When a series of dangerous wind-driven fires broke out in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday, Mayor Karen Bass was halfway around the world as part of a delegation sent by President Biden to Ghana for the inauguration of the new president.
Mr. Bass, a former Democratic congressman who will become mayor in late 2022, did not return to Los Angeles until Wednesday afternoon. By that point, more than 1,000 homes had burned and 100,000 people across the region had been forced to flee their homes.
The mayor’s absence has drawn criticism from some Angeleno residents. Many said officials’ warnings about the potential for devastating fires were not enough, even though weather forecasts predicted extreme danger this week.
By Thursday of last week, the National Weather Service in Los Angeles had begun warnings of “extreme fire weather conditions.” By Sunday, the warnings had become more severe. “Every time a fire started, it was rapid fire growth and extreme behavior.”
But Mayor Bath posted his first warning about the storm to X on Monday, when he was already in Ghana. Her office didn’t send out a news release about the fire danger until 11 a.m. Tuesday, after a fire had already broken out in Pacific Palisades.
“There was no preparation at all. “There was no thought here,” said Michael Gonzalez, 47, whose home burned in Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighborhood overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His family of five stayed in a hotel in Santa Monica on Wednesday and began looking for a place to live.
Gonzalez, a lawyer, said Mayor Bass made the wrong decision to remain overseas even as forecasters warned of the most dangerous fire conditions in more than a decade.
“It was a complete breakdown of leadership, and it started with the mayor’s office,” he said in an interview.
In his first news conference since returning to Los Angeles, Mayor Bath defended his administration when asked about criticism of the city’s response to Wednesday’s fire. She said the disaster was the result of months of little rain and strong winds. It hasn’t been seen in this city for at least 14 years.
“We must resist any efforts to divide us,” she said.
Mr. Bass said he returned home as quickly as possible after the fires swept through Pacific Palisades and other parts of Southern California.
“I took the quickest route, which included taking a military plane,” she said.
The Los Angeles Department of Water Resources filled all 114 available water reservoirs and storage facilities, including in the Palisades area, ahead of the storm, said Janisse Quiñones, the department’s chief executive officer. Without an aerial water supply, overuse of fire hydrants has depleted tanks and crews are now working to replenish water, she said.
Rick Caruso, a real estate developer who lost to Bass in the 2022 mayoral election, said Tuesday night that he had assembled a team of private firefighters in Pacific Palisades to protect key outdoor retail spaces and some buildings he owns. Nearby houses. He said he had been running out of water all night.
City officials confirmed Wednesday morning that during the intense gun battle in Pacific Palisades, demand for water surged four times higher than usual over a 15-hour period, causing water tanks to run out. They suggested that the system was not designed to deliver so much water in such a short period of time.
“I don’t think there’s any excuse because there’s not enough water in the hydrants,” Caruso said. “This was very predictable,” he said, referring to forecasts predicting devastating storms.
Mr. Caruso, who twice served as director of the Los Angeles Department of Water Resources, said it will take time to explain why firefighters are struggling to get enough water to put out the fires.
“This is a colossal failure of enormous proportions,” he said. “When you know a storm is coming, you have to leave and not rush back. Leadership is important and the first thing you need to do is be present.”
Isabel Taft contributed to the report.
