in our
neighborhood we need police badly. And I've been trying to
contact people privately on this, and I'm getting voicemail boxes full,
and I'm getting calls jumped to three one one and
then nobody answers three to one one. And there's people
starting fires on the West side. They're on video doing it,
(08:32):
and they're setting trees on fire there, They're setting garbage
on fire, trash.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Every lunatic, mental patient, drug addict, criminal that George Gascon
wouldn't put away, and that Eric Garcetti and Karen Bass
have run am UK.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
They're doing their thing.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
This is New Year's Eve and the Super Bowl and
Marti Gras all rolled into one for them and it's
going on and I don't know if it's showing up
in the statistics. I don't know if it's showing up
in the news. I don't know if anybody cares anymore.
But this is what we're living under, and you know,
I have to stress. I don't see the police round.
(09:15):
Everybody has hired security services, double security services, and those
guys are doing the best that they can. But there's
a sense of lawlessness. There's a sense that nobody in
the city is in charge. There's a sense that the
government has completely failed us. And I'll go one step further.
The government has completely failed us, not a sense not
(09:40):
it appears, not allegedly. The government is in a state
of failure here in Los Angeles. All these years of
progressive policies have finally crumbled. I talk about this all
the time with one of my friends, and I said
today the had to happen. For all the times we
(10:02):
talked about this, if we were right, this is the
only outcome. And we were right, and this is the
only outcome. It's collapsing now. It's what I've been telling
you about for a lot of years. I told you
Garcetti was a disaster, Karen Vass's disaster. Gavin Newsom is
a disaster. Their policies are horrible. Their whole ideology is
(10:26):
insane and sick, and you can get away with it
for a little while, but now it's all coming down
the fire department. Here's another caveat you got to put in.
I watched the firefighters perform over the weekend we didn't
have power. I was looking on my iPad. I spent
a lot of time in my car charging my iPad
so I could watch the the TV streaming coverage. And
(10:50):
what the firefighters did, especially in Mandeville Canyon, to block
that fire from going from west to east and jumping
Mandeville Canyon was spectacular. I felt like I was watching
an action movie with superheroes.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's incredible.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
And and they they are they these guys, I don't
know what they're made of, but it's it's tremendous. However,
starting with Karen Bass and much of the administration, this
this dopey fool Genie Quez running Department of Water and Power,
and uh, there must be some idiots running inside the
fire department as well in management. Uh that they that
(11:28):
the fire department did show up on time for the
people in Palisades. Police Department's not showing up around where
I live. And uh, it's nuts out there. It's just
absolutely nuts. And there's more wins coming and there's there's
no there's there's just nobody has any confidence in anything.
I've never felt a complete lack of confidence in the
(11:52):
whole system because it broke. And when you see Karen
Bass walking off the plane and refusing to speak to
a reporter when you should. Gavin Newsom lying to that
Pacific Palisades mother, I'm on the phone with Joe Biden.
Just an absolute, blatant idiotic lie. And when I'm going
to play a Tampa Denise Kenonez, this this dopey head
(12:16):
of the DWP. You got to hear her talk about
her number one issue as head of the d WP.
It's not providing water and it's not providing powder. Tell
you what that is coming up. But you know, it's
gotten to the point where the people who still support
(12:36):
Bass and Newsome it's either me or you. One of
us has to has to move. I don't want to
live with your government anymore. It's collapsed. I guess you
don't want to live with my government, which would be
normal like we used to have. So I guess one
of us has to go. Talk more coming up.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I'm going to tell talk a lot about the reservoir
right now, the San Santa Inez Reservoir. We let off
the show with this on Friday. This is a big deal,
a central reason as to why the fire was out
of control in the Palisades and LA Fire Department was
unable to stop it early on the Inez reservoir. If
(13:29):
you haven't heard sits in the heart of the Palisades,
one hundred and seventeen million gallons of water. Let me
give you a context on how much that is. There
were three tanks, but the LA Fire Department was using
(13:49):
in the Pacific Palisades and they held a million gallons each,
So there were three million gallons available for the fire
department once they got there. And those three tanks lasted
seventeen hours, from about ten thirty in the morning on
(14:10):
Tuesday to three am early Wednesday morning. Seventeen hours, three
million gallons. This reservoir holds one hundred and seventeen million
gallons and it could have been used to fight the fire,
but it was empty. It was empty. They closed it.
(14:35):
They closed it because there was a tear in the
cover that protects the water from getting contaminated. That cover
probably should have taken a month to fix. It's been
eleven months since they closed it. It hasn't been fixed.
(14:57):
The head of the DWP is Denise Kenonas. Jenez Kenonas
is ultimately responsible for this. She had a gigantic reservoir
unavailable for the Pacific Palisades residents because something that should
have been repaired in a month was not repaired after
(15:17):
eleven months, so the reservoir was closed and none of
that water was available. Emptying of the reservoir began in
February of last year. After and this according to the
La Times, after a tear in the footing cover several
feet wide allowed debris, bird droppings, and other objects to
(15:39):
enter the water supply, so they drained the site to
avoid contamination and comply with water regulations. DWP sought bids
for the repair in April, so they started the project
in February.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
They sought bids in April.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
It was supposed to cost eighty nine thousand dollars in
government terms pocket change, but the DWP and.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Genie Keinonias did not sign off on a contract for
until November. They sought bids in April.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
They didn't sign a contract until November for one hundred
and thirty thousand, So now all of a sudden it's
forty thousand dollars higher. And the contract was with a
company in Lakeside. Don't know the name of it. The
status of the repairs as of this weekend is still unclear,
(16:40):
according to the La Times. Here's Gus Corona, the business
manager of IBW Local eighteen, the DWP employee union. It's
completely unacceptable that this reservoir was empty for almost a
year for minor repairs. The work should have been done
in house. They should not have depended on a contractor
(17:01):
to do it. I truly believe it's something that could
have been avoided. And then you see these apologists and
the Only Times feels compelled to air these views that
maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. One hundred and
seventeen million gallons of water wouldn't have made a difference.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Tell me about tell me about how that works.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I see people in government saying the most absurd, most
stupid things, and I see the idiots of the La Times,
dutifully repeating their idiotic statements.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Without even challenging them.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
How could you say that one hundred and seventeen million
gallons would not have had an effect?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The problem was with water pressure.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
If you have tens of millions of gallons more, that's
going to dramatically increase the water pressure. But you know,
they expect everybody to get bored with the story and
after a few paragraphs click on to buy something on
Amazon or watch some porn. So they know nobody's going
to read this crap, but I do. So when we
(18:17):
come back, we'll wait. Actually, first when we talk to
David Howard, he's up one of the Kafi sales managers
here at iHeart, and.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
He lived in the Pacific Baalisades.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
His house is gone from what I understand, and I
want to put him on, and I want to continue
about Ginny's Kenonyez because I mentioned before she had one
job to give the people of La water and to
give them power.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I guess that's two jobs.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It was too much for her going to play a
clip of something she said on a podcast what her
number one priority was, and it was not giving us
water and not giving us power. Certainly wasn't repairing the
reservoir after eleven months, and Jenise Kinonias makes seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars of your money if you're a
DWP customer. More coming out as the world crumbles.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
When we entered the show on Friday, change dot org
had a petition signing going. The headline is demand the
immediate resignation of Mayor Karen Bass a change dot org.
And when I left it was at about forty thousand signatures.
(19:38):
It's tripled since then. It's now one hundred and twenty
three thousand and six fifty as if this print out,
it's probably higher than that. One hundred and twenty three
thousand plus. Demand the immediate resignation of Mayor Karen Bass.
Go to change dot org. This has no force of law.
(19:58):
This has to be a show of disgust to Karen
Bass's rain as mayor. Go to change dot orgon in
the search box, type Karen Bass and you'll get the
you'll get the petition and sign the thing online and
let's see if we can convince her to leave. All right,
(20:24):
I'm gonna I've got more. Oh, by the way, on
the reservoir, I just want to add one thing. Newsom
is called for an independent investigation as to why the
reservoir was empty, which shows you he knows this story
is true and it would have had a big effect
on fighting the fire. Everyone is talking about Rick Caruso
(20:45):
and how his Palisades shopping center survived because he had
a private fire crew, and you know what private fire
crews do. They bring their own water. They were able
to protect that because they brought their own water. Probably
used some of the general water. But I think he
(21:06):
pays enough in taxes. He's entitled to some of that
for that center, which employs a lot of people, and
that's the key. Water puts out the fires. You have
to have water no fires are going out. So there
should have been one hundred and seventeen million gallons of
water sitting in that reservoir, but it was empty. It
(21:29):
was empty because they had a one month job to
fix it back in February, and eleven months later it
wasn't fixed.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
That's the truth.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
That's why Newsom is having an investigation because he knows
what the story is and he wants to make sure
he's not tarred by it, that this was entirely a
local botch and it had nothing to do with him.
That's why he's calling for an investigation to protect himself
in case somebody tries to link him to the dry reservoir.
All right, let's get to well David Howard, he works
(21:58):
here to KFI iHeart for many years as a sales manager,
doing them for a long time and resident in Pacific
Palisades And David.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Welcome, Hey, John, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
I'm really sorry what happened to you and your family? Yeah,
I guess the house is that the house is gone entirely.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Yeah, it's not just the house, John, it's the entire
town and the entire community. And you know, I'd be
willing to lose my house at the sake of saving
the community. And not to sound super noble, but I
don't think there's a resident in that neighborhood that wouldn't
say the same thing, that we're more devastated about the
loss of the town in the community than we are
in our own homes. And I think that speaks to
(22:41):
the kind of place it is. And I also want
to just recognize real quick alt the Dina as well,
because what they're going through, we all feel their pain
and their loss, and it's just a disaster. And I
listened to you talk about the DWP and inefficiency in Bass.
It just nothing makes me more angry because I've lived
in the Palisades for thirty years and I've seen many
(23:05):
fires and fire protection, structure protection, and there wasn't a
fire engine to be found. And it's not the fire
department's fault. The firefighters don't send up to be firefighters,
not to fight fires. They sign up to save homes
and save lives. And they were they were there one,
two hands tied behind their back.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, something went wrong in the dispatch and in the
strategy at the very beginning. I've read numerous reports where
a lot of residents said things were burning and nobody
was around, and that's.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I'm sorry, no, no, no, that story is going to come out.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
So I can speak to it personally. The fire was
blowing north northeast northeast from the majority of the day, which
means it was heading towards the ocean, and around four
o'clock the wind shifted. That's when the winds really started
to get out of control and one of my my
next door neighbors that lost their house. No, there's no
house standing. So it's not just my next door neighbor
(24:00):
to the right or left or you know, up or down.
It's blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks. And she
ran down to the where the Gelson's is in the
middle of the town on Sophomore and sunset, and she
said to the fire crews, Hey, the neighborhoods starting to
burn up there. You got to get some trucks up there.
And his response was, there's nothing we can do. We
(24:23):
have no water. Just get out of here before you
before it's too unsafe. And that's the same story that
no matter where your home was in what section of
the Palisades burnt down, there was no structure protection for
anybody because there was no water.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
There was no water. And this was in the afternoon
on Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
This was on Tuesday afternoon. I was actually at my
house trying to save it like an idiot, because it
was getting very dangerous. And within five minutes, and you
know the neighborhood very well, you know you're down the
street once it topped the ridge. At timescal I would
say five minutes, houses were starting to burn and just
(25:04):
light up like you know, like Christmas trees.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That is it was.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
It was insane. When I left the house, I couldn't
see two carlings in front of me due to the smoke.
And I'm like, I just hop to get out of here.
That's how fast it was. But to not have any
protection like you can it maybe it comes nobody wants
the firefighter to be put in harm's way or to
risk their lives or that that's not what anybody would want.
(25:29):
But to not have anybody there prior and at that
time they cut off the super scoopers were shut down.
There was no helicopters, and it's almost like they're like,
you know, let it burn, and I don't know. I
have to think it was because of the inefficiency of
the of the Department of Water Power and the broken
fire hydrants.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
The hot fire hydrants were broken and they're supposed to
normally inspect them and fix them. They didn't do that.
The Santa Inez Reservoir was empty because they hadn't fixed
the cover for now eleven months.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
That it all. That's their job.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Their job is to give us water and power and
to make sure that the infrastructure that carries the water
and power is always maintained and always repaired and always working.
How can you go eleven months and not have a
one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir filled?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
How is that possible?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
I know those reservoirs. I know those reservoirs very well.
We've we have friends that live around them. You can
see them when they're full. If you remember the Malibu
fire and Gosh ninety four, that was the first time
those reservoirs were being utilized because it was the first
time the fire department had night vision, and that reservoir
save that fire from dropping the Westerns line, which had
(26:41):
gone all the way back to bell Air and de Brentwood.
So when it's when it's filled, it works. When it's
not filled, it's not so fit, it's not so efficient.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Right, No, you know it's one if one thing. If
nature is so overwhelming that you suffer these kind of
losses and there's literally nothing you can do, right, the
power of nature is just too ferocious. But when when
they didn't even fill the reservoir with water, when the
firefighters were standing there saying we don't have any water,
(27:12):
that is inexcusable. Unforgivable criminal people who didn't fill a
reservoir to prison.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I agree with you. There was fire tricks on pch
that were heading towards Zoom the beach at the time
that the fire came into town. No, imagine this the
town for the people that don't know. The town is
not adjacent to brush. Okay, it's in the center of
town like any other town. It has buildings all around it.
(27:43):
It's not like a let's build a town in the forest.
The town is below the ridge line and below the mountain.
To not have the town itself saved, To not have
protection around Starbucks and buildings and banks and schools, it's
it's I don't even know what to say about that.
How can a town burn down? And I know there's embers,
(28:07):
I get it. I know embers can fly under eaves
and cause fires. But if and when that would have
happened and we had we had fire protection in town,
the town at least would have been saved and the
town was decimated. I mean, it looks like it literally
looks like a bomb was dropped. I got up there
on Tuesday night. I'm watching our cameras and I see,
(28:28):
you know what, looks like just it's almost look like
the Wizard of Oz were the winds, you know, hurling
and for debris flow is just in front of your camera.
And then it went dead, and I'm like, oh, maybe
it's just the internet. Maybe it's just the power line.
Wishful thinking. So the next so the next and I'm
sure that's when my house caught. Next morning, got up
with my younger son and my twenty four year old
(28:50):
We're staying at a friend's house in Chevy It. We
get through the barricades. I'm driving. I make a left
on a Malfie. I go through Santa Monical Canyon. There's
live fire on both sides of us Ember's blowing power
lines down, and we're like, where's the fire department? Where
is everybody? Homes are burning, burning and burning. I make
(29:11):
it right on Chautauqua to go to our neighborhood, and
I didn't know where I was because I had no
point of reference. I'm like, where are we? And then
it was like, you know, a two by two mile
square of utter devastation, and that was just one section
of the Palisades. Yeah, on section.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, I think it's good that you point out how
the town is in the flatland down below the ridge,
because originally people saw everyone fleeing Pacific Highlands, which is
enclave up in the hills Island Pallisa or sorry, Palisades Highlands,
and everybody was trying to get down that boulevard.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
After all, the cars were all people dis abandon their cars.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
So yeah, that is a separate neighborhood up there. What
you're talking about is the main section of Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
The episode of the town right right.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And because I live in a similar situation where there
are mountains to the north of me, and I'm always figuring,
you know, Sunset Boulevard, that the fire department will be
able to make make a stand against the flames because
you have the big natural fire break, and uh, you know,
this is the first time I thought, well, maybe that's
not true, because I don't know who's who's who's directing
(30:26):
this strategy. I don't know why they showed up so late.
What you're saying, I have read in various reports all weekend.
Many people are quoted by name in the various news
outlets is saying nobody was showing up for hours.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
So I don't know if I don't. I know, I
can't count the number of people that I'm that I
have been family with that and friends with that have
lost homes. Right, every single person that I know is
saying the same thing. I do want to just touch
on for a second that you know, through through tragedy
and through horrific events, there are some you know, the
(31:04):
humanity does rise. There's a ton of mobilization going on,
I think in both the Palisades and then hopefully in Altadena.
I can't speak to that specifically, but the amount of support,
you know, neighbor by neighbor, friend by friend. I mean,
I have a million stories which we could talk about forever,
of people saving there's you know, people think the Palisades
(31:26):
is everyone's you know, living in a fifteen dollars million
dollar mansion and is a movie start. It's not the case.
The majority of the families are hardworking to you know,
moms and dads that are trying to make a good,
nice life for themselves, and they do it all the
way up to the elderly. Like some of these people
were already canceled by their by their insurance companies pre fire.
(31:48):
These seniors who've been in the let's say community for
fifty sixty years, right, they didn't probably have fire insurance
because once there's no mortgage on your house, you're not
required to have insurance. And those seniors used money or
equity in their homes to give money for the kids
to buy homes. So those people are done like they
have nothing left. And that's tragic, all right.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
That's the that's their major source of their.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Well set, and they're gonna some you know, someone's gonna
come in and try to raid them and give them
whatever they think that they can get. And most of
these people are going to, you know, take that little
that little amount of money. And what we're trying to
do is we're we're working behind the scenes right now
to protect as many people as we can. I was
at two meetings yesterday literally all day, not even taking
(32:37):
care of my own does get my own house in order,
but really trying to make sure that the community rallies.
There's a lot going on and a lot of things
are going to have to be discussed, and Tracy Park
is going to have to be a huge part of
that because she is an advocate. She's she's done so
far everything she said she was going to do. And
she's going to be fighting thirteen wherever many councilms.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
There are no No, she's got voted fourteen to one.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Right, it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
And as you know, and as you know, this is
going to be a fight because you know that the
the ULA tax, all that money that was put in
for tax should be going back to the Palisades immediately,
immediately to give to the people. Yeah, that's right, that
has to go back to the Palisades.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
You pay that tax and you don't get any fire protection.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Yeah, because guess what now we're homeless too.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, David, I gotta go. I have to cut you off.
I'm just running behind. We'll talk again soon.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Anything else I want, I want to give you a pick,
just one quick thing, if you don't mind the use
of the palisades are mobilizing and it's so beautiful to see,
and there's going to be a there's an active website
called Palisades Forever dot com.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
It was built by a bunch of twenty five to
thirty year olds and it's merchandise and all that money
that they collect is going to be going to all
the five one threes inside the Palisades that help run
the town and donate their to civic organization. So if
maybe we can just share it again palistates forever dot com.
So then I'm happy to jump on with you when
it's convenient over the next few days.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Okay, very good, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I'm so sorry about all the payview what everyone else
is suffering through David Howard, one of the sales managers
here at KFI, and iHeart.
Speaker 6 (34:22):
You're listening to John Cobel on demand from KFI. AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
The petition demanding that Mayor Karen Bass immediately resign on
change dot org up to one hundred and twenty six
one hundred and twenty six seventeen signatures change dot org
search for Karen Bass sign the petition.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
We need we need to have a new chapter.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Obviously, a complete failure is mayor Governor Gavin Us. I'm
a complete failure as governor, and I want to follow
up here on the reservoir issue because that is huge
and you you are going to hear people lie because
that's what they do. You're gonna people try to spin it,
which is a modern fancy word for a lie. People
(35:08):
try to give the other perspectives another sophisticated word for lie.
It's all lies. You cannot tell me that one hundred
and seventeen million gallons wouldn't make a difference in putting
out fires. I mean, that is so asinine and stupid
and absurd. I mean people will say anything in public,
no matter what their position, no matter what their title is,
(35:31):
no matter what their education level. When they're caught in
public screwing up and causing the destruction of thousands of homes,
they'll say anything to protect their ass. I'm going to
give you some facts, and I want to compliment. I
don't think I've done this in several years. The La
Times has actually done a really good job on this
reservoir story. They broke the original story. They had a
(35:52):
great follow up. This is the way it used to
be with the La Times. Maybe some sense has been
knocked into the staff by Patrick sun Chian the reservoir.
This is sent in as reservoir, and again I have
to stress if you're just tuning in, it was out
of service, closed for the last eleven months, one hundred
and seventeen million gallons because there was a tear in
(36:14):
the cover.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
It should have taken a month to fix it in house.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
According to one of the union leaders, they contracted out
and it was like only maybe one hundred and thirty
thousand dollars job at most, contracted it out. It's still
not fixed. It's eleven months later, it's still not fixed.
It's empty one hundred and seventeen million gallons. One hundred
and seventeen million. And again, remember the firefighters had three
million gallons available in their tanks and that ran out
(36:41):
in seventeen hours, so of course this would have a
huge effect. And yes, I'm utterly convinced that the fire
the firefighters were way late to putting it out. Again,
not the fault of the guys you see fighting it,
it's whoever is issuing the directives. Because I have read
and I've heard from too many people I know, read
too many quotes in the paper. Something went really wrong there.
(37:05):
And let me tell you, you ought to be listening
to us, because the way the media outlets are arranged,
most of the local TV stations are going to cover
the day to day drama. And you know, everybody's got
a different role in the media ecosystem. And if you
want to see what's happening visually, you know, you turn
on the television. But I'm going to be able to
(37:26):
go through, you know, dozens and dozens of sources and
go deep into the stories and find the stuff that
really matters, which sometimes is buried. Sometimes the significance is
overlooked by the headline writers because I know most people
just have time to glance at headlines and maybe two paragraphs.
This is really important to know about this sent Inez reservoir.
(37:47):
They have several across the city with a combined capacity
of more than four billion.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Gallons of water.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Including aqueduct reservoirs, the city can store more than ninety
one billion gallons across its infrastructure. The Santa Inez complex
is at one hundred and seventeen million gallons. It's one
of several sources of water in the area. There's a
large pipeline from Stone Canyon and a smaller site, the
palis Age Reservoir. In other words, there's plenty of water around.
(38:19):
We don't have a debilitating drought that has dried up
all the reservoirs. This is mismanagement. This is pure stupidity
on the part of Genisai kenon Yez and Karen Bass.
Karen Bass is in Ghana, What has Karen Bass been
doing for the last eleven months. Don't they have meetings
(38:40):
where Okay, fire seasons coming up?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Are we ready?
Speaker 3 (38:43):
I kept hearing Newsom saying, well, you know, all our
resources are prepositioned.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I kept hearing that word preposition No, they weren't.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
There's a limited number of towns that can be affected
by this kind of fire. It's the hounds at the
base of the Santa Monica Mountains here in La County.
It's not going to be Torrents, It's not going to
be her host Beach. It is going to be primarily
the town. And what did we have a few years ago?
(39:15):
We had a fire near the Getty Center, which was
over Brentwood got the Pacific Palisades Fire bel Air has
had historic fires. There was a fire in the Hollywood
Hills as part of this cluster last week. It's always
along that mountain range. So where were they prepositioned? Why
(39:37):
did it take hours to make it to Pacific Palisades?
Where were these prepositioned fire trucks and strike teams? Where
were they when they finally got going. They did a
hell of a job. I saw it with my own eyes.
But who is managing this, So did Karen Pass? Does
she have a monthly meeting? And she says, hey, Jenniese,
is that one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoirs that
(39:59):
filled up?
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yet you fix the cover?
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Do you need money? Need some help? Did they have
that meeting? Did they did con guys even know? This
is what's so crazy. This is not just some kind
of cheap political shot that she was in Africa. She
was in Africa, left for it after after extreme fire warnings.
(40:24):
What's the Weather Service supposed to do to alert a mayor?
They say extreme fire? What should they have said? Super
duper extreme fire, super duper colossal, enormous.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Gigantic fire risk. What do you want? What do you
need to know? What you need is water? Nobody checked.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
Nobody checked to see if the biggest reservoir in the
Palisades was builled. Honest to god, I don't want to
hear what we're looking for. You know, we're gonna see
what works or what doesn't work. What doesn't work is
that people who currently run the government, and that includes
the infants and clowns on the city council outside of
(41:12):
Tracy Park and maybe one another guy. The rest of them,
all the socialists, you're all happy that the that the
wealthier side of town got burned to the ground. They're
probably doing a dance, aren't they. Do You probably just
wish Brentwood and bell Air got it too, don't you?
All the socialists Nitthia ram and Hugo Soda Martinez, Unice
(41:34):
Is Hernandez. There's another one too. They just elected another one.
His name I don't know. Oh my god. Notice how
quiet they are. All right, we come back. I'm gonna
play you. I'm gonna play you. Genisa Quinas, who is
on a radio show podcast uh recently, and she's the
(41:56):
one who let that reservoir one run dry, did not
fix in a month, and you saw what happened to Palisides.
You're going to see what her number one priority in
her job is. When we come back, Debor Mark is off.
We have Brigitta Diegostino live on KFI twenty four hour
CAFI News Center.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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