The 117 million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was empty and down for maintenance when the devastating fire was sparked, perhaps in the brush, between the homes and the Pacific Coast Highway. You can see a map of the area in my story Good Intentions Might Be the Cause of Devastating Palisades Fire.
Friday, officials confirmed that the reservoir had been down for nearly a year —closing in February 2024—for maintenance to the cover of the reservoir.
The New York Times reports that a contractor was hired in November to fix a crack in the cover. It is unclear why the reservoir had to be shut down for that extended period of time.
The ripple effect was beyond devastating.
The fires broke out Tuesday, Jan. 7. By the next day, Janisse Quiñones, the head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said their system tanks went dry three times. You'll want to remember that because the story is about to get worse.
We have three large water tanks, about a million gallons each. We ran out of water in the first tank at about 4:45 p.m. yesterday. We ran out of water in the second tank about 8:30 p.m. and the third tank about 3 a.m. this morning.
She never mentioned the empty reservoir, though former DWP Commissioner and mayoral candidate Rick Caruso did say that "the reservoir" hadn't been filled. He was right and righteously angry.
Firefighters complained that there was no water coming out of the hydrants. The fires burned uncontrollably.
In addition to the "investigation" by Newsom, the New York Times reported that the Department of Water and Power, whose job it is to fill the reservoirs, is looking into whether the empty Santa Ynez reservoir in Pacific Palisades made a difference in their fire response. We are not kidding.
See if you can spot a problem for the DWP in the Times' piece.
Water for the Pacific Palisades is fed by a 36-inch line that flows by gravity from the larger Stone Canyon Reservoir, said Marty Adams, a former general manager and chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. That water line also fills the Santa Ynez Reservoir.
Water from the two reservoirs then sustain the water system for the Pacific Palisades, and also pump systems that fill storage tanks that feed higher-elevation homes in the neighborhood. It was unclear whether officials could have brought the reservoir back online before the fire, after forecasters began warning of dangerous wildfire conditions.
Now, I'm no hydrologist or physicist, but wouldn't water pressure be helped by having water in all the tanks and reservoirs? Am I missing something here?
But, what ho! We get an answer.
Mr. Adams said an operational reservoir would have been helpful initially to more fully feed the water system in the area. But he also said it appeared that that reservoir and the tanks would have eventually been drained in a fire that was consuming so many homes at once. Municipal water systems are generally designed to sustain water loads for much smaller fires than what consumed Pacific Palisades. [emphasis added]
Those are a lot of words to say that more water would have been helpful.
Speaking of not being a hydrologist, I looked up the latest state hydrology report because the global warming crowd desperately hopes to blame "climate change/catastrophe" for the fires. Yeah, well, that dog won't hunt.
AP News Heavily Ratioed For Blaming Palisades Fire On Climate Change
1 comment:
This entire episode of destruction seemed to be intended to cause action for the net zero agenda for total control. Evil. It is rumored that a person that set one of the fires and was apprehended possessed 5 phones, and had a UN debit card in his possession. Too many preventative measures that seem to be intensional left undone prior to fires knowing of potential outbreaks to simply blame on climate change. Cut fire services, trim dead vegetation, reservoirs empty for little or no water for hydrants, etc.
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