At the site of a fire-destroyed home, a group of fire-impacted Altadenans and organizations are expected to call on state Attorney General Rob Bonta on Tuesday to launch an investigation into the Los Angeles County’s failed response to the Altadena Fire.
The group, Altadena for Accountability, will demand Bonta to “compel testimony, examine withheld data and records and hold public agencies accountable for their failures before, during and after the fire. The move comes in the wake of the “Independent After-Action Report” by the McChrystal Group on the failures of emergency notifications and evacuation orders during the Eaton Fire.
Findings of the report fail to answer key questions on evacuation notifications, disparities in firefighter presence in historically Black West Altadena, and process breakdowns by County Sheriff and Fire Departments,” according to Altadena for Accountability.
“Los Angeles County promised the report would provide a clear, fact based review of how alerts, warnings, and evacuations were handled. Instead, the McChrystal Group’s After-Action Report is a carefully, conveniently worded PR spin, tip-toeing around County missteps, assigning responsibility nowhere in particular, and worse, pointing fingers at fire victims,” Shawna Dawson Beer, an organizer with the Beautiful Altadena Community and a total loss fire survivor, said in statement.
“The report confirms what we already knew — there was no plan,” Dawson Beer added.
Fire survivors fear that due to “inadequacies” of the report, the next emergency could be worse.
“McChrystal Group’s repeated blatant misuse of the term ‘perfect storm’ to describe the Eaton Fire is both dishonest and strategic,” Lauren Randolph, a total loss fire survivor, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors is expected to discuss the after-action report, which identified a series of outdated policies, weaknesses and systemic vulnerabilities that hampered emergency notifications and evacuation orders during January’s deadly Eaton and Palisades wildfires.
The “Independent After-Action Report” was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors and produced by McChrystal Group, a consulting firm led by retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The firm was charged with conducting “an independent after-action review of alerts and evacuations” to provide “a comprehensive picture of actions taken during the catastrophic January wildfires along with recommendations to help guide future Los Angeles County responses.”
The report noted that investigators found “no single point of failure” relating to public alerts, warnings and notifications.
“Instead, a series of weaknesses, including outdated policies, inconsistent practices and communications vulnerabilities impacted the system’s effectiveness,” according to the report. “These systemic issues did not manifest uniformly across the two major fires. The effects of these weaknesses varied based on environmental conditions, community readiness and operational complexity caused by the variables of wind, power outages and fire behavior.”
The wildfires killed 31 people and destroyed 16,251 properties in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, along with parts of Los Angeles, Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Malibu.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to introduce motions intended to begin the implementation of various solutions detailed in the after-action report such as expanding the county Office of Emergency Management, increase staffing, and to possibly overhaul operating emergency protocols.
Source: NBC Los Angeles