Jenny Jarvie and Grace Toohey at LAT:
What went wrong with L.A. county’s warnings and evacuations is now the subject of two different investigations after Times reporting found that emergency wireless alerts went out to west Altadena almost five hours after fire began to engulf homes in the neighborhood. In some areas, it took even longer.
Experts in emergency management said the struggle to coordinate evacuations is puzzling given the time and geography. But they also stressed that fast-moving fires in urban areas can be incredibly challenging and that we do not know enough yet to jump to conclusions about tactics.Some law enforcement officers were spotted driving through west-side neighborhoods around 2 a.m. — before the formal alerts were issued — with loudspeakers telling residents to leave, but at that point, it appeared they did not have enough manpower to facilitate all necessary evacuations.
For some experts, the delay in wireless evacuation orders in west Altadena — and the ensuing lack of an explanation to the public — is confounding.
“There should have been all sorts of red lights on the dashboard for west Altadena, based on what was happening on the ground and the timeline of reports about fire in the neighborhood,” said Thomas Cova, a professor of geography at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who specializes in emergency alerts during wildfires. “Why were the boots on the ground warning people before the people in the office, whose job it is to warn them? That’s upside down.”
More than five weeks after the blaze swept through Altadena, officials have yet to explain why nine hours passed between the outbreak of the fire in Eaton Canyon just after 6 p.m. and the first wireless cellphone alert issued to the west side of Altadena.