Slowly, ever so slowly, Malibu is coming back to life. For the first time in weeks, there are some other people at the gym, and people are beginning to take care of themselves again. But it’s just a start—and a slow start at that. It would help if everyone tried to shop locally this holiday season. Lots of stores and restaurants are just barely hanging on from the loss of holiday revenue, and need your help and patronage if they are to survive.
This past Sunday, we held our first Operation Recovery meeting at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue and 250-300 burnout victims and their friends packed the room. We encouraged them to tell their stories of the fire, the evacuation and the aftermath.
A cautionary note: What they told us was anecdotal and it’s much too early to be able to tell what happened, who did their jobs badly, who did them well, what’s fact and what’s fiction. However, there are certain things we do know because we heard it from many people over and over again.
This is what they told us.
The evacuation
The evacuation was a disaster. Everyone was directed to Santa Monica at the same time. People were stuck on PCH for hours. They were running out of gas and the gas stations had been ordered to close. If the fire had burned down to the PCH, there would have been a major loss of life. A small contingent of law enforcement could have opened up the highway from two eastbound lanes to three or four eastbound lanes. Many people were enraged because the evacuation had been presented as mandatory, but that really wasn’t the case. Implicitly, they had been assured their homes would be protected and again, that wasn’t the case in many areas.
The information available
Many felt the city was putting out only minimal information, and either didn’t have the capacity or the ability to put it out. I know our Malibu Times crew was working almost 24/7, sleeping in four-hour shifts, trying to put it out online and mostly on Twitter. What concerned most people who were following the fire coverage on TV was probably the basic question: Is my house still there? We heard more than 600 homes burned, with 400 plus in the City of Malibu and another 200 plus in County Malibu and environs—we don’t yet have a count from the city. We were able to publish some tentative counts from Google Maps and neighbors who went around counting.
The fire department
The complaint was the same and repeated over and over. The fire departments simply didn’t show up in the neighborhoods. If they had, many more homes could have been saved. Neighbors who stayed often put out small fires with shovels and earth, and saved homes. In many places, there was no water, so shovels and earth were all they had. In some instances, they couldn’t convince engines (in Malibu West, for example) to come into the neighborhoods because the engines were afraid of being trapped. They offered to guide them but to no avail. The policy of bringing in engines from the outside simply doesn’t appear to work unless they have someone to guide them who knows the neighborhood.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department
Some of the loudest complaints were directed at the LA County Sheriff’s Department. They accused the department of treating everyone who stayed as if they had committed some sort of criminal act for not evacuating. Deputies threatened people with arrest. I heard stories of people being put into cuffs for little reason. After a few days, those who stayed were running out of food, water and, in some cases, medicine and wanted to get down to Ralphs to replenish. They were told if they left, they wouldn’t be allowed back in and if they tried, they would be arrested. I heard of someone calling the watch commander, who told them there was a blanket order that no one returns.
An overview
It was apparent to me, having been burned out in the 1993 fire, there was not nearly enough fire equipment to handle this fire. In 1993, there were engines all along PCH and in every neighborhood, but not this time. Typically, the command structure is in the Civic Center or up at Pepperdine University, but it wasn’t this time. I was told it was somewhere in Ventura County. A number of burnouts also felt they had protected Pepperdine at the expense of the homes. A lot of this will be answered in time, so those who are looking around for someone to blame should hold their shot until we get all the facts. Some of this information will turn out to be erroneous, some not and it’s too early to tell.
But there are a few things that are absolutely clear. First and foremost, the size, magnitude and ferocity of this fire was bigger than anything we had seen before. At one point, there was almost a 15-mile front of fire at the top of the mountains with winds that were unpredictable. They had planned and prepared, but not for something of this magnitude. It was also clear the command structure for both the fire department and the sheriff’s department was inflexible and gave their people on the scene little authority to adapt to local conditions and that hurt. The generals can set the battle plan, but this was like war; once the battle starts, tactics have to be adapted to a changing scene. We have got to do better because this is going to happen again and we have to be more ready than we were this time. Losing 600 homes is not a victory!
P.S. The next Operation Recovery meeting is set for Sunday, Dec. 2, at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue—24855 PCH—from 2-4 p.m. (Note: This is earlier than last week’s meeting.)