To the editor: Although the intense hearth warnings that preceded the Palisades and Eaton fires prolonged from Santa Barbara to San Diego and included Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the one large-scale lack of lives and property occurred within the Los Angeles space. (“L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t,” Jan. 14)
With this stark actuality, and to attenuate the potential for additional, wide-scale tragedy, an unbiased fee of consultants must be fashioned instantly to research the next:
- Had been the winds that occurred in L.A. a lot stronger and punishing as to make comparability to the outcomes in different counties meaningless?
- Was L.A. County extra susceptible than different areas as a consequence of components reminiscent of distinctive topography, poorer brush and land administration and homeless encampments close to flammable areas?
- Had been first responders hampered extra so in L.A. than in different places by understaffing, poor or unavailable tools, inadequate water and poor advance planning?
Given the regarding details which have already emerged, attending to the underside of questions reminiscent of these must be considered as crucial and never dismissed as finger-pointing.
Russ Swartz, Granada Hills
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To the editor: I pause in studying the most recent dispatches from smoldering embers. I battle to border a coherent response.
Phrases have failed me.
Wordless.
Speechless.
Frederick Miller, Los Angeles
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To the editor: If the elected and appointed officers of the Los Angeles space had been company workers, they’d be terminated.
My son’s residence in Altadena was leveled within the hearth. There was no warning in any respect, no hearth equipment in sight, and he was lucky sufficient to flee forward of the flames. He has misplaced every part together with numerous others. Some paid the final word value, being consumed by the inferno.
We knew this was coming. The Santa Ana winds and rainless winter ought to have been clue for metropolis and county officers to organize for the worst.
It’s time for a change in management in any respect ranges. We’re hurting and fed up.
Kevin Collopy, Mission Viejo
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To the editor: I spent 60-plus years in hurricane nation. Disasters have phases:
- Panic.
- Seek for the responsible.
- Punishment for the harmless.
- Reward and honors for nonparticipants.
- Guarantees to repair the causes.
- New priorities.
- Repeat.
Parrish Hirasaki, Culver Metropolis
