My favorite part is that even though exactly the same thing happened 60 years ago, people today still come with the conspiracy version that “they turned the water off.”The water pressure also failed during the 1961 Bel Air and Topanga Fires. In the years after, LAFD and DWP planned a number of improvements, for those specific areas, to make sure that never happened again. One of those improvements was the construction of the Santa Ynez Reservoir, built expressly for emergencies in the Pacific Palisades. That reservoir was empty last week.
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Eric Spiegelman (@ericspiegelman)
The water pressure also failed during the 1961 Bel Air and Topanga Fires. In the years after, LAFD and DWP planned a number of improvements, for those specific areas, to make sure that never happened again. One of those improvements was the construction of the Santa Ynez Reservoir, built...xcancel.com
No, they didn’t. Problem is that everyone downhill turned the water on.
There’s another school of thought that’s outraged that the same condition existed this year as occurred in 1962. That shouldn’t even be a surprise. These things tend to repeat - memory is short, especially where a bureaucracy is involved. It’s doubtful that anyone in the relevant departments really even knew there was a 1962 fire, and even more doubtful they knew what the problems were. Residents in the area certainly didn’t…and the reality is that development continued pushing into the chaparral, and the green space and fire breaks were not maintained.
There will be a big emphasis on fire protection in these areas once the fires are out. They’ll expand water storage capacity and say “never again.” But…after 10 years, the memory will start to drift. In 25, there will be a few residents who remember, but nobody in the water department will. After 30, there will be a complete reset, and the area will be primed for another repeat, and will just be waiting for another spark.
