Top Story with Tom Llamas - Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Tonight's Top Story has the latest breaking news, political headlines, news from overseas and the best NBC News reporting from across the country and around the world.

Top story coming on the air right now with breaking news out of Los Angeles, and that's because the city is under a state of emergency. As firefighters work to contain multiple dangerous wildfires ripping through the city of Angels. This is a live look right now, and you can see in the distance there, that is not a cloud. That is a massive smoke-filled sky. You can no longer see the horizon there. looking out from Los Angeles International Airport, and you can see the danger right now that the city of Los Angeles is facing. It is shrouded in smoke. The second largest city in the country,

millions of people there, and of course the center of the entertainment universe, now threatened by this fast-moving blaze because of those winds. Chilling new images tonight of cars burning in the streets, traffic snarled on major highways as some drivers, several drivers, had to actually abandon their vehicles. The flames tearing through the iconic Hollywood Hills, Officials say dry conditions on the ground and whipping winds are fueling the spread, making the wildfire even more dangerous than recent ones in the region. The cloud of smoke over L.A. visible for miles. Miraculously, authorities saying tonight that no injuries yet have been reported,

but the governor was just saying some people did not heed the evacuation orders. Now, the fire scorching more than 1,200 acres and counting powered by strong winds that could reach up to 100 miles per hour. At least 250 firefighters have been deployed to fight the blazer. You're talking about firefighters from all over the state and all over Southern California. With 19 million people under red flag warnings, many of them also in the evacuation zone, which covers part of the northwest L.A. area. This is where the fire is happening right now, the evacuation zones. It is in the Palisades, that area of Los Angeles right there, and it's threatening Santa Monica and the surrounding communities. Now, also, Will Rogers Beach, which is a very popular tourist destination near San Francisco.

Santa Monica has been evacuated as well. Residents seem grabbing what belongings they can carry and fleeing their homes. This is what the scene looks like, at least in one neighborhood. 30,000 people are now under evacuation orders. We want to begin our coverage tonight with Liz Croix, who's live for us tonight in Los Angeles. Liz, I want you to walk our viewers through what your day has been like over the past couple of hours. I know you were in some type of danger. You had to get out and reconnect with your crew. Talk to us about what you're seeing there behind you. Hey, Tom, yeah, it has been a really volatile, chaotic day for us, for so many people here right now.

We made it out of the area where we had gotten stuck along with others in gridlock traffic. At one point, there were flames on both sides of the road. Bulldozer had to come through and push through abandoned cars to create a path, which is how we made it here to the Pacific Coast Highway. It is extremely windy. Just before you came to me, it felt like it was going to knock us over. It feels like the winds are pushing the flames towards the coast. right now we were seeing flames in the distance just moments ago you see that intense smoke and this is just getting started tonight panic in the pacific palisades as a wind-driven wildfire

blazes through one of southern california's most iconic neighborhoods people are panicking in the and it's a parking lot so there's about a hour wait at the bottom of palisades drive i rushed over here to pack my belongings and i got the evacuation orders multiple homes burning with residents told to get out. Some people getting trapped. The homeowners are saying they're unable to access any exit routes. There's fire on both sides of the road. Many abandoning their cars in the gridlock traffic. Fire crews using a bulldozer to push cars out of the way to clear a path. We are in bumper to bumper traffic right now as hundreds of people try to get out. You can see flames here on both sides of the road with very little visibility. Right. A

up and around those two homes. They didn't catch fire, but everything around them did. Our NBC, Los Angeles station, inside this hard hit neighborhood. This is a large clock here, a large what looks like an antique, very beautiful family clock here on the ground. There are also photo albums that the firefighters pulled from the home just minutes before the flames overtook it because they said they felt like they at least wanted to save something. Smoke from the growing fire seen for miles around L.A., where another brush fire ignited in West This is something you hardly ever see. We are in the heart of LA on Sunset Boulevard where there was a brush fire that shut down the road here.

All these firefighters trying to get ahead of the wind putting out the flames that were up in these hills. Firefighters using airdrops to put out the flames. Tonight, 19 million people under red flag warnings with wind gusts throughout the state expected to reach 100 miles per hour in some areas, sending trees onto cars and power lines. The only thing I heard above that wind was the power lines. was the power lines popping. The intense smoke creating dangerous air quality across Southern California, with the firefight continuing into the night where high winds are expected to only further fan the flames. And Liz, we know that a news conference was just taking place before we came on the air.

Update our viewers with any important information that came out of that news conference. Yeah, Tom, so right now we know that this fire has exploded to more than 1,200 acres. 30,000 people are under evacuation orders right now. 10,000 structures are threatened right now. We know of multiple homes that have burned. We've also heard reports of people trapped, although officials are saying right now that there are no reports of injuries,

which is truly remarkable, Tom, considering how fast this fire came through this neighborhood. But again, the winds are picking up and the winds are expected to just grow throughout the night and fan the flames. Liz, there was a remarkable moment there in your story where you showed exactly what people in Los Angeles, some people in Los Angeles were going through. There was fire on both sides of your news vehicle. How did you and the crew, how were you guys able to get out of that? Yeah, so, you know, in that moment, of course, we had a moment where we realized, okay, this is not a great situation to be in since behind us and in front of us was gridlock, back-to-back traffic.

We did look on the map, and we knew that about a half mile in front of us was an area which we would call defensible space. It was a strip mall where there was a Starbucks. So our get-out plan, if we needed to, was to get out and walk on foot to that area. Thankfully, right away, there was firefighters that came around. They came and knocked on our window. They told us, you're okay, you're going to be safe. Just keep your windows rolled up, hang tight, and they put out the flames around us. You know, Los Angeles is remarkable work, all those firefighters.

Yeah, incredible. Los Angeles is a massive city. We were seeing some images out of LAX. Have they stopped flights yet? What is sort of the concern at the airports? And then give me sort of a big picture perspective. Is this crippling the city of Los Angeles, or is this just happening in a corner of that massive city? Yeah, well, we've heard that flights out of the Burbank Airport, which is a smaller airport here in L.A. have stopped right now.

It's just extraordinarily smoky. And you know traffic, Tom, as bad in L.A. as it is. This has had a ripple effect, creating congestion throughout the city, particularly in this area. But this is an extraordinarily populated area. It's also created extreme smoky. conditions that are impacting people beyond this western part of the city. And so it's having a ripple effect. And on top of that, like I said, there was that fire on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. So that created its own level of congestion. And then throughout the day, there have been smaller spot fires down in San Diego in Riverside County. So this whole region, millions of people, Tom, have been impacted by this. Okay, Liz Croyd, starting us off tonight on top story on

this breaking news. Liz, thank you to you and your crew. Please stay safe. I want to go to national climate reporter, Chase Kane, who's on the ground in the fire zone at the intersection of the Pacific Coast Highway, and as you heard Liz mentioned, Sunset Boulevard. A very active scene behind you there, Chase. Talk to us about what you've been seen over the past couple of hours. Yeah, Tom, didn't realize. I was actually just up the road from where Liz was, so I was making my way on foot after they had evacuated people out of those vehicles on Sunset Boulevard. This is the Pacific Coast Highway right here behind me. The famous highway that goes up the California Coast. You can see these utility crews that have come in. Just a few moments ago, there was an

ember that caught fire at the bottom of this power pole. So one of the gas station employees had come out with a garden hose and was doing his best to try and spray down the flame that was burning there at the base of this power line. Also at a gas station, not a great combination there. So that's why the utility crews are here. It looks like cutting power to the area. We are basically in the direction of where the wind and the smoke has been blowing. As the wind gusts pick up, we just get these thick balls of black smoke, Tom. Even as I was making my way down here to my crew on foot, I was seeing home after home burning because with winds this wrong, it picks up that ember and it just goes flying through the air. Whatever it catches is on fire. In some cases,

that was homes. It was trees. It was cars, which have been abandoned here along Sunset Boulevard, Tom. Again, this entire area is under a mandatory evacuation. Nearly 30,000 people have been asked to leave their homes. And at times, police have been kind of frantic, just running through with sirens, with announcements, trying to get people out of the way because this fire, this wind is making things incredibly dangerous, Tom. Chase, you know your photographer there, when he goes wide on you, we can see that web of power lines above your head. And you mentioned that they were cutting power there.

I know they've cut power to tens of thousands of residents in Los Angeles. Explain to our viewers why they're doing that, right? Because this is reminiscent of what we saw in Lahaina and Hawaii during the wildfires where if you have down power lines, you have a wildfire, it can, it can re-aggressing. night, other fires that have been put out. Exactly. One live power line comes down and all of a sudden you have a brand new fire. You don't need that making this situation worse because with these winds blowing 50 miles an hour, tropical storm force winds, Tom. When you have winds that are blowing that strong, they're already doing enough damage pulling embers from existing fires. You don't want

a power line adding yet another fire on top of that. Yeah. And then finally, I'm not seeing a lot of cars in your area. Is it safe to say the people who were going to get out or who needed to get out have been able to get out or is it because the road where you are is now closed? This road, Pacific Coast Highway and sunset have been closed now for several hours. There was a stream of even just a couple of cars now that are coming through as people maybe have gotten trapped in the area and so they're saying, hey, you've got to get the car out of the way because we need to be able to get fire trucks through here. You see a couple of those cars right now.

Some people maybe were trapped in their home. Some people were trying to get home to get their last few important things. But yeah, I mean, this is this is really it. They're trying to keep the roads clear. that they can still protect what they can. Chase, if your photographer can stay on this shot here, I mean, give me a rough estimate here. Is the visibility about 100 feet, 100 yards?

I mean, it looks like you can't look too far out there because all you see is smoke. Yeah, I would say if you're a football fan, 50, 60 yards, certainly not a full football field of visibility. You might be able to see, you see the gas station here. If you pan just to the right, you see a Taco Bell sign. And just behind that, there's a grocery store. There's a condo building even further behind that.

This is an incredibly densely populated area right here along the coast. You know, if this was clear, if this smoke wasn't here, you'd be able to see the famous Santa Monica appear with that iconic Ferris wheel on the pier. That would be within our line of sight. But again, you can only see maybe 50 or 60 yards. And when those wind gusts pick up and blow that thick smoke through here, there have been times that I haven't even been able to see to the other side of the road, Tom. Chase, I know you've been down there for a while.

Do you know how much time the residents in that area were given to evacuate? Some of them had minutes. Some of them had moments. I mean, there was one moment earlier where L.A. police came through and said, hey, there's a mobile home where the fire has just blown down this canyon toward this mobile home park. And we're struggling to get people out quickly enough. We also, when we were on with Hallie Jackson just a little while ago, there was a lady who was being pushed in a wheelchair through this closed road because she needed help to get out. I mean, she just wasn't able to move quickly. So that's, it's dangerous for anyone right now. But imagine not being able to move quickly. Imagine needing help. That's what makes this especially dangerous for folks like that. Again, thankfully, the utility cruiser here. Looks like they're turning off power. Some of the lights have gone dark inside the gas station. So that's a good sign here, Tom. And then finally, Chase, you know, we heard of people evacuating, getting stuck in traffic, abandoning their vehicles and then running towards the beach. Talk to us about the scenario of why that happened. Well, because you had two things happening. This actually happened to me as well. We were not far behind

Liz Kreutz. Basically, you had people who were being told, get out of here. So they are creating grid rock, I'm sorry, gridlock in one direction. The emergency alert is also going off in my ear on the phone right now. And then you have other people who were trying to get back home to their homes, Tom. So you had so sorry about that, Tom. We're getting an emergency alert in my ear if you can still hear me. Basically, you have people trying to get to their homes to get things out. And then you also had people trying to evacuate. So that's why you had that gridlock in both directions. can be able to hear, hear my eye in my earpiece, these emergency alerts that are going out trying to urge people to get out of harm's way, Tom. Okay, Chase, please stay safe with your crew,

and obviously, if you guys are in danger, get to some safety. We're going to stand by for us, because I'm sure we're going to come back to you. I do want to get to Dr. Ashahal, Ashah Seyal. He's an NBC News medical fellow, but he happens to be on the scene in Santa Monica, so we've enlisted him to report for us during this breaking news situation. So, doctor, first things first, talk to us about the air quality where you are, and we see that massive storm, I should say, smoke cloud behind you. Hey, Tom. Yeah. So this cloud here, that's those kind of clouds. That's all smoke, Tom. And where I live in Santa Monica, we're about a mile out from the mandatory evacuation

orders. Just for some folks who don't know, Santa Monica is just immediately south of the Pacific Palisades, about a mile or so away. I mean, so essentially, we're watching that cloud come closer and closer to us. And so Tom, I work at UCLA Help. I'm a practicing position there. And, you know, we just heard from our emergency response system. So as of now, everything is on for business as usual. But we are, we really are encouraging people to bring these out, these K-N-95s, if you are somebody who is asthma or heart disease or any sort of lung disease, it really is a good idea to bring this on, even if you weren't in the immediate vicinity. I know, I know you're, and you have your mask off because you're reporting live, but talk to me

about the air quality there. How dangerous is it right now? It's getting worse. I mean, to be just pretty bluntly, it just, it smells like garbage, smells of smoke out here. So we've already about those people with chronic disease, with asthma and other lung disease. It's not something you may see immediately. It may be something that you're fine now, but in a few days you really start to see that effect. And we've seen that as wildfires have taken hold

in other parts of the country, including in Manhattan, just not too long ago. So, Tom, to answer your question, it is getting worse, and we're really, really urging people to put these on if you are nearby. How fast, I'm sure you were watching it all day, how fast did this fire spread?

Well, I can tell you, in the morning when I woke up, there was none of this here. And over the span of a few hours, you're hearing sirens every few minutes here. presumably headed north to the Palisades. It's really spread over a matter of ours, but what really worries us is that experts are predicting these wins

to pick up in the night and to get worse, and so we're worried that this is only the beginning. Okay, Dr. Akshay Seyle, we thank you so much for joining our coverage. For more on the Exploding Wildfire, I'm joined live now by Sue Cole. She's the president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council. She had to evacuate. It's now in the Westchester neighborhood

of Los Angeles. Sue, walk me through why you had to evacuate and what you saw as you were leaving. Well, the good news is, I mean, there's very little good news, but we've had notifications from the city for the last couple of days that we were going to have terrible wind conditions and a fire could easily erupt. So we were sort of on the ready. This morning started out normally heavy, heavy winds, and all of us, a lot of us in town

heard at about 1015, 1020 that a fire had broken out. At first the evacuation was only meant. for areas like the highlands, the top of the Invenita, areas that were in the hills. But very quickly, more notifications came saying everybody in town, you know, needs to evacuate. I have calls from a lot of people saying, well, I don't think so. We're in the village. We're in the flats. I told everybody, take your pets, take your medications, take everything they can't replace and get out.

My family left pretty quickly because I, for one, am not a risk taker. So the main problem the Palisades have, as you've seen on all the news reports, is that access in and out is so incredibly limited. We've got Sunset Boulevard to PCH. And these other streets that come down into sunset get jammed and clogged so quickly. That's why people were, I'm sure, panicking and leaving their cars, just worried that they weren't going to be able to get out. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you.

I just have an update now. The fire is now grown to 1,300 acres, so another 100 acres since we've been on the air. Do you think there's people stuck? I would be very surprised if there weren't some people stuck. We have elderly people. We have people that can't walk, and unless they have a family member or neighbor at the ready, helping them out, it's very frightening. Because, like I said, everything is jam.

even if you can get out of your house, you need to get out of the neighborhood, and it's not easy. Sue Cole, we thank you for joining our coverage tonight. I'm glad you're in safer grounds right now. I do want to go back to Chase, who's on the scene there at Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway. I also want to bring in our meteorologist Bill Carrance. Bill, I'm going to start with you. Walk us through what Chase is seen right now and sort of the conditions that are surrounding him and his team. Yeah, let me give everyone a view of what areas have actually burned and what areas haven't. So here's Los Angeles. Here's Malibu. This is where the fire is located, kind of in between the two here. And so closer view in. Everywhere that's shaded and red here is acreage that have burned.

And the first thing you'll notice, it's not like a solid area. It's not like a wave that's just raced through. The fire was spotting. Firefighters were originally fighting it here. But because it's so windy, the embers were getting in the air, they said it was like a half mile behind them. All of a sudden, they'd turn around and they'd see a new fire starting. So that's why we have these different pockets. And you can notice, we've got the fire all the way down to the coast. So the Pacific Coast High Lays down here on the edge, and then we get Sunset Boulevard. And then the road where all the cars got blocked, Palisades Drive, was the road that went up like this, up to the north here. And so that was a congestion point there where everyone was trying to evacuate, heading down. That's where the bulldozers had to go and push the cars to the side so the firefighters could get up there.

But the fact that we had those embers burning to the south and then spotting down in the city, like where Chase is located, That's what really caught some people by surprise. The people were walking down Palisades Drive to where chase is, and at the same time, new fires were forming and spotting. So as we go through the night, right now Windsor are about 40 to 60, where they're going to gust up to 80 to 100. So this is kind of just the beginning. So all the areas that are still the hot spots here, we could have new spotting and new fires forming as the fire will burn to the south towards the coast. So firefighters will be trying to protect homes and structures all through the coastal areas. in Topanga Beach, too, as we go throughout the night.

And then of any new fires form, obviously, that's going to do the exact same thing as this one. So here's the current wind gusts, you know, 36 in downtown L.A. are at the airport L.A.X. 43 of N.I. That's where this fire is. But there's other high gusts, too, if we get any new fires. Tom, I did see one report of them called the Gulch Fire has just formed. That's a more remote area, so we're not as concerned with that one. But all night long, this is going to be going on. Okay, Bill, stand by for us.

I do want to go back to Chase. Chase, for our viewers that may not be familiar with Southern California where you are right now, talk to us about some of the population centers as this fire moves further south and I guess moves further east possibly with those winds. What are some of the population centers around L.A. that could be affected? Yeah, I mean, Tom, this is a pretty densely populated area. Again, I mean, Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Pier would just be in my line of sight in this direction if we could see through the smoke. And then back the opposite way to the the left side of your screen. That would be Malibu. So Pacific Palisades is kind of situated at the

edge of Los Angeles between Santa Monica and Malibu. Already 30,000 people that have been evacuated, but depending upon where new fires might pop up or if the existing one spread, I mean, these evacuation orders could expand. You see the cars that are coming through here. One of the things that was happening, and I think Bill did a good job of maybe showing you this on the map, is that, you know, these fires were spotting. So it's not like one continuous area. So there were very much, there were people who were trapped in their homes and police and fire said, you can't get out. You just got to stay here. We're going to try and keep you safe as the fire truck comes through here. So now that the fire has shifted a bit, they're trying to get people out of there. They really just want

people out of this entire area because, you know, the winds have picked up a lot in the last hour. 40 to 60 miles an hour, Bill said, it's hard to imagine 80 to 100. I mean, that's hurricane force wind gusts. What that can do to a wildfire when the conditions are this dry, it's been more than eight months since Los Angeles has gotten significant rainfall. So we are in a drought here in Southern California, and that truly makes this a dangerous, life-threatening situation, Tom. And then before you go, Chase, in California right now, in Los Angeles, around what time is sunset? Because we know there's about 300 firefighters that are trying to battle this blaze. Once the sun goes down, it's going to get even more dangerous. Do we know what time around roughly

that's happening? Because it may even happen earlier with all the smoke clouding the sun right now. Officially sunsets around 5 o'clock, so we've got about 40 minutes left officially, but I mean, I can tell you this. It's been dark for a while because of this smoke. And actually just in the last few minutes, it's gotten a little bit as the smoke has changed direction, as the wind has changed direction just a bit. So they don't have much daylight left. The good news is that fires and embers are easier to spot at night. But the bad news, as Bill mentioned, is that these winds are going to get stronger tonight. So we're really just heading into an even more dangerous situation. Okay. Chase, you and your team stay safe. Bill. I'm going to let you have the last word. here. What do you think is going to happen with the way the wind is pushing right now? And what can we expect come morning? Yeah. In the beginning of this fire, it was kind of contained away from structures. But now that it's gotten into these structures, you know, the latest updated Maver and Cal Fire did show numerous blocks that actually, you know, the fire is burned through. So you assume a lot of those homes were lost. And because the, you know, the heat produced and the embers from these homes when

they burn, it easily spreads to more homes. So unfortunately, more structures are going to get lost over night, especially as the winds begin to really increase and pick up. You know, they're estimating maybe a couple dozen homes right now. By the time we get to the morning, you know, that number may unfortunately double. We hope not, but with winds up to 100 miles per hour, you can easily picture that happening. The wild card, Tom, is, you know, will new fires form? And where will they form? And would they be rural or will they head through more communities? And this goes all the way down to San Diego tonight, too. So I know we're focusing on where this fire is. But this is, you know, as dangerous a wind event as we've had in, you know, Southern

California in a couple of years. We're going to see wind damage even without the fires. And then if you get another fire that forms, look out, just like this one. And it relaxes about tomorrow, about noon. So we got about 12 hours, a little, you know, 16 hours of everyone on pins and needles just prey and new fires don't form. Bill Karin's for us tonight. Bill, we thank you for all of your coverage as well. Coming up, we're going to have much more on the wall. fire's ripping through L.A. lives Croix live on the fire line. Plus, new video just into top story showing bulldozers removing abandoned cars on highways to make way for first responders rushing to the blaze. And we have new details tonight in the cyber truck bombing in Las Vegas.

Officials are revealing the suspect used AI to plan the attack. We're going to explain after this break. We're back now with the breaking news. Los Angeles. I want to get right to Liz Kreutz, who's live in the fire zone tonight. Liz, I don't know if there's a better image that says how devastating these fires are. You have fires in the canyons. You have palm trees on fire. Explain to our viewers where you are and what's going on. Hey, Tom, we're in the same park, the same parking law on the beach. So we are at just, what, 20 minutes ago when we were talking to you. Things have changed so fast.

The winds have really picked up. And just behind me here, it's remarkable. You can just see those flames, the dark flume of smoke. This hill was untouched when we talked to you before. The embers, because of those strong winds got blown, now up in flames. I can see in the distance to my right, there's homes over here in the ridge. There's flames behind those homes. Firefighters and first responders are just arriving to the scene here, and the flames have jumped the Pacific Coast Highway. And as you can see, those palm trees up in flames. And again, I mean, we were here, our, my producer, Jim Sita, he saw the ember, a small little ember, hit one of the palm trees. It started to ignite. And within five minutes, all five of those trees are up in flames. And you can see how much they're moving with the wind blowing them over. On the beach here, every trash can is blown over just to give a sense of how strong and windy it is. And it's changing very fast as the winds move towards the coast, Tom. And then Liz, we're seeing some traffic behind you. Are those people, a lot of them are cop cars? Are they people getting out? out and which way is the way to safety, or is it too tough right now?

You know, it's hard to know, right? Often it's like get to the coast because you have the beach here. That's sort of a safe area, but the winds are pushing it here. And right before we came on with you, one of those cop cars drove by and did say on a speaker, you know, you should get out. So, you know, our crew is likely to do that when we're done talking to you and find a safe place, excuse me. And I did see a few people, mostly it's cleared out, Tom, but we have seen a few people who did walk by with suitcases on bikes, trying to get out. And in that press conference, officials continued to reiterate, as did the governor, that if you are told to evacuate, you need to get out.

You need to heed that warning. Thankfully, right now, we talked about that traffic. It's let up. Pacific Coast Highway is moving along. You can hear that siren right now, the cop telling that gentleman on a bike to get out. Yeah, we're going to listen to him as well, Liz. We're going to let you go. You and your team, please get to some safety.

incredible reporting. When we return, we speak to someone who had to evacuate this fire. The race to get out before flames reach their home. Stay with us. Okay, we are back now with our continuing coverage of the wildfires in Los Angeles. It's grown to at least 1,300 acres. It's jumped the Pacific Coast Highway, so burning on one side of the highway and the canyons on the other side. Our teams are spread out across southern Los Angeles tonight covering the storm. We're going to bring you much more later in the broadcast. We do want to update two stores because we have some new reporting on the two big stories we've been following the last couple of days, the first out of Las Vegas, Tom Winters here, who's broken a lot of news on both this story in New Orleans. Let's start with Vegas first. Talk to me about the new reporting you have on this bombing, if you will, and how AI played a role. Right. So this is the incident that happened at the Trump Hotel that we were covering last week. And so much information came out today.

What has been a huge concern, Tom, the entire past year or so, law enforcement agencies, coast to coast, really globally. worried about when will AI be used by a terrorist or an attacker to help plan something out? And it appears in the United States, for the first time, AI was used, and it was used in this particular instance. The individual that you're looking at there, the person who drove that cyber truck, he apparently was searching on one of the AI chat platforms of how much explosives do I need to put this bomb off, how many fireworks do I need to help with my explosive? He was even looking up, one of the things that he had in the truck is the specific explosive power. that if you fire a bullet at it, but it has to be fired at a specific velocity, Tom. So it's going to be the right bullet at the right speed,

and then that powder will explode. It's typically used for target shooting. He was looking for that information as well, as well as information on, can I get a phone without having to register information. It was spitting back answers to him, and this is something they're really concerned about. Can I ask you maybe a blunt question,

and it might be complicated, so I get it if you can't answer. Did AI assist in this bombing? I think it is safe to say that he's a question. safe to say that he received information that could have helped him out. I will say this. If you go to any one of the AI mainstream chat bots right now and you said, hey, help me make a bomb, they will tell you, we can't do that, we won't do that, that'll hurt somebody. But if you start to tweak the questions a little bit, you might get some more information that is not perhaps readily accessible, or as we know from AI searching and AI assisted searches time, we do it all

the time, it might give you some information that would take you a long time to search and get. And that's where it appears it's going to be helpful. It's something law enforcement is really looking for additional cooperation from these AI companies. Hey, tell us when somebody starts to go down this rabbit hole. Tom, a really important piece of reporting tonight. We appreciate you being here tonight in Top Story. I now want to go to New Orleans because we have more new reporting on New Orleans as well and that terror attack that killed 14 people in the Big Easy. The FBI releasing new images of the man responsible for the fatal Bourbon Street ramming as they try to piece together his motive. For more on this, I want to bring in Jesse Kirsch live tonight. Jesse,

talk to me about what the new images show us and what we're learning. Yes, so Tom, let's go right to that picture. This is of the attacker from New Year's Day in New Orleans on Bourbon Street when he was making one of his visits ahead of this attack in the months beforehand. The FBI releasing these images, they showed Jabbar riding a bike through the French quarter. These were taken on Halloween, according to the FBI. And they're asking for anyone who might have come across him between 2 and 6 p.m. on Halloween in the French quarter to reach out to them. We know previously that, according to authorities, he used smart glasses to record video while he was riding the bike through the French quarter and just a couple of months later

this deadly attack top. Yeah, they must have matched that information on those glasses to that surveillance camera to get that one image. I know you spoke with Louisiana's attorney general. What did you learn? Yeah, so she is now calling for a full review of safety planning, leading up to New Year's Eve. And as we've continued to report it on for a week now, Tom, there were warnings about the bollard system on Bourbon Street. The new bollards being placed on Bourbon Street appear to not be as strong as they need to be, possibly to stop a terrorist threat. So there are all these questions about security planning around Bourbon Street, both for New Year's Eve, other major events, but also just for day-to-day what they have in place there.

And I asked the Attorney General if she knows at this point based on the early days, of her looking into this, who was actually at the end of the day the person in charge of security for Bourbon Street on New Year's Eve? And here's part of my exchange with the Attorney General when asking about that. At this point, you don't know definitively if at the end of the day was the superintendent who should have been calling the shots versus the Department of Homeland Security. I just think there's a lot of competing factors that are in play. And I don't want to prematurely judge who or what or why until we collect all of that. information. And part of what she's referring to there, Tom, is that the French

quarter has a lot of overlapping jurisdictions in terms of the types of organizations and law enforcement groups that have various amounts of authority there. And so that is one of the questions right now is who was in charge, was it multiple people who would have been making decisions? And that's something we're hoping to get more information on. There's a public works hearing tomorrow with the city council here that is going to be addressing this. And the eight here in Louisiana, says she hopes to have at least some preliminary findings by April, Tom. Yeah, that clock is ticking as the Super Bowl is right around the corner. As you know, Jesse.

Okay, Jesse Kerr's for us tonight. Jesse, we thank you. Our breaking coverage of the Los Angeles wildfire is going to continue right after this short break, winds fueling these fast-moving flames, people forced to run from their homes. We speak to a resident who had to evacuate in a moment's notice. And these are live pictures tonight from Los Angeles showing smoke, filling that sky over California. Stay with us. You're looking live right now at those wildfires in Los Angeles. These are the Palisades Fire that are now threatening Santa Monica as well. 1,300 acres burning right now.

Firefighters do not have this under control. There's 300 of them trying to put out this fire. They have helicopters. They have airplanes, as you saw there. People have been evacuated from their homes. So far, no reports of injuries, but it's still very, very early. can see the type of damage this fire is doing. Someone who did evacuate. Stephanie Libanati, she joins us live now. She's a Palisades resident, and she evacuated from her

highlands home and called 911 after seeing a fire start in her backyard. Stephanie, pick up the story from there for me. Yeah, so I believe I was the first 911 caller, and I was just sitting with my brother in the office at our house, and I went to go get up, to go to the bathroom or something, and I looked outside, and I just saw smoke and some orange and red flames, and I screamed, fire, fire, we have to go. And we ran outside. We started telling our neighbors, we got the hoses out, started, you know, putting water everywhere we could on our backyard, and then we just got out. Stephanie, we're seeing the photos that you sent us in. Talk to me about what you thought when you sort of saw those plumes of smoke that turned into clouds of smoke

and the flames in the distance? I thought it was, I was just scared. It was just coming faster than it really was. And I just wanted to make sure my family got out safely and my dogs and my neighbors as well. It was just moving so fast. Everything was, it was just all a blur, kind of. We were just running around, just trying to get out of there.

Sometimes, you know, these things pop up and they spread so fast. Emergency responders and government officials can't get the warnings out. Were you guys warned about this? Did you know this was coming? No. I literally just looked out the window, I had just on my normal Tuesday morning, and there were just flames everywhere. The wind, when did it start to pick up? Has it been very strong over the last few days, or did it kind of just start today?

Last night, it really picked up. You could hear it howling throughout the night. And then this morning, when I was walking my dogs with my brother, we were talking about how windy it was and how scary that it can be for fires. And then, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes later, the fire started. You see all those cars, we saw earlier in the broadcast, those cars that were abandoned, right, on the highway as people tried to get out, and they couldn't, the gridlock was too bad, and the fire was jumping the Pacific Coast Highway. Do you think there's people that weren't able to evacuate because it was moving so fast? I think so. I think a lot of people were having a hard time getting out because there's really only one way in and one way out of the highlands. So I think, you know, people were scared, and that's why they did jump out of their cars.

You know, that was their way out instead of just being stuck there. What's your sense being somebody who lives in California? I know there was really bad wildfires back in 2011 that spread so fast because of the winds, this sort of wind event coupled with a wildfire. What's your sense of what's going to happen in the days ahead there in California? I'm just hoping that the wind starts to do. die down, and I know we have the best fire team ever that's going to help do their best to save as many houses and as many people as they can, and that's kind of all we can help

for. Have you been able to talk to family and friends? Were they able to get out? Yeah, my mom's friend who lives in the area actually took her a while to get out. She was stuck at her house due to, you know, cars and fire trucks and everything, but she was able to get out. My family was able to get out. I know my neighbors and everybody in my cul-de-sac were also able to get out. And then so since you've evacuated, are they opening shelters there? Have you heard for people that may need it since you're evacuating? I think it was around 30,000 people at last check. Yeah. So I saw they were maybe opening a spot in Westwood, but my grandfather lives out in Santa Clarita. So we immediately called him and said, hey, can we head out

to you? And he said, come on this way. So we've been hunkered down here ever since just watching the news and waiting to see what happens. And have you ever seen it this bad? No. I don't, well, maybe this bad, but not this close to home. Do you think you're, do you have any idea of if the fire or the wind shifted or if it was coming directly for your home? I'm not sure. The last I saw on our ring cameras is we saw some firefighters running into our backyard with hoses. And the next time we went to go check all of the, all the internet and the power has been cut so we can't access our cameras anymore. What was that like to see that? Scary.

Very scary. Because we weren't sure if our house was on fire. They were putting water on a roof maybe to help if an ember went, you know, went by. Yeah, you never know. Stephanie Libanadi. I'll be thinking about you tonight. I'm sorry you and your family are going through this right now. I know it's really tough, but I'm sure we'll stay in touch.

And we thank you, of course, for joining the show. We're going to be right back after the short break. We are back now with the state of emergency. in Los Angeles. 1,300 acres on fire right now, burning in the palisades, just west of downtown Los Angeles. 30,000 people have been told to evacuate, some not able to get out in time having to evacuate from their cars as they were on the highways. Flames spreading as far as the eye can see, the sky filled with plumes of smoke, more

than 300 firefighters right now on the scene. NBC News crews are spread out all over the fire. zone, including Chase Kane, who has been following this from the get-go with his team. Chase, you're joining Top Story Live now. I saw a lot more action behind you about maybe 30 seconds ago. There were a lot of police cruisers around there. Had they been telling people just to get out and for the traffic to sort of flow in one direction? Yeah, exactly, Tom. This is the Pacific Coast Highway, the famous highway that runs along the California coast. It's typically a beautiful place to be not right now. You're also probably noticing these wind gusts that have certainly picked

up in just the last couple of hours. What you're noticing is these people are coming down Sunset Boulevard onto the PCH. Off to the right of your screen would be towards Santa Monica. They're trying to get people to go down to Santa Monica so they can sort of fan out into the rest of Los Angeles. There were a number of people back here in Topanga Canyon up Sunset Boulevard and some of the canyons, the densely populated canyons just in these hills off the Pacific coast who have basically been surrounded by flames as these fires had picked up embers and they create new hot spots. It's called spotting. So as that happened, you know, some folks weren't able to get out right away.

So that's, that is part of what they've been up to, is trying to just get those last few people out of there. Because as these winds pick up overnight, Tom, Bill Cairns was telling us earlier, 80 to 100 mile an hour winds, possible hurricane force winds overnight. They don't want to take any chances with anyone being left in harm's way with really no way to control these flames. Chase, we're looking at some of the video that I'm being told by the control room that you actually shot and there's a lot of fire and a lot of flames. How quickly did this fire sort of explode? And Tom, if you can hear me, we've lost signal, so stand by if you can hear right now. We still have you, if you can hear me. We still have you, Chase.

You there? Can you hear me? Okay, we're going to go to Bill. We're going to come right back to Chase once we have him, and he comes back live for us. Bill, you know, obviously this is an ongoing situation. It's a live situation. There's a state of emergency in Los Angeles right now. You could see the wind, how strong it was, just blowing his sort of flat jacket right there.

Talk to us about what you're seeing tonight on the radar and how bad it's going to get. Yeah, and first, like, with Chase, it's amazing all the pictures we've been showing you is all through cell phones. And it's amazing that the cell phone coverage has stayed up throughout this event. A, because everyone evacuating has been wanting to use their phones to communicate with loved ones. And then we have all our reporter crews out there, and, you know, plus the fire crew. So, yes, it's not surprising that we're going to have some technological issues. Now, with the fire itself, it is still spreading. It's still spotting, as we call it, new fire.

are still forming, but it's already made its way down to the ocean. So now it's just going to be, you know, we're not going to see the acreage jumping like we did during the day today because it doesn't really have a lot more distance to go. Tonight we're going to get into the extreme wind category. Today was what we'd call the second highest level. Tonight and tomorrow we get to the extreme. And that's when we have the lowest relative humidity, the highest winds, and that's when the fire danger would be the greatest. You know, you saw how bad it was today. Imagine if any new fires form tonight or into tomorrow. I mean, downtown, downtown. LA 63 in Malibu, which, you know, not too far away from where this fire is,

gust expected tonight to 74 miles per hour. So these are pretty unheard of numbers. These are not on the top of mountains. These are the numbers that are in actually the cities at the foothills, at the base of the mountains. It'll be even higher once you get up there in the higher terrain. So this is the map that's for tonight into tomorrow. So we have an elevated risk, critical, and extreme risk. It's pretty rare. The extreme fire risk is only supposed to be issued on average about once every four years. We just had it a couple of weeks ago with the Franklin fire, that horrible one near Malibu, and there was another one in November. So, yeah, Southern California's been doing this way too often. But from Santa Clarita, Glendale,

all the mountainous areas here, just north of L.A., just north of where this fire is located in Malibu. If any fires form in this area late tonight, Tom, that's going to be the area of concern. And we will notice this does head all the way down the coast, too, outside of Oceanside and the mountains outside of San Diego. You know, we're worried tonight. We're not. those high wind gusts, power lines coming down, sparking new fires. That's going to be a big concern, too. And there's been a huge problem with arsonists in Southern California with a lot of fires lately. And so I know we've got to watch out for that, too.

When will Los Angeles sort of get a sense? As there's a state of emergency tonight, and as you've highlighted along with our crews, it is sort of in this corner of Los Angeles, but it continues to grow. When do you think they'll get a sense of this thing is now growing completely out of control, or maybe we can get a handle on this? Well, the way the winds are blowing, so the winds are going to be blowing out of the north and northwest. So this is where the fire is located. Here's L.A.

So as long as the wind, see this little orange arrows we have on here, that's the wind direction. So the only, the fire has to follow the winds. And so the winds are going to push it towards the coast and towards the ocean. They're not going to be pushing it towards L.A. For the most part, that really nasty smoke bloom all day long was out over the ocean. It wasn't heading into downtown L.A., thankfully, and that's not expected to change tomorrow either. So if you're in downtown, L.A., you can see it in the distance, but your air quality and everything else is a lot better than everywhere else. So for, you know, I'd say for about 80 to about 85 percent of Los Angeles, Tom, they're watching this from the distance, and they're just praying nothing else forms that would affect them.

But, yeah, there's really no chance that where the fire is located now, it's not going to head this way. It's going to head towards the coast, and if anything, maybe a little bit towards the west. No, if you can see the monitors, Brett, who's our director, Brett Hulley, I don't know if you can go back to that image you just showed of downtown Los Angeles. Brett, I should say, I'm sorry, Bill. How long do you think this will be sort of the reality for Los Angeles? This kind of scene where you can't even see the sky or the horizon? Well, all day tomorrow, for sure, because this thing, even if the winds are going to be so high,

we're going to have all new hotspots. By the time we get towards Thursday, the winds come down a little bit. I bet you'd be until Friday that we have, like, you know, normally clear Los Angeles skies. This smoke will be an issue, especially the wind. western half of LA and the beaches. Not for downtown, though. I think downtown, unless a new fire forms, should be okay. Okay, I want to go back to Chase Kane. Him and his team are still in the fire zone tonight. They've been with us throughout the broadcast. So, Chase, we lost you there for a second, but I was just going to ask you, you know, you've been covering this throughout the day. You're

actually sending in video that you shot yourself and your team shot. How quickly did this sort of explode? I mean, faster than anything I've seen. I mean, I've covered dozens. I would not even want to guess how many wildfires I've covered, Tom. I've not seen one quite like this, and I've certainly not seen one quite like this in such a densely populated area. I mean, yeah, what I was experiencing is my producer and I were trying to get down Sunset Boulevard to where we are now at the Pacific Coast Highway. Traffic is at a gridlock. There's fire trucks trying to make their way through. Once we finally get up to them, we realized that a fire has come down the side of the hill, and that's where I didn't realize at the time, but our correspondent Liz Kreutz was there with her,

with her producer that they were trapped in that. And firefighters and police were telling people, stay in the car. And then once it was safe, getting another one of those big wind gusts. Once it was safe, they asked people to get out of their cars. And so some people had to abandon cars on Sunset Boulevard, which is why we've seen some video of bulldozers that have just had to push the cars to the side of the road so that fire trucks and ambulances and emergency vehicles can get through. You're seeing more of that here where at this gas station just across Pacific Coast Highway, just a little earlier in the show, we saw utility crews out here turning off the power in this area because there were some of those embers that

have been picked up by these increasingly strong winds, started a fire at the base of this power pole next to a gas station, a really bad combination. Up here on the ridge line right now, you're seeing that thick smoke that's blowing over the ridge toward the Pacific Ocean. As I was making my way down on foot, there were several homes, a long sunset that caught fire. A gentleman just stopped by a moment ago and said, he said that there were at least a dozen, maybe two dozen homes up there on that ridge that had also caught fire. So it was a really dangerous situation, a condo building here. There's a mobile home park. This is a really developed, really popular part of L.A., a popular beach here at Will Rogers State Beach, Tom. So folks here in Southern California are

familiar with the area, and a lot of people are hurting as so many people had to just run out of their home as quick as they could with what they could carry under their arms, even some people carrying suitcases down the sidewalk, Tom. Yeah, Chase, I did want to ask you, we see the wind at times hitting your jacket. We can see it right now. How strong is it? How strong does it feel? I mean, I've covered some hurricanes. We both cover some hurricanes in tropical storms. I mean, this feels pretty close to a hurricane forest wind gust. We've had sustained tropical storm force winds. And as Bill Cairns was telling us earlier, we could expect gusts overnight, potentially 80 to 100 miles an hour. It's just kind of difficult to conceive what

that will mean with all of these hot spots still burning. I mean, even right now, maybe hard to hear on the microphone, but we're just hearing the wind howl between the buildings, knowing that there are these flames and embers tucked in between the trees and brush and buildings up on this ridge line. Okay, Chase, once again, every time I talk to you, you and your team are doing a phenomenal job, but please stay safe. And if you have to go, please break down and go. I do want to get to Alan Clevens. He's another person who had to evacuate from the Malibu Coast line as these wildfires exploded. He's now in Calabasas, which is just a little bit north and to the west, away from where those winds are blowing. Talk to me about your experience and when you knew it was time to go.

Yeah, I woke up this morning. It was obviously quite windy outside, but some of my neighbors and I just kind of hung out. We were at order to mandate to evacuate, and we stayed by and we watched the fire come down, but I got to tell you, some of the footage that I took on my phone was really scary. It's these fire departments, they're doing the best they can, but, you know, there's no way to control this. This was out of control, completely out of control. Is this something like, like you haven't seen before in your area? Yeah, I mean, we've had Malibu fires, but obviously not so close to my place. And, you know, I live right up the street from the Getty Museum, and there's, you know,

trillions of dollars of art. So we're thinking, oh, that'll be fine. They'll protect it. But everything was on fire when I was leaving there. And I left probably a half hour ago. Did you get any kind of warnings? I've been asking people this that live in the area. Did you get any type of warnings?

You know, sometimes these things just can take people by surprise. Did you have any idea this was going to happen? I mean, we didn't know. there's going to be fires. We got the alerts that, you know, there's a red flag warnings and 80-mile-an-hour winds. But when we saw the fire this morning, I was out, and then my neighbor called me and said, hey, you should probably come home. There's a fire close to us, but we didn't look so bad. And then by the time I got home, like, it was just the winds were just, it doesn't matter which direction they were coming from. Super scoopers were, you know, grabbing water from the ocean

and dropping it right by our house. I mean, the photos you're seeing right now, those are right by where I'm at. Alan, I'm glad you got to safety. of our teams is right by the fire tonight. Jacob Soberoff is live on the scene for a sunset Boulevard and Pacific Palisades. Jacob, talk to me about what you're seeing out there. Tom, this is the, I have to tell you, this is the neighborhood I was born and raised in. I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. I'm standing on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and a Malfi Drive in the Pacific Palisades, part of Los Angeles. You can see the fire over on the ridge there as it approaches Will Rogers State Park. On the other side of that mountain,

you're looking at these are the Santa Monica mountains as the hill goes up in flames as I'm speaking to you right now is the Pacific Palisades village beyond the Pacific Palisades village are the Pacific Palisades Highlands where we have been watching all day as literally thousands of people have been evacuating from up in the hills some of these places have only one or two roads if that on the way out it has been a a complete gridlock here on the west side of Los Angeles as this fire which is as big as I have seen in my lifetime. Tom, look at this as this smoke is being, you can tell the direction that the smoke is blowing in right now

as you watch from the fire on the ridgeline. I don't think anybody here has seen anything like in any of our lifetimes. Let's go see if we can talk to this gentleman here for one second as he's watching. Sir, we're live on NBC News. Do you mind if I get a quick word with you? What's your name? My name's Nick. Nick Jacob, it's nice to meet you.

I'm sorry, it's under this circumstance. This is your house right here. This is my house right here. Yeah, we, first thing this morning, when the first truck came by, I knew there was something going on. And then I knew when it was in the highlands, in the bottleneck, it was going to be a problem. And then it was. How long have you lived here in the Palisades? I've been here for like five years.

This is your home here. Let's just take one step out, Nick, come this way with me. As you can see, I mean, we can see here on the ridge, you know, what's your calculation? When are you going to go? I've been watching it all day, okay? It started out on that bridge line. You can see this cloud. Once the cloud plume is getting close to being over our heads,

which is about right now, I'm out of here. But right now, I'm trying to stay as long as I possibly can. You know, my mom's fortune went into purchasing this home, and this is all we got, you know. And so I'm going to try and stay as long as I can. I see your little dog in the car there, Nick. There's two of them, yeah. There's two of them, little docksy.

They'll bark your head off. She's ready to fight. She's ready to fight the fire. This one. And so just to look here, I mean, you've got your car packed up. You've got your house ready to go. What's stopping you from leaving? We can feel the wind coming this direction on us right now.

Just I don't know. I mean, I've been watching the airdrops all day. They had the 747s doing the big drops, but all that FOS check wasn't hitting. All right, Nick, I'm going to let you get ready and get out of here. You'd be safe, too. Tom, skews the bad language, but these are the emotions that people are feeling out here right now. There's 23,000 people that live in Pacific Palisades. It's a neighborhood in Los Angeles, one of the biggest neighborhoods here. You can see as the cars come this way.

They're coming out of the Palisades. Village and evacuating eastward on Sunset Boulevard towards Los Angeles, the city center of Los Angeles. It was gridlock going that way. Towards the 405 freeway. People are evacuating on Pacific Coast Highway coming up to 10. It's a go ahead, Tom. Yeah, yeah. What do you think is the difference here? You said you've never seen anything like this in your life and you grew up there. Is it the wind tonight? It's not only the wind event. This is a once-in-a-lifetime wind event in Los Angeles combined with the dryness. We have barely had any rain here in Los Angeles. throughout the entire winter season, a negligible amount. I don't think that it's enough really to even measure. And so the combination of all of the vegetation that's grown over the years from the last couple of years of rain that we've had here, combined with the dryness right now, is a catastrophic sort of condition for a fire like this to break out,

especially in such a populated area here. On the west side of L.A., where there are so many people, Tom. We've talked about fires before. There was a fire at the Pepperdine University out in Malibu just a couple of weeks. if not a month ago, but they're certainly not in a place where tens of thousands of people live like this. Jacob Soberoff, we appreciate you reporting tonight for Top Story. I know you're going to stay out there on the scene. Our coverage here on NBC News Now is going to continue with more on that state of emergency in Los Angeles. Wildfires exploding tonight,

1,300 acres burning right now. Our coverage continues.