It’s sad to see how often a false narrative is used to obscure who is responsible when things go really bad. Politicians find solutions for problems that don’t exist, they destroy what does work, and then when it blows up in their face, they appoint a special blue-ribbon committee to declare it wasn’t their fault. For over forty years the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has had an Emergency Operations Bureau (EOB), one that is staffed 24/7 with highly trained and experienced emergency management professionals under the authority of the sheriff.
Since the fires that destroyed Altadena and Pacific Palisades, the Los Angeles Times has devoted article after article trying to decide who was responsible for the tragic outcome or was it entirely a “perfect storm” incapable of being mitigated by man. Here’s the obvious: the responsibility for the failure of emergency management in the Eaton fire rests with the board of supervisors, the sheriff, and the fire chief, period. Here’s why:
In 2020, with much celebration, the board of supervisors announced with glee the removal of the sheriff as the county’s director of emergency management. This role was held by the sheriff for over 40 years, but the board, in their infinite wisdom, used the excuse of the Woolsey fire to place the responsibility in the hands of the county CEO, Fesia Davenport. She answers only to the board of supervisors. Reading the after-action report on the Woolsey fire, nary a sentence was dedicated to any failures on the part of the sheriff at the time, Jim McDonnell. This proves the board move was a corrupt one from the onset.
What did Davenport do with this new responsibility? Delegate it to the appointed head of the county’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM). The head of EOM, Kevin McGowan, also known as Pee Wee Herman in county circles, has never inspired confidence in his leadership abilities. As the saying goes, you can delegate authority, but not responsibility. Not a single article written in mainstream media has ever mentioned this. Why? The tragedy of Eaton is a failure of leadership, plain and simple, something the media has decided to obscure on behalf of the political establishment.
Under Sheriff Luna, the LASD’s multiple Incident Management Teams (IMT) were depleted, key personnel retired without replacements, and they never received training. This meant the skeleton crew available at the onset of the fires lacked the institutional knowledge and technical know-how to address the Potentially Dangerous Situation predicted by the National Weather Service five days PRIOR to the fires blowing sparks. Deputies on the ground were left on their own to figure out how to evacuate as many people as possible as the flames roared around them.
Fire Chief Marrone never picked up the phone to call the inept Luna, who was on a paid union junket in Carlsbad, and tell the clueless sheriff that they needed to respond to the Emergency Operations Center and figure out a plan of action for this historic event. Two years of record rain followed by 8 months of record heat and no rain, then throwing in hurricane force winds, should have been a clue to any competent leader that it was time to prepare. That meeting that never happened should have also included LA city’s fire chief and police chief as well. In fact, that is foundational to the national framework for emergency management, known as the Incident Command System (ICS). One of the strengths of ICS is the Unified Command, where leaders from relevant disciplines have a meeting of the minds and decide on what is the best course of action. Again, this never happened until it was too late and pretty much irrelevant to the outcome.
Prior board of supervisors, who all understood the limitations of their knowledge of emergency management, always delegated that authority to the sheriff, who by law is the only one who can direct the actions of law enforcement. Evacuations are the responsibility of law enforcement and no one else. Fighting fires is the responsibility of fire departments. Two basic and critical functions that were left rudderless at the worst time possible.
Bottom line: the board of supervisors destabilized emergency management on a political vendetta, then paid the McChrystal Group $2 million to whitewash their involvement. Sheriff Luna failed in the one job he had – evacuating people out of harm’s way. Moral of the story: management by committee never works in an emergency. The county’s OEM needs to be disbanded forthwith, and personnel reassigned to the sheriff’s EOB, a central point for both technical expertise, real world experience, and 24/7 capabilities. OEM was designed to serve the political interests of the board of supervisors and simply is incapable of directing first responders in emergencies. You have to have a clear idea of who is in charge, a plan of action, and people ready to execute it.
The Eaton Fire is a tragedy by any measure. The loss of human life was preventable and inexcusable. It’s time for the elected leaders who failed us in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades to do the honorable thing: resign.
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