During a portion of an interview with FOX 11 Los Angeles released on Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass stated that “there were warnings, that I, frankly, wasn’t aware of” before the fires in the city.
Bass said, “We need to look at everything about the preparation and all of that for the fires, because, I think, when we evaluate that, we will find that, although there were warnings, that I, frankly, wasn’t aware of, although there were warnings, I think our preparation, it wasn’t what it typically is. Meaning that, before there’s a major weather event, for example, last week, when we knew we were going to get into the rains, you saw us come together and us talk about get your sandbags, bring the K-rails out, that type of preparation didn’t happen. If that had, I will tell you, Elex, I wouldn’t have even gone to San Diego, let alone leave the country.”
Host Elex Michaelson then asked, “But what do you mean there were warnings you weren’t aware of? Because I know we were talking about it on the news. A lot of people were talking about the problems, warning that this was going to be a huge deal.”
Bass responded, “So, when I talked about it with the fire chief, what she said is is that we have warnings of Santa Ana winds a lot, but predicting this — and you saw, from the city, from the county, that level of preparation really didn’t happen. So, it didn’t reach that level, to me, to say, something terrible could happen and maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the trip.”
Michaelson then asked, “Why didn’t that happen?”
Bass responded, “I don’t know. I think that that’s one of the things we need to look at.”
In another part of the interview, Bass said she isn’t sure why things were handled differently with this fire and “I think, as when I spoke with her, again, Santa Anas happen all the time and not being able to predict the seriousness of this.”
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