A Pacific Palisades reservoir was closed when wildfires swept through the area and devastated the community, officials told the Los Angeles Times.
The Santa Ynez Reservoir is connected to the Los Angeles water supply system, and authorities said it was shut down for repairs at the time the fires erupted, “leaving a 117 million gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades,” the newspaper reported on Friday.
The news comes as people are questioning why firefighters ran out of water as they tried to save structures and communities from the blaze that has wreaked havoc across the Los Angeles area.
“Department of Water and Power [DWP] officials have said that demand for water during an unprecedented fire made it impossible to maintain any pressure to hydrants at high elevations,” the report noted.
Former DWP general manager Martin Adams said if the reservoir had been ready for operation, the water pressure would have reached the Palisades for a time but would not have fixed the issue entirely.
“It’s unclear when the reservoir first went offline. Adams said it had been out of service ‘for a while’ due to a tear in the cover and that DWP’s vast storage and supply infrastructure still provided water to residents without disruptions, until this week,” the Times report said.
Aerial video footage shows the destruction the fire left behind in the Pacific Palisades area:
As of Friday afternoon, 10 people had died due to the Los Angeles wildfires and almost 10,000 structures had been destroyed, Breitbart News reported, noting that five fires were still burning as winds fanned the flames.
“One estimate of the damage and economic loss already caused by the catastrophic fires stands at $135-$150 billion,” the article read.
The outlet reported on Wednesday that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) cut almost $20 million from the city’s budget for fire services for the current fiscal year. It also said Bass was on a trip to Ghana when the fires broke out.
Read the full article here