Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - LA is Burning: What Happened? The Devastating Impact of Climate Change & Could It Be Avoided?

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Jonathan Vigliotti is an Emmy-winning CBS news correspondent based in Los Angeles and previously served as a foreign correspondent for CBS’s London Bureau. He’s reported on sight for Kobe Bryant��s helicopter crash, the Syrian civil war and recently authored the book, “Before It’s Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small Town America.”   Jonathan Vigliotti discusses What REALLY went wrong during the LA wildfires. From residents ignoring warnings to Mayor Karen Bass being out of the country, Jonathan helps break down how LA’s leadership failed when it mattered most. He shares first responders' panic-filled experiences on the frontlines of the Pacific Palisades fire, the shocking impact of budget cuts to firefighters, and how false evacuation alerts left residents in chaos. Mayim and Jonathan tackle why LA’s emergency response fell apart, how environmental policies might be making things worse, and the critical changes needed to prevent future disasters. WATCH NOW to uncover the devastating reality and what must change to protect LA’s future.   Please consider supporting any of the below fundraising organizations:   - California Community Foundation: https://www.calfund.org/funds/wildfire-recovery-fund/ - United Way of Greater Los Angeles: https://unitedwayla.org/wildfire-response-resources/ - Pasadena Animal Shelter: https://give.pasadenahumane.org/give/654134/#!/donation/checkout   Jonathan Vigliotti's Book, BEFORE IT'S GONE: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small Town America: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Before-Its-Gone/Jonathan-Vigliotti/9781668008171   BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is spreading through the whole city because possibly someone fucked up the money. This kind of weather event, a Korean National Weather Service happens once every three to five years on average. We've had this happen now three times in less than three months. It makes us realize how fragile we really are. Hi, I am I. M. Bialik. I'm Jonathan Cohen. We're in a unusual setup sharing a microphone today because we are in the in the midst of the L.A. fire. and the tragedy that's happening here. I literally just packed up my house and came to be with Jonathan, so we're in a kind of a

different setup. We're very excited to be joined today by someone who has literally been reporting on the fires. Since they began, in many cases, he was there when there were no firefighters even yet on the scene. He describes literally what it was like to be a frontline reporter. Jonathan Vigliotti is a CBS News correspondent. He's based here in Los Angeles. He's a very impressive reporter.

He's won Emmys. He was actually the first national correspondence report from the scene of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant. Extensive coverage of the COVID outbreak, the Boston bombing, Hurricane Sandy, among many others. But he also specializes in stories across this country and across the world relating to the environment. His new book, Before It's Gone, is all about the climate crisis and how it impacts small towns.

But he is going to come and talk to us about how he has seen the impacts not just of climate change, but the impact in a shift in accountability, infrastructure, water supply, and the ability of a city to manage the fires that we are literally in the middle of experiencing. By the time you see this episode or listen to this episode, the fires will be in a totally different place, and we hope that by then, by the time this airs, things will have calmed down, but we are still in the middle of a new warning of intense wins. So we get to speak to Jonathan right in the middle of, I mean, he literally is reporting day to day. And he's got some unbelievable stories and some unbelievable support for how to

understand what went wrong, what we can do better, and how we can start to rebuild. Jonathan Vigliotti, welcome to our breakdown. There's a level of devastation that we are experiencing here in Los Angeles and people are still actively in danger. This is a difficult conversation to have because we're in the middle still of a crisis and yet. You have been at the forefront of, you know, speaking up, it's been a hallmark of your career to focus on all things climate. There's a lot of rumors now, you know, kind of circulating in social media, sort of, you know, those ignite on social media. But conversations in particular about the Palisades fire, the pumps running out of water. You, as I said, went viral for taking care of.

and Bass to task with, first of all, being, choosing to be out of the country, knowing that this was going on and coming back and a real lack of leadership. The LA Times just published an article, you know, defending all good things. Like, no one could have had enough water to battle this fire. There is no way. And I see you rolling your eyes and I'm rolling my eyes as well. So I wonder if you want to give us a little bit of a lay of the land here. You know, I'm interested in kind of four things. Budget cuts. I'm interested in water supply issues. You know, 10 years ago, I think it was Prop 1. We voted for more water. There's some endangered freaking fish. And I am a super environmentalist and I'm a person who loves fish. There's a fish that seems to have been in the

way of water supply, lack of controlled burns and a general lack of leadership. So I wonder if you can sort of give us a little bit of a lay of the land. You've obviously been out there on the front lines both politically and also practically. So tell us a little bit about what's going on. Yeah. Where to begin? Well, when you first reached out, I said yes because I thought it would be healthy to unload a little bit. It's been a lot to process. I know for you and for everybody that lives here in L.A. You know, to give you lay the land, I think what's happened here in this case is a lack of imagination to imagine the worst case scenario. And I don't say that to be critical. I understand it. I wrote a book about this, as you mentioned, the title is literally before it's

gone. It focuses primarily on small town America because I always thought based on all of the reporting that I've done, the wildfires and other disasters I've been to, primarily you have these small towns that are being out of flying because you don't have the infrastructure, the engineering, the budgets to support this kind of. response. And so those small towns really get hard hit. And in my sense, here as I'm trying to process everything, I guess I always thought Los Angeles was immune, immortal, would never fall victim to something like this. I mean, we are in the capital of wildfire country. I mean, I can't think of a better place to be well prepared for wildfire weather. And yet when the

alerts first came down, the warnings from the National Weather Service, I think it was back on Friday, I didn't get a clear sense of just how dangerous the conditions would be. Part of that was me a little bit asleep at the wheel, exhausted from covering a number of wildfires over the past few months, but that also was a result of not really getting the message loud and clear from the city, from the mayor. There were no press conferences, nobody really sounding the alarm in just how critical this warning was. We're talking about, if we were of think of this like a hurricane. This was the equivalent of a category four hurricane barreling down in Los Angeles.

Now, if a category four hurricane was barreling down, that I know this from experience, you would expect the governor, the mayor, wherever this category four hurricane would be impacting to go on the air, a day in and day out leading up to the impact of this storm, warning people to take measures to be safe. At no point did any public official have a press conference saying such things. So we get warnings for Santa Ana's all the time. I was born in San Diego, raised in Los Angeles. And Santa Ana Wins would be like, oh, everybody's allergies and things like that. So we've heard warnings, like the Santa Ana Wins are coming. But I have to say, as a citizen, this warning had such

incredibly harsh, severe language. It came out, life threatening. And we kind of, I'm going to be honest, we laughed it off. We were like, what is this life threatening Santa Ana Wend? What? Like, we laughed it off and I feel horrible. Like, am I just living in La La Land? And that's what people think of us is we don't take things seriously. I didn't get it. Me neither. And I feel terrible to say that, given my background and I should be able to recognize this, right?

I mean, truth be told, I was supposed to be in Hawaii this week covering a different story than my producer and I, the same producer I worked covering this story, had focused the past six months setting up. And when the warnings came down, I was told to be on stage. This is back on Friday. And I went to my bureau chief and said, can't somebody else sit and watch and see if anything happens? Why am I going to sit around for it just in case?

And she said, no, you really want to be here. This is severe. This is life-threatening. I'll give you perspective. So this kind of weather event, a Korean National Weather Service, happens once every three to five years on average. We've had this happen now three times in less than three months. Camerillo in Ventura County, where I was there.

hundreds of homes destroyed. Malibu just last month. Same exact thing happened. And then, of course, this month. And I kind of blew off those life-threatening alerts because I didn't see the city soundingly alarm. And so I sat back. And I should be more alert to these things, right? Like, I should be very sensitive to this stuff. If I'm not picking up on it, or other people here in L.A. picking up on it, millions of other people, nobody that I talked to. was afraid of it. I think we all had confidence that the city had preparations in place, knew what they were doing. We have incredible infrastructure. We have an incredible police force, firefighting force. And yet at the end of the day, they were all overpowered by Mother Nature.

And I got a call from my bureau chief, the one that told me to be on standby, saying you have to come in. It's looking bad. And so I went into the Bureau of Studio City. And sure enough, 1030, watch duty, that amazing app. I can't talk about it enough. I've been talking about it on social media throughout this crisis. The first alert went out on that app. And we were launched to the Pacific Palisades. And so we drove there.

We got there at it. So the alert came out at 1030. That's when the first smoke was seen. We got there around 1115. And as we were entering town, there was this gridlock. We all are familiar with the images now. people were panicked in that gridlock. This was before the flames really even started to emerge in downtown,

but because of that panic, people got out of their cars and started to flee. We were about, I would say, a quarter mile away from that location where those cars were abandoned, and I could see the panic in people's faces. And I immediately started to recognize the signs from previous disasters like Lahaina, people being backed up in traffic, not knowing what to do, the confusion, The same that happened in Paradise, California. And what I also noticed was no police officers. Nobody in the streets, nobody guiding traffic.

I didn't see a single firefighter. And we made our way up to one of the windy roads where everybody was trying to evacuate out. So we were able to gain access eventually as Good Samaritans were getting out of their cars to guide traffic. And sure enough, we were on Medio Drive, I believe that's the name. They made our way up. and in short order, we saw the flames. They were on the crest of the mountains there. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Superpower.

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Before you get into a little bit more of the details of what you saw, now to me, like I've seen a lot of movies where bad shit happens, you're describing to me what I kind of expect in the movie version of this, which is just like chaos, like nobody knows what to do. And there's no grownups around, right? But from your knowledge and your living so many of these scenarios, what should we have seen at this time with the progress of this fire based on the warning and the progression of the flames and smoke? What should we have seen? we should have seen fire crews prepositioned. Wow.

We should have seen police officers pre-positioned. We should have seen those incredible forces who are incredible at identifying locations that are ground zero for these kinds of fires. I mean, we all know the locations around Los Angeles County that are vulnerable. The Palisades, one of them. A lot of the dry brush up there on the mountain sides hasn't burned. in years. The same is true for Altadena. In a lot of the places where we're seeing all these fires prop up, even sunset, the sunset fire, Brennan Canyon, that hasn't had a wildfire. I've lived here six years. I can't recall one ever. If I were to do things, and I am by no means an expert on this,

I am not a leader of anybody, except my husband sometimes. If I were in charge, I would have pre-positioned all of the teams and utilities that I had available to myself in those places in preparation for such an event. It was just a month ago that the fire struck Malibu. I would have put teams there ready to dispatch. I don't know if they were there. My understanding is, and this is from speaking with firefighters and police officers, they were not there. And it certainly aligns with what we were seeing because if we can make it from Studio City to the Palisades, faster than Chris, we did not see Pruse. It begs the question, where were they?

That's what I was hoping to see. That's what I was expecting to see. And what I got instead was immediate panic. This was hours before the flames really started to engulf, and it's sad to even think about, engulf those neighborhoods. Hours before. This is before the wind reached 100 miles per hour. This is when I was safe enough to gain access to these neighborhoods,

where I saw the flames coming down from the mountainside where they initially sparked, as they then made their way from that wildland area into the urban interface, those neighborhoods. This is where, you know, I was watching from the mountaintop as these flames were coming down. And then one at a time, from roof to roof, embers were igniting homes. And where they're covering this, filming it. All around me, there were people, homeowners, with garden hoses. They were using garden hoses to try to get water on the rooftops of these homes. You know, their efforts, while heroic on their own, they all had to retreat.

But while we were there for about an hour, I didn't see a single fire crew. And this is not a knock on firefighters. They are incredible. But from the firefighters they've since spoken to after that first day on Tuesday, they all said the same thing. They were stretched to send. And what was very clear, there were so many homes we now know. going up in flames, there simply weren't enough men and women to get to them. So I saw the movie version play out.

If this was a well-prepped plan being enforced and executed, I would have expected to see firecors there and police officers. Every other scene that I have covered, that has been the case. In this case, they were absent. This leads us to infrastructure. Now, the devil's advocates may say, there's no way to possibly know all the different locations. You know, you stated, well, we could have known these are some places that haven't gone up in a while,

but if we just take the devil's advocate, they may say there's just too many locations in Los Angeles. It's too hard to preempt. But let's talk about the infrastructure because the two main questions are budget cuts. Now the 17 million that was cut from the Los Angeles Fire Department budget, maybe that's a drop in the bucket and wouldn't have provided the person power required to have enough resources to address all of these. So let's try and start to cut through some of the noise. There's the person power and then there's the water itself. Can you talk about some of the changes that have led up to us being really understaffed and underpowered when looking at to fight some of these fires? Well, I will speak to you through the words of the fire chief, probably, who has been,

as you know, very outspoken in the past few days. And I've watched in those press conferences and very early on press conferences where I was questioning the mayor. I could see her in the background. She wasn't on board. The mayor is saying we come together as one voice, but I could tell that there was dissent. And eventually, when I later spoke to her off camera, she acknowledged that that cut of $17.5 million,

something that she wrote a letter about specifically addressing. She said that that would impact preparations. for fires. Preparations include, I see your face. And it's, I mean, people are dying. People are losing everything. Like, it's, it is spreading through the whole city because possibly someone fucked up the money. Like, I can't even. I know. And, and, you know, that money is important. It's used for a number of different things. Staffing, certainly. But also fuel reduction, fuel reduction, meaning getting rid of all of that dry vegetation. And that is something that we need be focusing more on investing more of our taxpayer dollars on, going into these areas where you

have dry brush growing and yellowing in the drought. Like Tinder just waiting to catch. That's where that money really takes a hard hit in terms of preparing for something like this. Staffing, of course, the same. And we talked about logistics, right? And John, you bring up a good point. We're going to play devil's advocate. How can you be in every place all at once?

You can't. But again, I bring up this point that I was in Studio City. Studio City. For those that don't understand the logistics, it's typically a 40, 45-minute drive. I was able to get there. As somebody that was not monitoring radio traffic, I was able to get there in 45 minutes, and yet there weren't crew. So even if those crews were stationed elsewhere, the question still remains,

how could a news crew without access to water and a fire hose? get there before they did. And while we were driving there, and this is the other thing that also was mind-boggling, I spoke to, I called my bureau chief and I said, can you please have our photographer as he's making his way over? Because at the time, I had urgency, but I was just like, who knows how big this thing is going to grow? It was 10 acres when I was deployed.

In 20 minutes, it grew to 200 acres. And we didn't even have a full sense of that when we were driving. And part of it was because as I was looking off on the side of the street, I think it was the 405. I saw road crews with chainsaws cutting down tree limbs that were very close to power lines. Obviously, their concern was the wind breaking those tree limbs, the power lines coming down and sparking new fires. Why was that happening on the day of this projected 100 mile per hour winds? Why were crews putting their lives in harm's way in Hurricane Force winds, Category 2 of Hurricane Force winds with chainsaws and tree limbs over power lines?

that's something that should have happened last when the National Weather Service first came out with these alerts. So there's the devil advocate side, but there's also the common sense side. And a lot of the things I saw did not add up and speak to a city that should have been better prepared. And that's why when I asked those questions to the mayor, I expected more frankness, maybe more humility. but instead it was very deflective language. And we went back yesterday and pressed harder and we still got kind of that same one-voice message. We will look into this and assess down the road.

But unfortunately, that still lacks sight and lacks imagination, especially as we are still in the middle of this disaster. The wind has come down today as we're talking on Saturday. It picks up again tomorrow. We don't have time, I think, to assess, investigate, the response that could take months. In my experience, it takes months. It comes out, you know, when nobody is even thinking about this thing.

Meanwhile, we have alarms going off nonstop evacuation warnings, like what you're experiencing, evacuation orders, and now false alarms that have been going. So, yeah, I mean, you can tell them a little frustrated. I got, I got that freaking false alarm. And look, I also, I don't want to be that person who's like, this has to be a perfect system. And like, I'm, you know, complaining because, like, the, the milk was not, you know, warm enough in my cafe O'Lay. But what happened was in the middle of hysteria and chaos, like, the entire county was told to a vacuum. I mean, it was madness.

And they corrected it within, I don't know, 10 minutes. But the notion that we have a system and the explanation was it was a computer glitch. Like, why? Wait. And this is so interesting because you said they corrected it in 10 minutes. And maybe what you mean is you realize pretty quickly it was a false alarm. Yes. And the reason I say that is important because the next day, and this is now Friday, we went to this

press conference where I was addressing the mayor. And as I'm asking her about these false alarms, the alarms are going off. And this is in downtown L.A. No fire in sight of downtown L.A. and those alarms were still going off. I think to be frank, a lot of people. And this is, I live in this community. So I know it well, L.A. is my home. It's been my home for six years. I love it deeply. And I have incredible friends here and friends of friends. And so I hear the stories. And what I can say unequivocally is people no longer trust those alerts. A lot of people have deactivated them on their phones. A lot of people are receiving them and ignoring them all together. But the reality is, and we all know this, I'm looking at my window. Like, you can see Smow. The threat still very much exists. But when you're the boy that, cries walt and that alert system going off nonstop nonstop. I understand ignoring. It's like when

your alarm goes off too many times and you press snooze, like I think people are pressing snooze and this is not the time to press snooze. Obviously there's the active threat right now could not be more important to trust and have systems in place that are going to protect people, shuttle them where they need to be, get them away from harm's way. I think a lot of people also what this is bringing up for them is do I trust Los Angeles as a safe place to live? I know. Do you know? Is it being run in a competent way? And it's not only Los Angeles. We're looking at a world that is being shaped by different climate response. And so let's get back into the infrastructure because there's the question that again, the devil's advocate will say the systems in place, fire hydrants in place.

they could never address forest fires, right? They are designed to put out fires in single homes or a couple homes and there's no way. But the reality is, is that as we build and expand, we're living at the edges. Town is a city is not the same way it was in downtown. It's not the same concrete. And so how do we reconcile the fact that there should be systems in place to keep people safe in a city that you're paying an enormous amount of tax in? And are those systems fault? and if they are, is it from a design standpoint or a management standpoint or both? I think both. And let's talk about the fire hydrants.

And there's still a lot of uncertainty about what exactly unfolded. We have pressed on those questions. And I think that is something that is going to take some time. I think what the clear message has been from officials and from firefighters that I have spoken with was that the water system was tapped by too many fire crews. Okay, can you what? Hold on. so many people.

I need you to explain this a little bit to me because I'm just a lay person. I don't think about this stuff a lot. So when you tell me that there's like a fire department and then the truck comes, like I've taken tours with my kids. There's like an amount of water that they have and they hook it up to the hydrant. I don't freaking know where that hydrant is connected. And I'm literally like pull it from the ocean. Like I don't know.

So what are we talking about when we talk about like that they run out of water? Where is it supposed to cut? Is it a lake? Like what? Where's the water? It's a reservoir system. It is then piped into our homes. It's piped into those fire hydrants. And a lot of it is base and works on water pressure and having water available. In this case, I think what we're hearing from officials is that it was a water pressure issue. So when a fire truck pulls up to a scene, you know those fire hydrants that you get tickets and towed away from if you're part of your prep. They then plug into. those fire hydrants and that is their water source and they can work off of it for as long as they need to what we have been told as the official guidance on what went wrong was too many fire engines across the town of Pacific palisades were plugging in and the water pressure as a result was so low that they couldn't get enough water it's like a dripping garden hose that just no i get it water but when we were there we were there every single day we only took net i mean i think for two hours. So we were there around the clock. We were at one home that was on fire. There was a fire hydrant

right next to it. It had red tape on it. And this is a different issue from the water pressure. We went and spoke to the firefighter because they weren't tapping into it. And we asked what's going on with this. Is it because of water pressure? And he said, no, water pressure is an issue. But this fire hydrant isn't working. The infrastructure, John, to your point, was outdated and had not been updated. They hadn't fixed it. And so you have this fire hydrant next door to a $5 million home. Now up in flames, you have this fire truck pulling water from a tank from reserves on its actual engine. And that's not a limitless supply. They then, when they run out after about five to 10 minutes of fighting, have to then drive five in this case, in this specific scene that I was at, they told me this,

have to drive five to 10 minutes in one direction to a location where there is back up water, fill up their truck, which takes about a minute or two, and then drive back. So you're talking about a time gap of about 15 minutes, and that's at the bare minimum, when those flames are still now growing. No, that's how long it takes for every picture, every piece of clothing, everything's sacred to you to go up in flames. That's exactly how long it takes. And, you know, the reality is, and if you talk to firefighters, this isn't,

my opinion this comes from those that we have spoken with. There weren't enough firefighters there in town, so I find it hard to believe that it was just a water pressure issue. It wasn't like you had a thousand fire engines tapping in to every single hydrant that was in the city. Day two, like 48 hours later, I was on the street as there were two homes on one side of it, up in flames, a home on the other side, up in flames, a condo, roof up and flames. No fire engine in sight. And it was that day, later on in that day, that officials here in L.A., I think it was the mayor, said the good news is we have a thousand firefighters coming to us from Northern California. But that was 48 hours too late. They only had about 130 crews, I believe,

pre-positioned in the city when they had access to a thousand additional crews. I don't know what the conversation was if there was one beforehand, but Northern California right now is not vulnerable to wildfire weather. And it only takes a day to travel from there to hear they could have made their way back if the forecast called for it. If I were to do things, if I was in control, and again, I'm not in control of anything, I would have thought, given how severe and life-threatening the warnings were, tap into that infrastructure, that mobile infrastructure up in Northern California, have them come down. Sure.

You know, it only takes one engine to get to a scene fast enough to be able to really attempt to hold those flames back before backup gets there and really helps assist. But you had a fire that sparked an incredibly dry fuel, bone dry, that hadn't burned in many years, and it just went up. I mean, 20 minutes to 200 acres. That's all it took, and that was enough for this monster to then make its way out of this very, you know, mountainous remote area into homes.

And unlike forest fires, where trees fuel those fires. And I've seen them where the balls of flames coming over 100 foot top trees. This was very different. The homes became those trees. The homes became the fuel. And so we were watching, you know, this is dry lumber. It's dry as paper. And every home was catching fire within a matter of minutes.

And it was this domino effect. had to retreat. We went down. This was the first day, Tuesday again. And we, for the evening news, we set up our live shop where we thought was a safe enough location. And behind us was suddenly this big black curtain of smoke. And we saw a fireball just come through it. And what we didn't know that at that point was this was a neighborhood of hundreds of homes that had been destroyed in a matter of just a few hours. We were by, I think it was the Presbyterian Church. And I have I haven't really spoken about any of this to anybody because I'm still processing it.

But the church got fire. So the church was in front of our live shot, the place that we thought was safe. And the roof went on fire. I'm like, oh, my God, there's this church on fire. What do we do? What do we do? And so we went and looked for a garden hose.

There was nothing available. We then found one actually on the other side. And one of our audio technician, Carlos Asencio, was focusing this garden hose. I'm so pathetic right on the top of this roof. And it was like, there was nothing we could do. And so I went and I took a rock and forgive me, God.

And I broke the window so that we could pull the fire alarm. So hoping that maybe a sprinkler system would go off. I called 911. 911 said they had nobody in the area that could respond. They were stretched too thin. And again, I heard so many fire alarms going up. I didn't hear sirens. And that was downtown Pacific Palisades.

We were just a few blocks away from the mall from the main shopping district. And when you go and look around, as we have been doing now for several days, it's like, where were people, where were fire crews? Because absolutely nothing so bad. So this is all, this is all. all speaking to, you know, a lack of leadership, lack of infrastructure. The issue with water supply that's helpful to have sort of a framework, I wonder if you can talk, though, about for a decade, like the voters of California have been waiting for a release of more water is the way

that, again, my layperson's understanding is, what is this fish? Everybody's talking about this fish. President-elect Trump is talking about the fish, that there's a conservation issue with a fish that prevented. Is this a thing? This fish is getting a bad rap. And if I'm being honest with you, I don't know enough about this fish, but I know a lot about other fish and water preservation efforts. In Northern California, there is a big effort to conserve water for salmon. Listen, one living thing helps every other living thing. So I'm all for fish and saving them.

But what is happening, that fish is symbolic of a greater issue. And we talk about climate change, you know, gas and emissions, CO2, warming our planet. We all know what we need to do. We need to cut back CO2 emissions immediately. But even if we do, it takes the entire world to do so. And just like a headache, reducing our planet's fever, that's going to take decades, not 30 minutes when you pop in Advil. Habitat change builds resiliency much faster. We can reverse the impacts.

That fish represents just like the drought that we have here, the lack of. of water, habitat change. And I support the efforts to protect the fish because in protecting the fish, we are protecting our habitats. We're restoring our wetlands. We are building up water supply. There is a measure. It's called, I believe Measure C. And I think I should be right on this. I wrote about it in my book. And Measure C, we pay a lot of money every year. I think it's half a billion dollars a year. And it's supposed to set aside land. So to take back these concrete jungles so that we have permeable soil so when it rains a lot, like it should be raining right now. This is the wet season.

This is not typical wildfire season. So when it rains a lot, like the atmospheric river that we got last year, which dumped trillions of gallons of water, most of it went down the slide of concrete streets out into the Pacific Ocean. The LA Times did an investigation where they found in the first two or three years of this measure where if I'm doing the numbers right here, I think it's like $1.5 billion was like in the bank to be used, and that's taxpayer dollars. So looking at that map, you would think there would be a lot of land that would have been bought by measure seed and restored back to a more natural, natural permeable, almost like sponge-like atmosphere so that when it rains it old, only 30 acres had been bought back.

And so 30 acres, and we're talking about a fire that so far as we're talking right now, more than 20,000 acres have been destroyed. 30 acres had been restored to the kind of land that can retain water. How does that happen? Meaning how does that failure occur? Bureaucratic red tape. Bureaucratic red tape, lawyers trying to figure out what land to get, finding that land and then finding out that whoever owns it is resistant, perhaps. I don't know the full trail, but what I do know based on that reporting and based on

what really feels like an unsuccessful effort, it hasn't worked. We don't have water readily available to us. In many ways, we have outgrown our sandbox. I mean, our population is growing. Water is very priceless these days. If we are going to thrive and grow as a city, and if we are going to feel protected in living here, we need to find a better way to manage water. And that management begins with the sky. I mean, the best thing, we get free water all the time. But if we're not working on ways like Measure C, taking back land, removing the concrete, letting nature do its thing, then we're only screwing ourselves over in the future. And the future is actually right now. I mean, what we're talking about is a direct impact of a lack of not just planning because I think Measure C shows that there's

planning, but it's executing that. Implementation. So it's great to have the plan, but if you're not implementing it, and I'm sure L.A. County has an emergency response plan for wildfires. Of course they do. But if you're not implementing it, then what good is that plan? So I saw the New York Times had an article about, you know, about are we losing our power and our ability to like hold that fire? I think, yes, we are.

But I also think we're falling asleep at the wheel. I think if we took more action, if we listened to the science, And our leaders listen to the science. I'm not saying that they don't. But if we actually listen to it, believe it, and really take it in. And imagine the worst case scenario, you know, we have the opportunity with the tools that we have to protect and save lives. And instead we're sitting here right now. You've got this unique disaster unfolding.

The worst in L.A. County history, I'm sure it's going to grow to the worst in state history, not the deadliest. I hope that's how it does not rise, but certainly just in terms of the economic toll here, what is it, $150 billion, I think I saw it so far. And what makes this so unique, though, this isn't just, you know, paradise, and, you know, paradise is so tragic. You have this fast-moving storm. It came through, it left, and then there was what was left in a matter of a day or two. The same with Lahaina came through left in the matter of a day or two.

We're on day five or six. So speaking from the perspective of a television journalist, we wake up in the morning to go and find a live shot to really hit home to viewers what's going on. And so you want flames behind you. And it's not to be showy, at least I'm truly not trying to be showy, but I know it attracts eyes because I know what attracts my eyes as a viewer. So you really want to hit this home. It's really hard to find flames in normal wildfires. every single time we went to search for a wildfire. It was like right in our backyard.

There was a, every house was on fire. Every single house. I've never, I've never seen anything like it. And I hope I never see anything like it again. And unfortunately, I say that knowing that tomorrow brings more wind. And these fires are far from over. I don't even know what the latest containment numbers are. But those containment percentages don't always matter,

especially with something like the Palisades Fire, which is growing. Right now I think UCLA, it is on guard to evacuate. You have that warning. Brinkwood is threatened. It's like what's next. And the wind, when it picks up, the wind is so critical because it blows these embers up to a mile away. So as I was covering the Palisades Fire and my husband was calling me, telling me about these flames that he was seeing in Running Canyon,

I'm about a half a mile away from running canyon in the hills. I knew that it took just a little bit of wind and one of those embers, which burned a structure to hit my roof. And then irony would go up in flames. So it's great to have a plan, but if you're not executing it, you see the results. And I think that there was a lack of execution. And that's my thought, but it's also the thought of firefighters that I've spoken one.

and police officers. I had a police officer come up to me right before my live shot yesterday for the evening news. And I was like his therapist in that moment. You're like my therapist right now because this is like pre-therapy talking about this. And he was so few,

so upset about the lack of response. He could not believe he was the only one in the streets trying to help create order and help people guide out to safety. He was the only person. He was, And he said every single officer he spoke with had the same sentiment. So there is a lot of frustration.

It's why you're starting to see this House of Cards at City Hall crumble, because I think there was probably a lot of back and forth with what to do, what not to do, and ultimately what was done is not what I think the experts in the room wanted based on the people I've spoken to. I'm going to ask two very difficult questions and it is looking forward and we're not out of the, we're not out of the grips of this tragedy yet or the danger yet. But before we let you go, when you have competent people who want to do good being mismanaged and it seems there's been more than a decade of mismanagement not allowing these propositions

and these initiatives to move forward, the continued. cuts, the lack of preparation, what needs to change in order to actually make anything happen? Because the notion that, you know, government is ineffective as being on display in full force in some of these ways, the fact that we can't imagine the worst possible scenario, and yet it comes. You know, it's not like total mystery that something like this was bound to happen. You see the clips of podcasters and other experts saying, look, at some point, this is going to get out of control without a lot more resources, a lot more infrastructure. So that's part one.

I'm going to pause there. And then there is a second question about the future of L.A. But first, what needs to change in order to actually make the people in charge of these budgets able to action and use the tools and engineering expertise that are possible in an effective way? What has to change is we need to listen to the voices in the room that speak from experience. and we need to support them at all costs. We live in a place that is getting drier.

It is clearly unsustainable. Wildfire is one of the biggest threats, as we clearly now know, to our lives here. And unfortunately, what it's going to take for something like that to change, to finally listen to these people and to fund the heroes is a disaster like this. When I talk about how terrible it was, I got a message on my Instagram from a colleague of mine whose friend had gone to work and could not get back inside for his three dogs and asked if I could go to their house to rescue these dogs. And this is not a story of heroism or selflessness. is actually the most selfish story because I didn't want to go. I was so tired.

It had been so long. Part of myself was thinking like, this isn't going to, this is, I'm not believing what I'm seeing. It's not going to be so bad. The real heroes are going to get here and they're going to save this. They're going to stop these flames from getting to these homes.

There's no way. And then I was like, oh, like, we got to go back. Like, I can't, I can't like live knowing that we didn't try. I can't do that.

thing where I tell somebody like, oh, we try, but there was like roadblocks. Like, we can't. So we go back and it was like, break into the window, get these three dogs that were inside and like scared out of their minds, like would not, like did not want us around. The houses across the street were on fire, smoke everywhere. And we go in and there's a dog underneath the bed that doesn't want to be caught, like just like hiding from us. We had to move the bed to get a dog. There was, um, sorry. There was another dog that like had shit all over the place and like piss up. And we one by one get this dog.

And there's this other dog. There was just growling. And I'm thinking of myself, oh, like that fire is really fucking close. Like there's nobody here. Like if we get caught, what are we going to do? And so I was like, okay, get a blanket. Get a blanket over this dog and like brought in the car. And again, I did this because it was like the only good thing I could do like during this

recording because everything else that we showed is like the worst it's like everybody is depressed i i'm very depressed like it's so sad and i did that purely for this like this selflessness of like having joy like knowing like i did one good thing i we never reported that like i've never talked about that like talked about it at all they posted this on instagram so i like i've now i feel like at least it's out there it's not like i would never share the story if it wasn't out there But it's like, I don't know. You see these things. You have faith in the system.

You have faith in your local leaders. And I'm realizing it was blind faith. And it's our jobs as constituents, not just to go and vote and then like wait for years. It's our jobs to also keep pressing them to take action. And this isn't just about Mayor Bass. You know, we will learn more about what happened, what went wrong, what didn't go wrong in the future. But this was such a reminder. Like, we can't ever just think that we're safe.

We can't. And that's the sad thing. I think this is a reminder. I think that's the look that I see on everyone's face. This new world that we live in where nothing is guaranteed. I know, Jonathan, you had another question that you wanted to ask Jonathan. But I want to, first of all, thank you for sharing this. and for sharing such a human moment, you know, this is your, I don't know how you do your freaking job. Like, this is your job to go in and show, you know,

the heroism on display all over the world. Yeah, yeah. But like those three dogs, like that's an unbelievable story. But it was like, thinking of my dog as I was there. It's like awful. Of course, of course. Well, and I think that's sort of my question. I've been noticing and, you know,

this podcast focuses on mental wellness and, you know, learning what it feels like in your body to feel different things. And I was thinking, you know, there's so much similar that I'm feeling like COVID and then October 7th and then this. And it's like I was talking with my 16 year old and he's like, it's not the same. And I said, no, no, no, it's not the same. Like the fierceness of mother nature is unlike terrorism. However, our human experience of grief, of loss, of a sense of powerlessness and helplessness.

Like those are these overarching emotions that we have to do like it's kind of like you're being given the opportunity to deal with them in every possible situation. What if people fly planes into buildings, right? What if Mother Nature does this? What if the infrastructure of a city freaking falls asleep at the wheel because they're so excited about, I don't know, the Oscars that they forget to burn acres and acres? You know, like whatever it is, we are left with this human experience of like how do I metabolize? this. And I'm curious for you as a reporter, how do you metabolize that? Well, I think, you know, first, all of those tragedies that you bring up, they all share, I think, a common theme, which is it wakes us up to the world we've taken for granted. It makes us realize how fragile we really are, how sometimes

an autopilot we can be. You know, I will never take for granted, again, especially having lived through the things that I've seen. And I'm not. I am lucky I have a home to come to home to. I have my loved ones that are okay. There are so many people that are really, I feel for them. They have nothing to go home to. We say it's just stuff, but that stuff defines us. They are landmarks of our lives.

That's why when we see the photos of police officers and firefighters going in and recovering photo albums, that's not stupid stuff. They're recovering that because that defines who we are. in terms of expressing emotion and being healthy and mentally healthy while doing this, I think talking it out, but, you know, I knew this was going to be a little messy. I knew I wasn't going to, you know, I didn't, I'm not, I'm sorry, no offense, I have not thought about any of this. And I am using you.

I'm totally exploiting you. This is, this is just for my own benefit for free therapy. I should probably get a nice therapist that doesn't charge too much. I think talking this stuff through is incredibly helpful. I hate going up to people, victims of anything, and asking them to talk to me. What we call in the news world at MOS, I'll get an MOS. I hate doing that. But I have learned to embrace it as long as it's done with respect because it helps me.

I'm talking through the stuff that I'm trying to process. But more importantly, and those that I speak with, it helps them. more. These people who are experiencing the worst moments of their lives, people that are emerging from the ashes of these fires and the memories are never going to forget, it helps them not to hold on to it, but to let it go. And so I think for me, I'm learning that too. I'm learning that letting it go, talking it through, remembering it, not trying to forget it, not trying to bury it, not going back into autopilot mode, not taking for granted. the dinner I finally had last night with my husband,

just sitting next to him, like trying not to look at my phone. Like, those are the ways forward. So for people who have lost everything, I think it's about reconnecting with your community, not the physical aspect of it because that does not exist sadly. But existing with your neighbors,

one of my, I won't share too much of a story, but one of my colleagues is one of four families, four homes that survived on this street. 90% of the neighbors. are done. And I am no therapist. Don't take what I say as anything to do. But I said to him, you need to do something to rebuild that community. Obviously, rebuild physically. But before that happens, it's to take years. It's going to take years. You've got to remove everything first. Then you've got to go through the whole permit process. It's years. And if paradise is any

the occasion, it's going to take around 10 years. You need to, in the meantime, pull the loved ones that you have, your friends, your family, everyone, strangers that now you share this common connection with. You need to gather and you need to start creating new memories for those that still have homes who we call the lucky ones, but they're not lucky either. Start rebuilding and start reconnecting and reconnecting in a new shared experience. I think that's certainly what I'm trying to do. And for anybody that's been impacted, whatever feels right for you, I would try to do that. Jonathan, we really appreciate you talking to us and, you know, there's still a long way to go.

So thank you for really in the middle. Like I literally just went room to room in my house and had those moments with my home. So like we're also in the middle of everything, but we really appreciate you taking this time. And, you know, thank you for how vocal you've been about climate change, about all of the things that are impacting not just this country but our world. And I'm very, very, we're just, we're so grateful that you were able to share this time with us. So thank you. No, and thank you for your interesting climate change in telling this story. I appreciate it, really.

My question is really about like the future. You know, my son said to me, my 16 year old said, where do all the people who have been evacuated and displaced go? You know, there isn't enough housing for people in L.A. without the fires. Now you remove all of these houses. like what happens? Where do people go to school? Do they have their jobs? What happens in the interim rebuilding is a very, very long process?

I think one of the things that people have been talking about, and you do see this kind of discussion, we saw it after 9-11. We saw it during COVID. We did. We saw it after October 7th. We're seeing it now, these conversations about you're finding out what really matters, what do you do when there is this kind of crisis?

And for my, for example, my friend whose house burned to the ground, he and his three kids and his husband are staying with friends, you know, an hour away in our part of the city and in the valley, including their pets. You know, he sent me a picture of his dog and his cat in someone's bathroom. They rescued four tortoises of theirs. Like, just people are doing whatever. they can. And what does it look like if instead of your 2400 square foot house, you're living

in someone's bedroom, you know? And I have friends who are cooking meals that they are distributing to people who are evacuated, like all hands on deck. People are collecting clothing. Like, this is what it looks like for our humanity to be leveled, right? And it's so interesting because a lot of these homes in the palisades are multi, multi, multi million dollar homes and like homes that many of us can't even imagine living in with pools and jacuzis and, you know, they're mansions, their mansions on the ocean. But when it comes down to it, we are all humans. We are all humans who need a place to sleep. We need food to eat. It's a real kind of like rocking of what does it mean for us to be equal as human beings right now? People are staying wherever they can. A lot of people are driving south.

A lot of people are driving north. I know people who have been able to have flown away and are just like stepping out of it. I think for those of us with kids who are in school, it's even harder because you have to anchor your kids to what their life experience is still going to be. In the Palisades, it's people often with resources. They have options. They can either have a second home or they may have other means by which they can put themselves up or maybe they're not, they don't need to go to a nine to five job necessarily. They may be able to work remotely or have other opportunity, but there are many other communities in, Los Angeles who have been affected. Altadena is often people who maybe moved out there.

I mean, I had a lot of friends who went to Altadena and left Eagle Rock when Eagle Rock got too expensive or Pasadena got too expensive. The Pasadena fire is a lot of people who you think are like, well, how are they going to go to work the next day? And, you know, there's a tremendous amount of, we're both concerned for people's safety in the moment, but also how do these people continue their lives in this city? Yeah, the notion that this is a fire effect. only wealthy people is not true. The Eaton Fire has impacted Pasadena and Altadena. Those are very diverse communities.

They're very interesting communities with incredible history in Los Angeles. So this really is, it's affecting everyone, obviously in different ways. And as you said, people have different resources. But I think this is, you know, as Jonathan indicated, this is one of those moments where like, what does a community look like?

What does it mean to cook for each other? What does it mean that you don't have clothes anymore? Let me help you with some clothes. just as a little interesting personal note, I had the time to be able to say, what do I take? For many people, they had to leave in an emergency panicked situation. It really, it is, I mean, heartbreaking is not even, I can't even describe the context that we now have for what has happened here, that while our firefighters are doing their best and they are the bravest to run towards a fire, to defend people that you do not know.

It is the bravest. However, if they do not have the support, if they do not have the infrastructure in order to get them where they need to go with the supplies that they need, they're doing the job with one hand time behind their back. And hundreds of thousands of people are affected. It's a devastating, devastating moment

for the bureaucracy of this state. And our hope is that we will see a lessening of the winds and an ability for us to start rebuilding this city and building what we can with what is left over. So thank you so much. And Jonathan, thank you for talking about this and for encouraging us to get Jonathan Bigliotti

to come and speak with us. We will list some resources below if you need to know, if you'd like to know where you can donate, if you live somewhere and you are impacted because you've heard about what's going on, there are ways that you can help, and we do need your help, and our firefighters need your help.

So thank you. And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.