The Los Angeles Fires and the Urgent Need for a National Disaster Review Board

Post analysis? By whom?!

The United States, unlike many other nations, does not have an organization to do post-disaster analysis. Hawaii looked around for someone to do a post-examination of the Maui Fire and finally settled on the state's attorney general when no one suitable came forward.

Andy Revkin, former head of the environmental reporting group at the New York Times posted an insightful essay at his Substack regarding the Los Angeles area fires in comparison to the Maui and Marshall (Boulder, CO) fires. I wrote the following comment (my words in red) Wednesday evening that were appended to Andy's piece:

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Andy @Revkin

1dEdited

Mike Smith, a longtime severe-weather meteorolgist who's been on Sustain What, sent this note by email:

Thank you for writing your substack piece today. 

I wish to make several points which are predicated on accurate news reports. You noted the similarities of the Palisades Fire to the Maui Fire and to the Superior/Boulder Fire. Please consider:

One of the most terrifying similarities is that L.A. County officials made exactly the same mistakes regarding traffic evacuations as were made in those two fires. There was no proactivity (again, assuming news reports are correct), no contraflow (used in hurricane evacuations), nothing. People abandoned their cars in droves and fled on foot. KTLA TV Tuesday afternoon had live images of a LAC bulldozer pushing cars to the side to make a lane for emergency equipment. In Maui, officials blocked every road out of the city except one. Panicked people desperately fled in all directions, including into the ocean, trying to escape the flames. Traffic issues were also reported in Colorado. 

In the case of Maui, up mountain officials decided not to release upstream water to lower reservoirs, so there was little water for firefighting. Headline from this morning ( https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/after-fire-hydrants-ran-dry-in-palisades-city-officials-blame-tremendous-demand/ar-AA1xa5zD ):

The National Weather Service in Hawaii did an extraordinary job — four days in advance — forecasting the conditions that led to the Maui Wildfire. This past weekend, National Weather Service officials forecast extreme fire conditions in Southern California. On Maui, nothing was done with that critical forecast and the eight emergency managers assigned to the island boarded a plane and went to Honolulu for routine meetings. None were present on the island when the fires broke out. In Los Angeles, little to nothing was done with the forecast of “extremely critical” fire risk while the mayor was in Ghana to attend the swearing-in of that nation’s president.

Unlike many European nations, the United States lacks a systematic way to learning from past disasters and applying those lessons to prevent them from being made in the future. We have a hugely successful National Transportation Safety Board, a Chemical Safety Board, a U.S. Climate Assessment and others. These disastrous events, and the recurring errors, cry out for U.S National Disaster Review Board. Otherwise, these fatal and hugely expensive disasters are bound to continue and grow worse. 

Mike Smith

Here's our conversation [Mike and I] on the need for a National Disaster Safety (or Review) Board: https://revkin.substack.com/i/152402221/better-weather-warnings-and-a-disaster-review-board 

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While I could make many points about the fires and the urgent need for a National Disaster Review Board, please consider just these two:

• Similar traffic management errors were made in the Colorado fire, the Maui fire and the Palisades (Los Angeles) fires. 

• Water from upland reservoirs in Hawaii was not released downstream so there would be water for fighting the Lahiana (Maui) Fire and, in California, water was not released from upland reservoirs so the hydrants in Los Angeles could be used to fight the fires. 

This is insanity! We keep allowing people to die (103 in Maui), 5 so far in Los Angeles, and billions of dollars of unnecessary property losses to occur because we do not have a National Disaster Review Board (NDRB) and a systematic way that those in the disaster forecast and response fields can learn best practices, prevent bad practices and obtain that info through "one stop shopping."

Four days ago, I wrote about the misuse of the FCC's Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) in Kansas as the Midwest blizzard and ice storm was winding down. I am sure you won't be surprised to learn it was misused in Los Angeles. 

They, without reason, told all of the 9,663,345 residents of Los Angeles County to evacuate. It wasn't a technical error as WEA cannot activate itself. These wrong activations of WEA are annoying as they come with an obnoxious, loud tone and are supposed to prompt immediate actions. However, if all 9+ million people had hit the road at once, it would have been the mother of all traffic jams and would have put people perfect safe into harm's way. 

The key advantage to WEA, when used properly, is that it is highly geographically specific. They should have told people downstream (and only those downstream) of advancing fires to evacuate. But, as usual with WEA, there was a --  likely human -- foul-up. 

Whether it is WEA problems, misuse of water resources in an emergency, evacuation issues... all of these can be greatly improved, or even solved, with a National Disaster Review Board.

If you would like to learn how I envision the Board would function, go here. 

If you agree, it is very easy to contact your congresspeople. As I live in Kansas, as an example, here is an example to email a senator (in this case, Sen. Roger Marshall) here. Please write your senators and representative and ask them to consider sponsoring a bill to create a National Disaster Review Board. Please use this resource to contact your elected representatives as soon as possible. 

Thank you for reading!

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