CA Gov. Newsom Declares State of Emergency After Massive Fire Shuts Important LA Freeway
It Is being reported that arson was the cause of the blaze that closed Interstate 10.
After cleaning up the city for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, California Governor Gavin Newsom probably thought he would have an easy week of photo-ops in San Francisco.
But Southern California had different plans…..
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Saturday after a massive fire erupted at a storage yard, shutting down one of the busiest freeways in downtown Los Angeles.
The blaze was first reported in the early morning around 12:30 a.m. at a pallet yard underneath the I-10 Freeway near East 14th and Alameda streets, officials said.
It eventually spread to eight acres before it was extinguished.
Shocking video footage from KABC shows immense flames shooting into the sky, consuming a highway overpass.
The inferno sent homeless people living beneath the road scrambling and destroyed an LAFD fire engine and several civilian vehicles, according to the outlet.
No injuries have been reported, according to LAFD.
I-10 fire looks like another case of government failure: Caltrans owned the property under the freeway and didn't adequately monitor the lessee. Now we have no reopening date for this crucial stretch of freeway.https://t.co/0KXwjboPq6
— Marc Joffe (@joffemd) November 13, 2023
It Is being reported that arson was the cause of the blaze that closed Interstate 10.
Arson likely caused a massive weekend fire that has indefinitely closed a vital section of a freeway in Los Angeles, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday.
He did not say whether there were any suspects or persons of interest. The fire left the columns of Interstate 10 charred and chipped and the deck guardrails were twisted and blackened. Crews shored up the most damaged section for the safety of workers clearing the debris. It’s still unclear what structural damage, if any, the blaze caused to the freeway.
Engineers were assessing the situation Monday. The freeway is used by 300,000 vehicles daily and the closure is expected to be felt well beyond the city, including possibly slowing the transport of goods from the twin ports of LA and Long Beach, federal officials have said. The ports are among the nation’s largest and handle more than half the goods coming into the U.S. President Joe Biden had been briefed on the fire that erupted Saturday.
“We know that the origin of this is arson,” LA Mayor Karen Bass said. “We do not know other information.” She emphasized that there also is no reason to assume it was started by people who are homeless living under that section of freeway.
Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg may take a few moments away from his focus on Ukrainian infrastructure to lend support.
I’m in contact with Mayor Bass, Gov. Newsom, and CA federal elected officials about the closures on I-10 in Los Angeles caused by fire damage and the impact it is having on traffic. Our Federal Highways administrator will be in LA tomorrow, and USDOT will help any way we can.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) November 13, 2023
The level of damage is severe. Engineering experts are evaluating if the stretch of road has to be demolished and rebuilt.
[LA Mayor Karen Bass] said she had “directed all city departments to immediately plan for how to address increased traffic due to this closure to best mitigate the impact on Angelenos and we will continue to urgently coordinate with our state partners to resolve this issue for not only the millions who use this freeway, but also for those who live and work in the surrounding areas.”
And she continued: “For those of you who remember the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Caltrans worked around the clock to complete emergency repairs to the freeways – and this structural damage calls for the same level of urgency and effort.”
It is wildfire season in Southern California. The destruction to Los Angeles could have been far worse than serious structural damage to a major freeway. Let’s hope there are enough competent workers left in California to make the repairs needed rapidly.
As a side note, here is Newsom in 2008, promising to end homelessness in San Francisco in…10 years. So, there is little hope our politicians will do anything meaningful to resolve the homelessness issues that may have led to the fire.
Here's a video of Gavin Newsom from 2008 promising to end San Francisco's homeless crisis in 10 YEARS…
Today there are more than 170,000 homeless people in Gruesome Newsom’s commiefornia.
— 🇺🇸 Pismo 🇺🇸 (@Pismo_B) November 4, 2023
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Comments
This is a clear case of lax code enforcement. Derelict homeless encampments must have working fire suppression systems or face civil fines.
That’s not the solution. The solution would have been not to allow derelict homeless encampments underneath a major freeway.
Actually a little slow today and been around too many people that would have taken your sarcasm seriously. Still, no excuse for me.
Fines? So we can pay their fines too?
Don’t forget that Al Capone got hemmed up for tax evasion. There are many tools available if our leadership wanted to use them.
One of the two historic El Toro blimp hangers went up in smoke last week…. fire started around 1 AM. Numerous historic structures in SoCal have been razed by… hum… (I’ll say it) homeless vagrants. But the French Laundry is safe and sound for Newsom to dine at.
Living the California Dream until there is no California left.
Show of hands, please – Everyone who agrees with Mayor Bass that there is no reason to believe people living in the homeless camp under the highway are responsible for this fire, please raise your hand. (/sarc)
Responsibility is a fascist concept.
No one could’ve predicted that a wide open southern border could’ve resulted in the wretched squalor of trash, fesces, and fire barrels in a massive homeless camp which led to the destruction of part of the busiests freeway in America.
Oh, well. They hate you and your gas guzzling SUV which is killing the climate, so this tragedy fits in well with their gaia worship.
However, if you or I operated a hotel or apartment complex with blatant violations of fire, water, sewer codes which result in such catostrophic damage, the state AG, fed DOJ would see us bankrupted, in prison, or both.
But the criminal consequences for the politicos who allowed this wretched encampment to fester, and suspected arson to occur? ZERO.
Abolish qualified immunity. Unless all politicos are held criminally responsible for their aggressive and egregious depraved indifference, gross malfeasance, deriliction of duty it’s all just **clown world** where those who win a popularity contest to govern can orchestrate tyranny with impunity.
My bet is that there are over a dozen bodies that were disposed of in that fire. Some of them may have been “residents” of the camp, but I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them were actually the *reason* for the arson.
That was what come to mind first, someone burning them out.
Sen Fetterman: 95 .. 95 .. 95
Hand sanitizer was the fuel
Homeless junkies sleep under the freeways in CA. They set themselves on fire smoking meth.
Gov newscum has turned CA into sanctuary state for: illegal aliens, homeless junkies, black looters.
Did I forget anybody?
Sacramento lunatics.
Ok, the State of California not only let the homeless build ramshackle wooden huts under one of their most important freeways, but also permitted a storage company to store old, dry wood in large stacks in the same area? That’s not a case of *if* it would catch on fire and damage the expressway above, but *when*
A proper response to this tragedy is to immediately clear out homeless structures and companies who store flammable items under any CA highways right now, while the public can still support the idea. Otherwise six months from now just when they are getting started on the rebuilding, another one will go up in flames. And another one. And another one…
Except that CA is under single party rule, dem super majority. There will be no failure analysis. There will be “course correction”. They will double down on stupid.
CA is dying, newscum is smiling.
I was wondering how concrete could catch fire.
The fire re-tempers the rebar in the concrete. At least Portland was somewhat on the ball by fencing off many overpasses a long time ago. Anyone see a similarity between this and the fire under I-95 a few months ago. These are likely tests of how massive acts of simultaneous terrorism could bring the country to a halt, say, a day after a certain fan favorite is re-elected.
Thank goodness no politicians were responsible for this mess
Never mind that if they’d simply enforced the law to begin with this wouldn’t have happened
Remember the fuel tanker fire under the overpass on I-95 in Philapelphia earlier this year? They were able to reopen I-95 in a short time using some innovative solutions. Granted the L.A. I-10 fire was more extensive but California is supposed to be know for cutting edge innovation. Let’s see how they do.
Cutting “edge” or cutting “corners” innovation? Guess it depends on whose pockets get the cut edges or corners, doesn’t it?
The level of damage depends on the construction materials affected, the type of structure (i.e., if a bridge, what kind of bridge, what type of structures bear the load, etc.), the maximum temperature of the fire, and the duration of the fire at various temperature regimes during the burn. “Fires” are not all the same, neither are all structures.
Gavin’s special needz community create a $500 million dollar wildfire BBQ under the 10 freeway.
This marks the first time Newsom failed to mention #climatechange as primary factor for a urban wildfire – despite evidence of dozens of wildfires sparked at hobo camps.
There is no incentive for CalTrans or any other California government entity to take proactive steps to protect public infrastructure. If there is a problem due to negligence or simple incompetence, the governor declares an emergency and federal funds flow. No real cost to the state and no government employee gets in trouble. It plays out all the time all over the country. Basic moral hazard supported by free federal money.
Meanwhile back in SF, newscum can’t provide basic security on the streets for international conference:
A Czech television news crew was robbed while covering the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, according to reports.
Journalist Bohumil Vostal told the San Francisco Chronicle he was getting a shot of City Lights Bookstore “when three masked assailants approached with guns pointed.”
“They were heading at my camera man, aiming a gun at his stomach, and one at my head,” Vostal said. He added the incident happened around 5 p.m. Sunday.
California is in a State of Disaster, not an emergency.
Newscum now saying it will take 4 weeks to clean up, which really means 4 years in CA time.
Let the lawsuits begin.
Using locally-sourced free-range vegan non-GMO organic concrete, no doubt.