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Important Palisades Reservoir was Offline, Empty When Fire Exploded

Important Palisades Reservoir was Offline, Empty When Fire Exploded

“…the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades.”

Officials told The Los Angeles Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir was empty and offline when the fire exploded.

The large reservoir in Pacific Palisades would have been handy against the fire that continues to destroy the area.

From the report:

Officials told The Times that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades.

The revelation comes among growing questions about why firefighters ran out of water while battling the blaze. Numerous fire hydrants in higher-elevation streets of the Palisades went dry, leaving firefighters struggling with low water pressure as they combated the flames.

Department of Water and Power [DWP] officials have said that demand for water during an unprecedented fire made it impossible to maintain any pressure to hydrants at high elevations.

Had the reservoir been operable, it would have extended water pressure in the Palisades on Tuesday night, said former DWP general manager Martin Adams, an expert on the city’s water system. But only for a time.

“You still would have ended up with serious drops in pressure,” Adams said in an interview Thursday. “Would Santa Ynez [Reservoir] have helped? Yes, to some extent. Would it have saved the day? I don’t think so.”

Another DWP official told the LA Times “that the reservoir’s absence likely contributed to some diminished pressure and dry hydrants in upper regions of the Palisades.”

The DWP spokesperson said the department has been investigating “the effect of the reservoir being placed offline, and that staffers were conducting a root-cause analysis.”

The spokesperson added: “The system was never designed for a wildfire scenario that we are experiencing.”

Considering California has had too many destructive fires recently, filling the reservoir with some water would have been ideal.

Think about it. The National Weather Service warned of these hurricane-force winds days before the fires broke out.

I’m hearing more excuses:

By then, Adams said, the DWP’s options were limited. He noted that fire risk is not exclusive to the Palisades but is present across L.A. County.

Had DWP held water in the reservoir with a ripped cover, the water would have been legally undrinkable except in emergencies.

And had the utility opted to start filling the reservoir over the weekend, in advance of the extreme winds, Adams said it was unclear whether the water could have been added fast enough to be useful.

“They would have been betting that there would be a fire that wipes out the whole neighborhood, which of course, no one has ever seen before,” he said. “It would have been a strange bet.”

So, either help all or none? I don’t get this mindset. I understand the situation is complex, but I still don’t understand why the city didn’t consider taking some precautions.

Something tells me that even if they couldn’t fill the entire reservoir, whatever water it received would have been helpful.

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Comments

The citizens of California vote 10 years ago for a multi-billion package to build new reservoirs and none have been built.


     
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    jb4 in reply to geronl. | January 10, 2025 at 3:02 pm

    Par for the course. At the Federal level, an identical $7.5B bought 8 EV charging stations and $42B for rural broadband has connected no one. Until we stop electing people who prefer to tilt at windmills (pun intended), serious issues will not get addressed.


     
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    CommoChief in reply to geronl. | January 10, 2025 at 3:06 pm

    True but many of the same people who wanted but obviously didn’t get new reservoirs/water storage didn’t hold their public officials accountable for the failure and chose to stay.

    From the outside looking in it appears like this is the classic ‘frog in boiling water’. The folks in the pot (CA/LA area in particular) didn’t notice the rising temperature until the water came to a boil. They have allowed decades of mal administration and poor public policies implemented by increasingly incompetent mediocre
    public officials.

    Suddenly with the wildfires the results of all these bad policies and incompetent officials are being laid bare; they are finally understanding they have willingly stayed in a pot being brought to a boil.


       
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      Tiki in reply to CommoChief. | January 10, 2025 at 3:56 pm

      The left captured the military and it’s academies, universities, media, international, state and local NGO’s and what did you do to stop it beyond typing things on internet forums?

      The frog on the boil, indeed.


         
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        CommoChief in reply to Tiki. | January 10, 2025 at 5:33 pm

        I wasn’t arguing that the impacted individuals in CA/LA.area possessed the power to preclude the dumbass decisions of their elected leadership and the mediocre to incompetent appointed officials. I am arguing that despite their efforts opposing dumbass policies and politicians they became accustomed to these conditions little by little, year by year, decade by decade, the bad decisions/policy errors accumulated until they converged into the catastrophe we now see.

        I am pointing out that those currently impacted by State and local govt ineptitude had the CHOICE to stay in place OR jump out of the pot. Those being impacted made a CHOICE to stay in the pot instead of packing their crap, selling their home and moving to another more sane State.

        What mystery powers do you believe I posses but failed to exercise that would have prevented all those things you seem to blame me for? I hate to break it to you and shatter your fan like expectations but I don’t posses any ability to do more than I encourage folks in deep blue mismanaged States to do; move to a more sane area of the Nation BEFORE the next catastrophe occurs. IOW jump out of the pot before it boils you.


 
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DSHornet | January 10, 2025 at 2:46 pm

Did anyone think that there might be parts of the year when the area is most subject to wild fires and it might not be a good idea to draw down the available resources? Yes? No? Didn’t think so.
.


     
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    henrybowman in reply to DSHornet. | January 10, 2025 at 5:45 pm

    But I bet they’re all real religious about ensuring that no two of their bigwigs fly on the same plane at the same time. Because their continued existence is critical to good government, and they can’t afford to lose more than one of the gang of geniuses who have set up this perfect-storm situation and others just like it.


 
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rebelgirl | January 10, 2025 at 2:54 pm

If it had only saved a few houses, it would have meant the world to the families who lived there…it would have been worth it.


 
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rhhardin | January 10, 2025 at 2:54 pm

Trump’s saying that they’re prioritizing some extinct fish over home fire safety covers it. More detail falls into second-guessing, in the absence of some actual analysis of the whole system.


 
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joejoejoe | January 10, 2025 at 3:06 pm

hmmm

It’s been closed for years, they just hadn’t got around to repairing it. Pictures from over 2 years ago show it was empty.


 
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Peter Moss | January 10, 2025 at 4:17 pm

While it’s true that there’s only so much water you can move through a pipe, this is just an excuse to say that the conflagration couldn’t be stopped at its peak. What was needed was sufficient water at the start of the fire and clearly they didn’t even have that.

If you’re going to let your forests look like a pig sty and let your reservoirs dry up the least you can do is to keep mentally ill drug addicted homeless arsonists from starting fires but apparently California can’t do that either.

Dominos
1. Insurance industry collapses.
2. Housing market collapses.
3. one of the top 5 economies of the world goes into huge melt down.


 
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inspectorudy | January 10, 2025 at 6:38 pm

Looking at the homeless and illegals problem in CA, why would anyone assume that the fire department would be competent? Not to defame anyone there but have any of you seen so m


 
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inspectorudy | January 10, 2025 at 6:41 pm

Many LBGTXYZ people running major departments in any city? Can ideology be more important than merit or experience/competence?

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