January 22, 2025 • 25 mins
(January 22, 2025)
In Western Altadena, where 17 died, Eaton fire evacuation order was delayed. Many residents with disabilities can’t flee on their own… Could a database help? Why all California homeowners could be on the hook for LA County wildfire costs. Huntington Beach declares itself ‘non-sanctuary city.’
In Western Altadena, where 17 died, Eaton fire evacuation order was delayed. Many residents with disabilities can’t flee on their own… Could a database help? Why all California homeowners could be on the hook for LA County wildfire costs. Huntington Beach declares itself ‘non-sanctuary city.’
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I am six forty Bill Handle. It is a homday, Wednesday,
January twenty two. We have a lot going on in
addition to all the news. What and does our producer
is give me with a trending sheet that I can
look at and tells me the different stories that are trending.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Some of the big ones, for example of federal.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Employees in the DEI federal programs are going to be
let go. And the prayer meeting at the National Cathedral.
Now here's the one that she insisted that I actually
tell you about and it stop being covered enough, and
it is a huge story to story in this week
(00:47):
in Current Biology, one of the major biology magazines. And
this is the study that's now been proven chimps who
observe other chimps peeing were slightly more likely.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
To pe themselves.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's a study that came out and it is in
a major biological magazine. Chimps that see other chips peeing
are more likely to pee.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, thank you very much. It's like a yawn and
then the other yeah, yeah, much like that. Yeah, yeah, empathetic.
Yurinin Yeah, very very strange.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Okay, big story, and I'll bet you and I'm I'm
very happy to bring it to you that we don't
miss it. Now, let's get very serious for a moment
and talk about what happened in Altadena and the fires.
All seventeen debts confirmed so far in the Eaten Fire
occurred in western Altadena, which received Emergency of Action evacuation
(01:46):
order hours after the fire started. Let's talk about Altadena
for a moment. Two sections of Altadena, West Altadena, East Altadena.
West Altadena is premier, early black or has a huge
black population, has been there for generations, and ain't doesn't
have the same money as those people in West Altadena.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So immediately the argument goes, wait a.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Minute, black minority neighborhoods didn't get the same evactuation order.
If you were west of Lake Street West Altadina, then
you were if you lived east of Lake Street, and boy,
the accusations are flying.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So the fire comes out.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Of Eaton Canyon about six thirty pm on January seventh.
It's being pushed west by these intense Santa Ana wins.
Many neighborhoods in eastern Altadena got evactuation warnings and orders
that night.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So here's what the Times found. They looked at some records.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Altadena neighborhoods west of North Lake Avenue didn't get the
electronic of action orders until three twenty five am.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right, fire comes at six thirty pm.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The EVA or evacuation orders for East Altadena comes at
three twenty five am.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
What that's five six seven hours later. The first radio report.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Of a fire west of Lake comes in at ten
fifty one, almost eleven o'clock. Then you had calls at
eleven forty two, eleven fifty five additional fires around the block.
By two am, sheriff's departments are driving up and down
the streets west of Lake and using loud speakers to
urge people to evacuate, and they hadn't still gotten evacuation orders.
(03:34):
And of course the fire ended up decimating western Altadena,
and the LA coroner said all of the deaths in
Altadena were west of Lake.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
WHOA.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So now you got LA County immersion emergency officials they
ain't talking, not yet, and then you have basically some
kind of explanation. Typically, fire incident command official determine areas
for evacuation, law enforcement and acts of atvacuations, the opposite
of emergency management supports by physically issuing evacuation orders via
wireless emergency alerts.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
They just go on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
But the bottom line here, if you look at the
facts on their face, this looks like crap.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
This doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Poor minority sections of Altadena did not get the same
evacuation orders as did the wealthier areas or the ones east,
the more white, the areas that have more money, that
have a different demographic. And boy does that the optics
do not look good here. Now do we go out
(04:39):
and blame Here's why I'm one of those people that
I'm not going to say, oh my god, racists.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Look at that they did it on purpose. They didn't.
We have to look at this and really pay attention
to what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And I know people jump immediately to conclusions, for example,
who started the Fire's lawsuits are already filed against PG
and E. Right, we don't know, We don't know the investigation.
It should be a transparent investigation. We should know why
the fire department did what it did or didn't do,
(05:12):
what kind of planning went into it? Are their defenses? Well, yeah,
we never saw a fire like this. We didn't have
enough firefighters. We should have called firefighters for Mexico and
Canada and Utah and Nevada before the fire started, because
we didn't anticipate, which we should have the big fires.
So I'm one of these people that say, Okay, you know,
(05:37):
it doesn't look good, but let's find out what happened.
This one boy on its face does not look good. However,
let's find out what happened. Okay, And now we're looking backwards.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Thank goodness, we're looking backwards and starting to investigate. Okay,
what happened.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We should have done, what we could have done, what
we could do, what we didn't do. The planning was
there enough to look at that reservoir up in the
Palisades that was empty. Let's look at firefighters not being
put in advance, you know, the aircraft up in the air.
We should have had more. We should have brought them in.
(06:20):
I mean, the investigations across the border coming one of
and this is not necessarily anything that happened negatively in
terms of the way the officials handed it handled it.
At least eight of the twenty seven fire victims were
at least eighty years old, and some had disabilities. They
were in wheelchairs and they couldn't get out. So the
(06:46):
fire chief La County Fire Chief Anthony Morone?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Is that Moroney or Moron? How's that pronounced? DamID?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
You know?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Maroni Moroni?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Okay, first name should be Yeah, it is Anony. It's
Tony Moroney, perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
All right? Anyway? First responders according to Maroney.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
According to Tony, the first responders moved about five hundred
people to safety after the fire broke out. Some were
unable to leave on their own. Others could have but
simply waited. We saw stories and I didn't even understand
this because there were stories of people with hoses, just
(07:31):
garden hoses, saving their family, saving their.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
House and next door, and they were heroes of the
first order.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
There were other stories of people doing the same thing
and they were charred, blackened remains. So I guess if
you guessed right, you were a hero, and if you
guess wrong, you were burnt.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
To a crisp. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
The problem is, and especially when the fire is coming
up and so a lot of people decide to stay.
We see that in hurricane land all the time and flooding.
I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Some people will write it out.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Other people are floating face down down that river that's
just been created.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Which way, So what is going to happen?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Well, the supervisors La County are doing a lot of things,
for example, barring landlords in the county from evicting tenants
who have evacuees or their pets staying with them. People
have leases to say only two people, no pets are allowed.
All of a sudden there's ten people and all kinds
of pets because they open their homes up can't be
(08:38):
evicted for violation. Also, the board is sending a letter
to Governor Newsom and the President asking for assistance in
footing the recovery bill. Now that is stuff that should
be done, is going to do, and there's a whole
political issue as to what the Feds are going to
do about helping us. And we know that we'll talk
(09:00):
about that President Trump coming to visit southern California, which
he should any will, and then offering tons of help,
which he should any will.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
The politics part of it is if.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You do ABC or D, we're going to do it
with strings attached, which has never happened.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And we'll see what happens. LA County supervisors are all
over that.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
But one of the things we are looking at LA
County and the officials first responders is how do we
know that someone is in a wheelchair at the house
and is unable to get out themselves and you have neighbors,
for example, who just got the hell out of there.
(09:42):
Maybe they call the first responders. But can you imagine
the phone calls that we're going back and forth. So
it's been suggested that a database be created. See a
lot of suggestions now coming up. One of them a database.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Okay, I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I guess with AI you can do that, and they
somehow put together people that are in wheelchairs and through
all kinds of data mining.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But I think you're going to see that happening.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think you're going to see as a result of
these fires, things like this preemptive moves by the fire department,
checking pressures somehow figuring out here's the question I have,
because there wasn't enough pressure, There wasn't enough water in
the higher reaches of the Palisades, which is very hilly.
(10:31):
Why wasn't there enough And one of the arguments is
because our system wasn't designed to deal with the fire
of this magnitude, going this strong, going this fast, having
this kind of ferocity.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
We just don't have the system and we probably never will. Well,
let's look at it. What happened, what was wrong, what
was right?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And I'll tell you it's not going to be taken
into account. And by the way, I'm not defending what's happening.
I'm defending Let's look at it very carefully before we
make accusations back and forth. But one of the possibilities
is that had everything been done where the accusations are true,
(11:19):
let's just say that somehow the accusations we didn't do this,
we didn't do that, we didn't do this, and in
the end it's found out that, Okay, put all of
that that you did right.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Let's say we made everything right that you did.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The reservoir had been there, we had enough firefighters out there.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Two questions.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Number one would have changed anything, and number two, was
this disaster at such a magnitude that there isn't jack
you could do about it?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Then what do you do? I'll tell you what we do,
because this is our society. What do we do?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We put blame. We've got to find blame. I get
handle on the law of phone calls all day long.
I fell and I broke my leg.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Right, I was at a hotel and it's their fault.
They go, what did they do wrong? Was it a slippery,
slippery floor? No? Was it not well lit? No? It
was fine.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Where there stairs there that made a difficult to erotic code?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
No? No, it said stairs here? So what do they
do wrong? I want money.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I fell in that hotel, I broke my leg, and
I want money. I want answers. I want to blame someone.
By the way, that's not to say that blame should
not go around. I'm gonna make that really clear. I'm
not defending. All I'm arguing is let's find out and
you know what. In the end, stuff happens, not quite
(12:50):
that phrase, stuff happens.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And that's just the way it goes.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know, you get hit by someone with no insurance
and you're grievous injured, or you're hit by an Amazon
truck that blew through a stop side. You know what,
stuff happens. You're a winner on one you're not a
winner on the other. That's the reality. And I want
to go past that no matter what happens, we have
to blame.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
All right, a little bit about the fires, because we're
gonna be talking about that for a.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
While once all the debris is cleared and the rebuilding starts, right, Well,
a lot of attention is going to go to the
financial health of insurance companies because they have to pay
up now. I reported, well, there are two different kinds
of insurance here in California. There is your normal insurance
policy all state farmers, that sort of thing. There is
(13:46):
self insurance, which means you don't have any insurance. Got
to be pretty wealthy for that, or as a less
resort if you can't get homeowners you go to the
California Fair Plan Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, and
the Fair Plan fire insurance only. And there are plenty
of people that don't have fire insurance. They don't have
insurance anymore. Non renewals, Nope, we're out of the business.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
We're not going to ensure.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So the Fare Access to Insurance Requirement Plan private insurance
pool created by the state and it's operated by all
the insurance companies in the state. They put money into
it and only fire damage. If you want liability theft
other separate coverage, you buy a wrap around policy. Now,
(14:34):
last week the Fair Plan disclosed admitted to cover twenty
two percent of the structures in the Palisades fire zone.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That is a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Twenty two percent of all the structures in the fire
zone were under the Fair Plan twelve in the Eaten fire.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So let's talk about exposure.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Palisates fire right now more than four billion dollars and
that's just the start.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
In the Eating fire.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, exposure in the Palastates fire under the Fair plans
four billion. Potential exposure in the Eating fire seven hundred
and seventy five million, but it's going to be much
much more than that. And the way it works is
the insurance companies put into the fair Plan.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
For people who can't get insurance.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So if all State says no to you, for example,
well all State still has to put in into the
fair Plan to cover people that All States says no to.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
It's a little bit complicated, but in the end, you.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Go to the fair Plan, you get fire insurance, and
the insurers the private insurers. And this one, when I
looked at it, said, whoa really the private insurers? You're
all states, your farmers have enough money in reserves to
cover losses for their policyholders.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The fair plan not even close.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
It's a state program. And what and where does the
state programs get their money? Where where do the state
gets his money? Whoa last I heard it was the taxpayer?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Are we going to get nailed? You bet?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And the law was recently enacted very quietly. Last year.
An insurance commissioner did this, and.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
It says that in events of emergencies like this, the
insurance companies can slip in.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Supplemental costs.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So you pay four thousand dollars a year for your
insurance policy, and all of a sudden you renew and
it's going to be six thousand dollars a Go, wait
a minute, that's fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
They can do that and can argue we need the
money legitimately because the fire losses are too great.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So how do.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Insurance companies have enough money to pay? Because insurance companies
buy insurance to cover the policies that they have.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
To pay for.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It's called reinsurance. It's an entire industry. So you have
they look at prospective claims. You look at an all
state looking at claims, say our exposure Okay, here is
two billion dollars in this area. We have reserves enough
to pay eight hundred million. Well, they buy insurance for
the other two million. Well, with the fair plan, there
isn't even close to the insurance, which means in the end, wow,
(17:25):
we're going to get stuck big time. But you know,
welcome to California. This is where we live. You know,
one of the gals that works for me in another
business I have, she lives in Toronto. She does some
work on the website. She lives in Toronto, and we
talked yesterday and so, how's the weather there? Twenty degrees below.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Celsius. So I don't know what that means. It's cold.
It's below freezing, way below freezing. I think it's below
zero ty degrees below. And I was talking to her.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I was in shorts and sandals, mandals, and we were
at seventy three or seventy four degrees yesterday mid January.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
People like southern California. They like living in California.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
But you pay big, big money. You pay big money
for housing, for food, for utilities, for gasoline, for insurance.
Because I tell you, I mean the cold hitting the
northeast actually a Southeast miserable, horrible, but it doesn't wipe
(18:39):
out your houses. It's sure as hell does the heat
here because of the wildfires. Now, I think the hurricane people
have the same problem, the insurance companies and hurricane along
the hurricane areas, and certainly the flooding that happens down
the Mississippi and the other rivers. But it doesn't know
(19:02):
how much does it cost to put up a tar
hut when you live along the Mississippi and most of
your and when you feed people. FEMA comes in, feeds
people and they do it with squirrels. You know, it's
just cheaper. Okay, that's enough. See I told you. In
the end, it doesn't matter how serious it gets, I
still have to rip into insert name of relicious religion,
(19:26):
ethnicity creed here, neil, e've been with me a long time,
Thank goodness. One of the things about this anti woke
business that's coming in that's now sweeping the land is
I get to have more fun.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It's kind of neat. I don't know that, woess I
think so too. It used to be. Now now on
handle on the law.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
If I get a Filipino that calls, I can insist
that he or she's sing peelings before I even answer
the question, let's do this together. Pee's nothing more than
pe see I can do that now. Okay, what happened
yesterday in light of what's going on, we know what
the President did with his orders and the pardons, et cetera.
(20:13):
Huntington Beach, which is I would say it's a pretty
red area declared itself a non sanctuary city. Now Trump
already begins implementing his immigration reforms. I mean, that was
a day one. We knew that was going to be
a day one, and in fact it was. He signed
that order day one yesterday, and that included limiting asylum claims,
(20:39):
matter of fact, probably limiting all of them for a
while and permanently, I don't know, lifting restrictions on ice
making arrest at quote sensitive locations. This was policy under
the Biden administration, schools, churches, hospitals. Now ice can go
into a church or a hospital and arrest someone.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Is that going to happen?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
No, I don't think so, but it's there. The sensitive
location policy gone. And so in response to that, Democrat
led cities and states like California reinforce sanctuary policies which
restrict local law enforcement from cooperating with the feeds who
are looking for illegal aliens. So yesterday the city Council
(21:24):
unanimously voted for Mayor Pat Burns's proposal to designate the
city as a non sanctuary city, aligning with Trump's policies
of deportation, and the city council wrote in a press release,
this new city policy and declaration are common sense, supports
our law enforcement, advances.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Public safety throughout the city.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
What the governor is doing does not because of the
sanctuary now practically speaking, I mean, come on, it doesn't
do much.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's a political statement, important one because we are a
very little rural state. We are as blue as it gets.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
We are probably more pro migrant illegal and legal legal
than any other state. And so you have these pockets
of conservatism, for example, Huntington Beach saying you know what, no, no,
we want to arrest ill illegal aliens, illegal migrants, because
(22:25):
you know, we want to go after criminals. But you know,
under the state policy of not cooperating with local authorities
in terms of ice coming in, there are exceptions.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
For example, violent criminals, those who are.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Accused of have been charged or have been convicted of
violent crimes. They're not protected. ICE can go in all day.
The problem is, does the local authorities.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Call ICE and say, hey, we got someone here that
you might want to consider picking up. It used to
be that way. Those days are gone. So what we
have is a political statement being made, and we're going
to see a lot of those now.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I love this one White House Press secretary told Newsweek
in relation to sanctuary cities and enforcing federal law, President
Trump will enlist every federal power and coordinate with state
authorities to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals,
drug dealers, and human traffickers and American history history, while
(23:34):
simultaneously lowering costs for families. And we talk about lowering
costs in a minute. But I think it's not just
about criminals.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
What Trump has said, we start with criminals and then
we move on eleven million. That's the number is probably
higher than that who are actually illegal.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Mass deportations of eleven.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Million per people who are here illegally.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You know, I don't know how I feel about that,
because I feel that we have to protect our borders.
There is a limit. There are people that believe there
is no limit. We accept as Emily Lazarus, give us
your wretched, your poor yearning to be free on the
base of the plaque or the statue of liberty. I mean,
those days are gone. We don't need immigrants anymore. Maybe
(24:25):
on a very high tech level we do, but for
the most part we don't. And so you can't have
open arms. But at the same time, do you say
we're going to deport eleven million people now the criminals?
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Fine, I get that. I don't think anybody disagrees with that.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
However, can you portray eleven million people as criminals?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And then how do you do it the practical measure?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I mean, it is complicated stuff, but I will tell
you we're going to see an administration that's going to
try to do exactly that, and we'll see if practicality
kicks in.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Don't know if it will or not. I am sixty.
You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I am six forty Bill Handle. It is a homday, Wednesday,
January twenty two. We have a lot going on in
addition to all the news. What and does our producer
is give me with a trending sheet that I can
look at and tells me the different stories that are trending.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Some of the big ones, for example of federal.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Employees in the DEI federal programs are going to be
let go. And the prayer meeting at the National Cathedral.
Now here's the one that she insisted that I actually
tell you about and it stop being covered enough, and
it is a huge story to story in this week
(00:47):
in Current Biology, one of the major biology magazines. And
this is the study that's now been proven chimps who
observe other chimps peeing were slightly more likely.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
To pe themselves.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
That's a study that came out and it is in
a major biological magazine. Chimps that see other chips peeing
are more likely to pee.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, thank you very much. It's like a yawn and
then the other yeah, yeah, much like that. Yeah, yeah, empathetic.
Yurinin Yeah, very very strange.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Okay, big story, and I'll bet you and I'm I'm
very happy to bring it to you that we don't
miss it. Now, let's get very serious for a moment
and talk about what happened in Altadena and the fires.
All seventeen debts confirmed so far in the Eaten Fire
occurred in western Altadena, which received Emergency of Action evacuation
(01:46):
order hours after the fire started. Let's talk about Altadena
for a moment. Two sections of Altadena, West Altadena, East Altadena.
West Altadena is premier, early black or has a huge
black population, has been there for generations, and ain't doesn't
have the same money as those people in West Altadena.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So immediately the argument goes, wait a.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Minute, black minority neighborhoods didn't get the same evactuation order.
If you were west of Lake Street West Altadina, then
you were if you lived east of Lake Street, and boy,
the accusations are flying.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So the fire comes out.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Of Eaton Canyon about six thirty pm on January seventh.
It's being pushed west by these intense Santa Ana wins.
Many neighborhoods in eastern Altadena got evactuation warnings and orders
that night.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So here's what the Times found. They looked at some records.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Altadena neighborhoods west of North Lake Avenue didn't get the
electronic of action orders until three twenty five am.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right, fire comes at six thirty pm.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
The EVA or evacuation orders for East Altadena comes at
three twenty five am.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
What that's five six seven hours later. The first radio report.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Of a fire west of Lake comes in at ten
fifty one, almost eleven o'clock. Then you had calls at
eleven forty two, eleven fifty five additional fires around the block.
By two am, sheriff's departments are driving up and down
the streets west of Lake and using loud speakers to
urge people to evacuate, and they hadn't still gotten evacuation orders.
(03:34):
And of course the fire ended up decimating western Altadena,
and the LA coroner said all of the deaths in
Altadena were west of Lake.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
WHOA.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So now you got LA County immersion emergency officials they
ain't talking, not yet, and then you have basically some
kind of explanation. Typically, fire incident command official determine areas
for evacuation, law enforcement and acts of atvacuations, the opposite
of emergency management supports by physically issuing evacuation orders via
wireless emergency alerts.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
They just go on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
But the bottom line here, if you look at the
facts on their face, this looks like crap.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
This doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Poor minority sections of Altadena did not get the same
evacuation orders as did the wealthier areas or the ones east,
the more white, the areas that have more money, that
have a different demographic. And boy does that the optics
do not look good here. Now do we go out
(04:39):
and blame Here's why I'm one of those people that
I'm not going to say, oh my god, racists.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Look at that they did it on purpose. They didn't.
We have to look at this and really pay attention
to what happened.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And I know people jump immediately to conclusions, for example,
who started the Fire's lawsuits are already filed against PG
and E. Right, we don't know, We don't know the investigation.
It should be a transparent investigation. We should know why
the fire department did what it did or didn't do,
(05:12):
what kind of planning went into it? Are their defenses? Well, yeah,
we never saw a fire like this. We didn't have
enough firefighters. We should have called firefighters for Mexico and
Canada and Utah and Nevada before the fire started, because
we didn't anticipate, which we should have the big fires.
So I'm one of these people that say, Okay, you know,
(05:37):
it doesn't look good, but let's find out what happened.
This one boy on its face does not look good. However,
let's find out what happened. Okay, And now we're looking backwards.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Thank goodness, we're looking backwards and starting to investigate. Okay,
what happened.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We should have done, what we could have done, what
we could do, what we didn't do. The planning was
there enough to look at that reservoir up in the
Palisades that was empty. Let's look at firefighters not being
put in advance, you know, the aircraft up in the air.
We should have had more. We should have brought them in.
(06:20):
I mean, the investigations across the border coming one of
and this is not necessarily anything that happened negatively in
terms of the way the officials handed it handled it.
At least eight of the twenty seven fire victims were
at least eighty years old, and some had disabilities. They
were in wheelchairs and they couldn't get out. So the
(06:46):
fire chief La County Fire Chief Anthony Morone?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Is that Moroney or Moron? How's that pronounced? DamID?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
You know?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Maroni Moroni?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Okay, first name should be Yeah, it is Anony. It's
Tony Moroney, perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
All right? Anyway? First responders according to Maroney.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
According to Tony, the first responders moved about five hundred
people to safety after the fire broke out. Some were
unable to leave on their own. Others could have but
simply waited. We saw stories and I didn't even understand
this because there were stories of people with hoses, just
(07:31):
garden hoses, saving their family, saving their.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
House and next door, and they were heroes of the
first order.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
There were other stories of people doing the same thing
and they were charred, blackened remains. So I guess if
you guessed right, you were a hero, and if you
guess wrong, you were burnt.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
To a crisp. We don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
The problem is, and especially when the fire is coming
up and so a lot of people decide to stay.
We see that in hurricane land all the time and flooding.
I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Some people will write it out.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Other people are floating face down down that river that's
just been created.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Which way, So what is going to happen?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Well, the supervisors La County are doing a lot of things,
for example, barring landlords in the county from evicting tenants
who have evacuees or their pets staying with them. People
have leases to say only two people, no pets are allowed.
All of a sudden there's ten people and all kinds
of pets because they open their homes up can't be
(08:38):
evicted for violation. Also, the board is sending a letter
to Governor Newsom and the President asking for assistance in
footing the recovery bill. Now that is stuff that should
be done, is going to do, and there's a whole
political issue as to what the Feds are going to
do about helping us. And we know that we'll talk
(09:00):
about that President Trump coming to visit southern California, which
he should any will, and then offering tons of help,
which he should any will.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
The politics part of it is if.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You do ABC or D, we're going to do it
with strings attached, which has never happened.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
And we'll see what happens. LA County supervisors are all
over that.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
But one of the things we are looking at LA
County and the officials first responders is how do we
know that someone is in a wheelchair at the house
and is unable to get out themselves and you have neighbors,
for example, who just got the hell out of there.
(09:42):
Maybe they call the first responders. But can you imagine
the phone calls that we're going back and forth. So
it's been suggested that a database be created. See a
lot of suggestions now coming up. One of them a database.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Okay, I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I guess with AI you can do that, and they
somehow put together people that are in wheelchairs and through
all kinds of data mining.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
But I think you're going to see that happening.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I think you're going to see as a result of
these fires, things like this preemptive moves by the fire department,
checking pressures somehow figuring out here's the question I have,
because there wasn't enough pressure, There wasn't enough water in
the higher reaches of the Palisades, which is very hilly.
(10:31):
Why wasn't there enough And one of the arguments is
because our system wasn't designed to deal with the fire
of this magnitude, going this strong, going this fast, having
this kind of ferocity.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
We just don't have the system and we probably never will. Well,
let's look at it. What happened, what was wrong, what
was right?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And I'll tell you it's not going to be taken
into account. And by the way, I'm not defending what's happening.
I'm defending Let's look at it very carefully before we
make accusations back and forth. But one of the possibilities
is that had everything been done where the accusations are true,
(11:19):
let's just say that somehow the accusations we didn't do this,
we didn't do that, we didn't do this, and in
the end it's found out that, Okay, put all of
that that you did right.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Let's say we made everything right that you did.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
The reservoir had been there, we had enough firefighters out there.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Two questions.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Number one would have changed anything, and number two, was
this disaster at such a magnitude that there isn't jack
you could do about it?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Then what do you do? I'll tell you what we do,
because this is our society. What do we do?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We put blame. We've got to find blame. I get
handle on the law of phone calls all day long.
I fell and I broke my leg.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Right, I was at a hotel and it's their fault.
They go, what did they do wrong? Was it a slippery,
slippery floor? No? Was it not well lit? No? It
was fine.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Where there stairs there that made a difficult to erotic code?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
No? No, it said stairs here? So what do they
do wrong? I want money.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I fell in that hotel, I broke my leg, and
I want money. I want answers. I want to blame someone.
By the way, that's not to say that blame should
not go around. I'm gonna make that really clear. I'm
not defending. All I'm arguing is let's find out and
you know what. In the end, stuff happens, not quite
(12:50):
that phrase, stuff happens.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And that's just the way it goes.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know, you get hit by someone with no insurance
and you're grievous injured, or you're hit by an Amazon
truck that blew through a stop side. You know what,
stuff happens. You're a winner on one you're not a
winner on the other. That's the reality. And I want
to go past that no matter what happens, we have
to blame.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
All right, a little bit about the fires, because we're
gonna be talking about that for a.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
While once all the debris is cleared and the rebuilding starts, right, Well,
a lot of attention is going to go to the
financial health of insurance companies because they have to pay
up now. I reported, well, there are two different kinds
of insurance here in California. There is your normal insurance
policy all state farmers, that sort of thing. There is
(13:46):
self insurance, which means you don't have any insurance. Got
to be pretty wealthy for that, or as a less
resort if you can't get homeowners you go to the
California Fair Plan Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, and
the Fair Plan fire insurance only. And there are plenty
of people that don't have fire insurance. They don't have
insurance anymore. Non renewals, Nope, we're out of the business.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
We're not going to ensure.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So the Fare Access to Insurance Requirement Plan private insurance
pool created by the state and it's operated by all
the insurance companies in the state. They put money into
it and only fire damage. If you want liability theft
other separate coverage, you buy a wrap around policy. Now,
(14:34):
last week the Fair Plan disclosed admitted to cover twenty
two percent of the structures in the Palisades fire zone.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That is a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Twenty two percent of all the structures in the fire
zone were under the Fair Plan twelve in the Eaten fire.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
So let's talk about exposure.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Palisates fire right now more than four billion dollars and
that's just the start.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
In the Eating fire.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, exposure in the Palastates fire under the Fair plans
four billion. Potential exposure in the Eating fire seven hundred
and seventy five million, but it's going to be much
much more than that. And the way it works is
the insurance companies put into the fair Plan.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
For people who can't get insurance.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So if all State says no to you, for example,
well all State still has to put in into the
fair Plan to cover people that All States says no to.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
It's a little bit complicated, but in the end, you.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Go to the fair Plan, you get fire insurance, and
the insurers the private insurers. And this one, when I
looked at it, said, whoa really the private insurers? You're
all states, your farmers have enough money in reserves to
cover losses for their policyholders.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The fair plan not even close.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
It's a state program. And what and where does the
state programs get their money? Where where do the state
gets his money? Whoa last I heard it was the taxpayer?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Are we going to get nailed? You bet?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And the law was recently enacted very quietly. Last year.
An insurance commissioner did this, and.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
It says that in events of emergencies like this, the
insurance companies can slip in.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Supplemental costs.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So you pay four thousand dollars a year for your
insurance policy, and all of a sudden you renew and
it's going to be six thousand dollars a Go, wait
a minute, that's fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
They can do that and can argue we need the
money legitimately because the fire losses are too great.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So how do.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Insurance companies have enough money to pay? Because insurance companies
buy insurance to cover the policies that they have.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
To pay for.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It's called reinsurance. It's an entire industry. So you have
they look at prospective claims. You look at an all
state looking at claims, say our exposure Okay, here is
two billion dollars in this area. We have reserves enough
to pay eight hundred million. Well, they buy insurance for
the other two million. Well, with the fair plan, there
isn't even close to the insurance, which means in the end, wow,
(17:25):
we're going to get stuck big time. But you know,
welcome to California. This is where we live. You know,
one of the gals that works for me in another
business I have, she lives in Toronto. She does some
work on the website. She lives in Toronto, and we
talked yesterday and so, how's the weather there? Twenty degrees below.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Celsius. So I don't know what that means. It's cold.
It's below freezing, way below freezing. I think it's below
zero ty degrees below. And I was talking to her.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I was in shorts and sandals, mandals, and we were
at seventy three or seventy four degrees yesterday mid January.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
People like southern California. They like living in California.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
But you pay big, big money. You pay big money
for housing, for food, for utilities, for gasoline, for insurance.
Because I tell you, I mean the cold hitting the
northeast actually a Southeast miserable, horrible, but it doesn't wipe
(18:39):
out your houses. It's sure as hell does the heat
here because of the wildfires. Now, I think the hurricane people
have the same problem, the insurance companies and hurricane along
the hurricane areas, and certainly the flooding that happens down
the Mississippi and the other rivers. But it doesn't know
(19:02):
how much does it cost to put up a tar
hut when you live along the Mississippi and most of
your and when you feed people. FEMA comes in, feeds
people and they do it with squirrels. You know, it's
just cheaper. Okay, that's enough. See I told you. In
the end, it doesn't matter how serious it gets, I
still have to rip into insert name of relicious religion,
(19:26):
ethnicity creed here, neil, e've been with me a long time,
Thank goodness. One of the things about this anti woke
business that's coming in that's now sweeping the land is
I get to have more fun.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It's kind of neat. I don't know that, woess I
think so too. It used to be. Now now on
handle on the law.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
If I get a Filipino that calls, I can insist
that he or she's sing peelings before I even answer
the question, let's do this together. Pee's nothing more than
pe see I can do that now. Okay, what happened
yesterday in light of what's going on, we know what
the President did with his orders and the pardons, et cetera.
(20:13):
Huntington Beach, which is I would say it's a pretty
red area declared itself a non sanctuary city. Now Trump
already begins implementing his immigration reforms. I mean, that was
a day one. We knew that was going to be
a day one, and in fact it was. He signed
that order day one yesterday, and that included limiting asylum claims,
(20:39):
matter of fact, probably limiting all of them for a
while and permanently, I don't know, lifting restrictions on ice
making arrest at quote sensitive locations. This was policy under
the Biden administration, schools, churches, hospitals. Now ice can go
into a church or a hospital and arrest someone.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Is that going to happen?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
No, I don't think so, but it's there. The sensitive
location policy gone. And so in response to that, Democrat
led cities and states like California reinforce sanctuary policies which
restrict local law enforcement from cooperating with the feeds who
are looking for illegal aliens. So yesterday the city Council
(21:24):
unanimously voted for Mayor Pat Burns's proposal to designate the
city as a non sanctuary city, aligning with Trump's policies
of deportation, and the city council wrote in a press release,
this new city policy and declaration are common sense, supports
our law enforcement, advances.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Public safety throughout the city.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
What the governor is doing does not because of the
sanctuary now practically speaking, I mean, come on, it doesn't
do much.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's a political statement, important one because we are a
very little rural state. We are as blue as it gets.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
We are probably more pro migrant illegal and legal legal
than any other state. And so you have these pockets
of conservatism, for example, Huntington Beach saying you know what, no, no,
we want to arrest ill illegal aliens, illegal migrants, because
(22:25):
you know, we want to go after criminals. But you know,
under the state policy of not cooperating with local authorities
in terms of ice coming in, there are exceptions.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
For example, violent criminals, those who are.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Accused of have been charged or have been convicted of
violent crimes. They're not protected. ICE can go in all day.
The problem is, does the local authorities.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Call ICE and say, hey, we got someone here that
you might want to consider picking up. It used to
be that way. Those days are gone. So what we
have is a political statement being made, and we're going
to see a lot of those now.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I love this one White House Press secretary told Newsweek
in relation to sanctuary cities and enforcing federal law, President
Trump will enlist every federal power and coordinate with state
authorities to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals,
drug dealers, and human traffickers and American history history, while
(23:34):
simultaneously lowering costs for families. And we talk about lowering
costs in a minute. But I think it's not just
about criminals.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
What Trump has said, we start with criminals and then
we move on eleven million. That's the number is probably
higher than that who are actually illegal.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Mass deportations of eleven.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Million per people who are here illegally.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
You know, I don't know how I feel about that,
because I feel that we have to protect our borders.
There is a limit. There are people that believe there
is no limit. We accept as Emily Lazarus, give us
your wretched, your poor yearning to be free on the
base of the plaque or the statue of liberty. I mean,
those days are gone. We don't need immigrants anymore. Maybe
(24:25):
on a very high tech level we do, but for
the most part we don't. And so you can't have
open arms. But at the same time, do you say
we're going to deport eleven million people now the criminals?
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Fine, I get that. I don't think anybody disagrees with that.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
However, can you portray eleven million people as criminals?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And then how do you do it the practical measure?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I mean, it is complicated stuff, but I will tell
you we're going to see an administration that's going to
try to do exactly that, and we'll see if practicality
kicks in.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Don't know if it will or not. I am sixty.
You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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