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.
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.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY