Lessons, Painful At Times, Are Only Lessons If They're Eventually Learned

Duane Patterson 8:40 AM | January 09, 2025
AP Photo/Ethan Swope

The devastation in Southern California is almost beyond measure. A little over half of Pacific Palisades is gone. Most of the seaside parts of Malibu are in ruins. There are now seven active fires in Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties, none of them remotely contained at the writing of this column.

The human toll, which will continue to grow in the days and weeks, is heartbreaking. The property loss and personal effects consumed in the fires are just the beginning for a new batch of Angelino refugees. In the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, there will be ongoing concerns about shelter, and whether they can and will try to rebuild their lives in what once was among the most premium places to live in the world. 

When the Santa Anas began blowing in earnest Tuesday morning and word broke out of a fire above the Palisades, I began to pray that the west side of Los Angeles would not end up with the same fate as Lahaina. By early evening, glued to local television reports from Malibu, a second fire in Pasadena and Altadena, and a third raging in Sylmar burning everything in its path, it began to sink in that by Wednesday morning, the landscape of the L.A. Basin would be changed for a very long time to come. 

By Wednesday night, a new fire in the middle of the Hollywood Hills began. Sunset Blvd., Coldwater Canyon, Runyon Canyon, and possibly Hollywood Blvd., and any number of famed structures and houses on those roads, are in the destruction path.

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I live in Orange County, which is about an hour's drive south from Los Angeles, and is a place that is surrounded by rolling hills and foothills teeming with wildlife and vegetation. In the spring, after the rains have come and gone, the county resembles Ireland with green on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth. But by late summer, the hills are golden brown and are kindling for the eventual fire season once the winds begin to pick up. 

There always is a rivalry between residents of L.A. County and Orange County. Angelinos refer to us as living behind the Orange curtain in planned, plastic communities like Irvine. We in Orange County like to think of Los Angeles as the third world country we have to visit every once in a while to fly internationally or see a concert, but only if we remember to take our passports. And don't even get me started on the sports rivalries. That said, there isn't one sane resident of Orange County that isn't grieving and believing that there but the grace of God (and responsible county governance) go I. 

The aftermath of the fires, again still burning out of control ensuring that the damage and human toll is still mounting, is every bit as bad as was feared last night, and worse. 






I'm heartbroken. I'm grieving. I'm devastated. And I'm angry. Seethingly so. 

The incompetence of Democratic leadership, from the very top at the national level with Joe Biden's addled administration, down to L.A. County and city governance, has failed Angelinos, and the cost of that failure won't be fully realized for a long time to come. 

Joe Biden flew into town today. Much will be made about his statement to the press after his "briefing" on the fire with Gavin Newsom. 

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Well, then, at least there's good news. Joe Biden has recognized another member of his family. His seventh granddaughter, the one he really hasn't embraced as real, yet, could not be reached for comment. Oh, by the way, air traffic was halted for an hour while Joe Biden was on final approach, which includes air traffic finally able to fly and carry water and retardant onto the fires. 

On CNN Wednesday afternoon, FEMA director Deanna Criswell told Jake Tapper that FEMA will be there for Los Angeles. 

She'll be gone in 11 days, but not before bankrupting FEMA's budget on illegal migrant housing programs, including almost $22 million to Los Angeles last year alone. 

At the state level, what can we say about Gavin Newsom that hasn't already been said in derision? Let's talk about water, shall we? 

In 2014, Californians passed a bond measure to finally do something about capturing rain and snowpack run-off before it blends into the Pacific Ocean, becoming useless as both drinking water and fire defense. Proposition 1 passed overwhelmingly, and voters paid $7.5 billion dollars, at least theoretically, to make it happen. Gavin Newsom has been the governor of California for the past six of those 10 years. Would you like to take a stab at how many of these new reservoir or water capture systems have been completed? You're absolutely right. Zero. Quadrillions of gallons of fresh water has been lost, or worse, intentionally pumped to the ocean. 

Remember that California just turned in a performance that took 39 days in order to count ballots in the November election. It should be no surprise that the same level of competence didn't exactly get itself ready for fire season.

If there is one thing Newsom is competent at, it's playing the blame game. There's truly no one finer. It's always someone else's fault, or it's climate change's fault - any number of outlets for passing the buck when disaster strikes. When Donald Trump, who has been remarkably consistent on California's need to get their act together and finally get serious about their water issue, which is eminently solvable, and fire prevention programs such as brush abatement near dwellings and housing tracts, reminded people Wednesday of how poorly performing California's leadership has been, Gavin was beside himself.

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The homeless problem, which has exploded on his watch, especially in L.A. County, is an arson problem year-round. Much of the people on the streets and living in the edges of society are psychotic, largely from extended drug use. To them, when the winds blow, they see fireflies flitting around when they start fires, and it all seems so pretty. We have no idea who started all these fires, but social media is full of timelines of people who when the winds began to blow, spotted homeless people starting fires. If you hear no reportage in the next few weeks about what or who started the fires, trust me. It was sparked by the homeless, and that fact will be deep-sixed by a regime media committed to the leftist narrative that would be forever destroyed if that detail leaked out. 

One of the twin former blimp hangers that made up what used to be a Marine Base in Tustin for helicopter storage and training burned during an especially cold winter night a couple years ago. The building is, or was, absolutely huge. It burned to the ground, because a homeless person broke into one of the deserted hangers, started a fire, and the entire structure, framed in wood, burned for the next two weeks until only the four 30-story concrete corner posts remain as a modern-day Stonehenge. The city and county will not talk about it, and local media won't even ask the question of who started it. I asked someone who is in disaster response in the county, and they confirmed it to me. 

Insurance companies pulled out of the L.A. basin years ago because state regulators would not allow them to adjust their rates to cover the increased exposure risk that was growing along with all the undergrowth and brush in the hills that the state refused to cut back. Insurance companies knew trouble was coming. Everyone honestly knew this day would eventually come, but Gavin Newsom would love for you to believe it's climate change's fault and just one of those things that's unavoidable. 

And in the future, what do you think Democrats in Sacramento think of the land opportunities now that everyone's been burned out? Do you think they're going to rush in and permit exact rebuilding promptly when there's all sorts of acreage now available for low-income, high-density housing? 

Much is being made online about the L.A. fire chief being a woman, which doesn't bother me, and that she's the first openly lesbian fire chief. That also doesn't in and of itself bother me, if she's competent to do the job. 

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Uh oh. 

So in 2023, NPR reported that the color of a firefighter's skin was more important than the content of their character, or ability to put out a freaking fire. So much for competence. DEI has just claimed billions more in damage and lives. 

It gets worse. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who was part of a U.S. contingent to witness the inauguration of the new Ghana president, was warned two days before the winds started that the threat level was as high for fire as there has been in years. She chose to stay in Africa, presumably looking for a fiddle to play.

Once she got on a plane to head back home, with a land mass, in acreage, ablaze that's about three-quarters the size of the island of Manhattan, she was oddly silent about the crisis from the second she stepped onto the jetway at LAX airport and encountered a Sky News reporter. 

I'm not one to praise ambush interviews, but honestly, she was on, what, a 15-hour flight back home, allegedly briefed by staff all day about what was unfolding, and the cat has her tongue? She had nothing worked up for how to handle the press? Nothing? Not even a statement of empathy? 

Bass' city budget for 2024 cut funding for Fire by almost 18 million dollars. The average salary of a firefighter in Los Angeles is $62,000 a year. That means if that 18 million were spent on people alone, that's somewhere upwards of 300 firefighters that could have been put on the lines Tuesday night, of course, presuming there was water in the hydrants with which to fight them. Do you think anyone on the West Side or up in the hills of Pasadena and Altadena could have used some extra bodies on the ground? 

And speaking of being short on staff, do you think anyone would have cared about the vaccine status of a firefighter when everything around you is going up in smoke? 


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Mayor Bass' day didn't get any better. At the official press conference at 5pm Pacific time, Bass did her Joe Biden impersonation. Remember then-Vice-President Biden boasting about how he was going to account for every nickel of bailout money in the aftermath of the housing and economic crash of 2008? He was being so transparent that you could go to the interwebs and see for yourself, but couldn't remember the numbers? Yes, Bass was this bad today. 

Go to @URL. I'm sure that'll take you to the right place. 

Worse, still, is a memo issued by the chief of L.A. City Fire, Kristin Crowley, to Mayor Bass dated December 4th, 2024. It leaked today and puts a giant spotlight on Mayor Bass' budgetary decisions, and what in what it would result. 

Media, national and local, has been a mixed bag. Some of the local coverage from hot spots has been excellent. But the bias, the protection racket for Democrats, is still fully in force. I give you Dana Bash on CNN.

Locally on Fox11-Los Angeles, Melvin Robert tried to clean up an accusation made by former L.A. mayoral candidate Rick Caruso about there being no water in the hydrants around the Pacific Palisades fire. Robert boldly claimed no firefighter had told them at the newsroom that, and went to his field reporter, Gigi Graciette...who confirmed firefighters told her there was no water in the hydrants.

Oops. Politico has dutifully done their part, making the story of the fires about Republicans' reaction to it. It's a seizing and pouncing story without using the actual "S" and "P" words. 

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It's not all bad, though. KNBC-4, right before Mayor Bass' press conference, noted her bad day and piled on. 

My prayer has been, and will continue to be for the victims of this catastrophe. My heart grieves with them in their loss. I also am begging my fellow Californians, and especially those left in Los Angeles County, to reflect on the 'why' this all happened. The Democrats for which you have cast votes for decades have failed you. They have failed you as thoroughly and completely as the Democrats in leadership failed Maui. They failed you like they failed, and continue to fail, Western North Carolina hurricane victims. At some point, even though the lessons this week are too horrible to contemplate, the lessons hopefully are finally learned this time. 

California votes for mayor, governor, and statewide assembly and state senate seats in 2026. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors and L.A. City Council will be on the ballot. If you are as angry as I am at the wanton incompetence at every level, the solution isn't simply to find another Democrat to replace the ones that failed you. 

California's vote can be categorized into three buckets. One-third of the state's votes reside in L.A. County, one-third are in the Bay Area up north, and the last third make up the rest of the state. Both L.A. County and the Bay Area are as navy blue as a blue bubble can be. The rest of the state usually votes red, resulting in Republican candidates losing most statewide elections by a 2-1 margin. If anything good can come out of this man-made catastrophe, it would be that L.A. County would recognize the failure of their Democratic leaders and change course. Neither party can win a state race without the majority vote of L.A. County, so maybe this systemic failure could be the tipping point in future elections. 

Fires happen here. It's one of California's unofficial seasons, alon with floods, earthquakes, and riots. and always will be so. But the destruction caused by wildfires doesn't have to be this bad. It didn't have to be as bad this time. It's incompetence and mismanagement that is as predictable as it is tragic. On behalf of the rest of us in the Golden State, Angelinos, please learn the lesson this week is trying to teach before Democrats finish killing us all. 

Tags: JOE BIDEN LOS ANGELES WILDFIRES GAVIN NEWSOM KAREN BASS LOS ANGELES COUNTY

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