The 17 deaths from the Eaton fire occurred in areas where the evacuation alert was delayed

The 17 deaths in the Eaton fire occurred in an area where evacuation orders took hours to arrive

Los Angeles County officials are calling for an independent review of emergency notification systems, after some residents argued that Earlier warnings could have saved livesas reported by NBC News.

Within a half hour of the fire starting on a hillside in Eaton Canyon on the afternoon of Jan. 7, the phones of thousands of east Altadena residents rang with a warning from Los Angeles County: “BE CAREFUL.” Within 40 minutes, a dire alert followed: “LEAVE NOW.”

But western Altadena neighborhoods didn’t see the same urgency, as evacuation orders didn’t come until the next morning, more than nine hours after the Eaton Fire began. By then it was too late.

The 17 people who died in the wind-fed fire were west of Lake Avenue, a major corridor that crosses north and south through Altadena. Among them were an 83-year-old retired Lockheed Martin project manager, a 95-year-old actress in Old Hollywood and a 67-year-old wheelchair-using amputee who died with his adult son, who had cerebral palsy.

Fifteen of the deaths occurred in an area where the first evacuation order was not sent until 3:25 a.m. on January 8; the other two occurred in an area where the order came at 5:42 a.m., according to a review of alerts as well as data compiled by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.

They ask to review notification systems

According to NBC News, the discrepancy between west and east Altadena is raising questions among local officials and residents about the timing of the emergency alerts, and whether earlier warnings could have saved lives.

“There wasn’t much time to do anything, but our notification system should have been up and running long before they did it,” Altadena City Council member Connor Cipolla told the aforementioned media. “It’s obvious from the destruction. “It failed half of our city.”.

On Tuesday, two Los Angeles County supervisors filed a motion calling for an independent review of emergency notification systems.

As the county evaluates its response after any disaster, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said Wednesday she wants to accelerate an analysis of the wildfires that have killed more than two dozen people and destroyed more than 15,000 structures throughout the region.

“I know on the west side, the older part of Altadena, it’s a lot more concentrated, there’s a lot of houses,” Barger told NBC Los Angeles. “We need to find out what happened, but I know the fire was spreading fast”.

He warned that the additional notifications may not have saved lives, but said “the victims of this disaster deserve our transparency and accountability.”

His motion, which will be voted on at the county supervisors’ meeting next Tuesday, followed a Los Angeles Times report about delayed evacuation notices in the Eaton fire.

In a statement, the county’s Joint Coordinated Information Center said it could not immediately comment on factors that may have led to the deaths in the fires, and that A thorough review “will take months because it will require reviewing and validating call histories from the fire.”interview first responders on scene, interview incident commanders, and search and review our 911 records, among other essential steps, including obtaining feedback from all relevant sources. That work may also require an outside entity to ensure the integrity of the investigation.”

Evacuation order arrived at dawn

Electronic alerts are one method of warning residents, but the county added it also uses door knocks, loudspeaker patrols that canvas neighborhoods and media coordination.

Jill Fogel said none of that happened in her part of west Altadena.

She was huddled with her two young children and her father on Olive Avenue on Jan. 8 when she received a text message after 3 a.m. from a close friend north of Altadena saying there were flames in his backyard. Fogel, 43, said he checked the Watch Duty app, which provides real-time updates taken from emergency crews’ radio transmissions, but there were no warnings that his neighborhood might have to evacuate.

He then looked outside his rental home and saw flames. A few minutes later, he received an alert ordering an evacuation. He told his landlord and then his family got into a car and drove away. As they left the neighborhood, joining a stream of cars, Fogel said he saw no fire vehicles or police cars and heard no sirens.

Fogel added that he realized the fire was moving very quickly in the hours before the evacuation order was issued. But he believes authorities should have sent alerts much sooner.

“I thought it was strange that the flames were so close and we had not received a warning”Fogel commented. “I thought they would have warned us much sooner.”

Joe Ten Eyck, former head of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said it can be difficult to get the timing of fire evacuation alerts right: If you issue them too soon, you risk mass panic, congested roads and more danger, but if you issue them too late, you run the risk of people being trapped in burning neighborhoods.

Those decisions often must be made in an instant, Ten Eyck said, based on rapidly evolving conditions.

Many of the victims of the Eaton fire were elderly and probably couldn’t evacuate quickly, added Cipolla, the city councilman. “In everyone’s defense, it was a rapidly spreading fire and a very fluid situation,” he said. “But when you consider that 17 people lost their lives, many of them disabled and elderly, it seems as if something went wrong.”

More than two weeks after it started, the Eaton fire is 91% contained, firefighters said Wednesday, while the cause remains under investigation.

Investigators have focused on a high-voltage electrical tower in Eaton Canyon as the potential source, as strong Santa Ana winds approaching 100 mph drove the flames toward Altadena and Pasadena.

Keep reading:
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