Right now in California, an American jewel of a city is in ashes. The Palisades area of Los Angeles is burning. Residents have been under a mandatory evacuation order, including folks who are my dear friends. One of my best friends just found out she lost her house. Bryan Freedman, who was on the show yesterday, evacuated his home. James Woods has been sharing the devastation in his community.
This is all that remains of my friend’s home:
It is the chimney and nothing else. She is a divorced, single mom of two young daughters and a dog. Her neighbors, who have also lost everything, are mainly elderly and include a retired flight attendant, a retired family practice doctor, a real estate agent, a retired social worker, and a retired college professor. This is a normal, middle class neighborhood that is gone.
This is a nightmare that was foreseeable. Our fellow Americans have been forced out of their communities because these predictable Santa Ana winds came and the local officials apparently would not do what was necessary to protect the residents from the risk of fire.
The Wildfires
There are three massive wildfires burning right now that are being flamed by Santa Ana winds topping 100 miles an hour. It is so windy that firefighting aircraft are not able to fly in many cases. Nearly 100,000 people are under mandatory evacuation orders, and at least 13,000 structures are under threat.
The wildfires began so quickly that many people were caught off guard. When the roadways became impassable, people just abandoned their cars in the middle of the street to flee on foot. Bulldozers needed to be brought in to get the vehicles out of the way so that emergency vehicles and others can get through. One woman who abandoned her car told NewsNation that police came up to her and said, ‘Get out of your car. Run for your life. Head toward the ocean.’
Fox’s Charles Payne tweeted out this photo and wrote, “I’m descending into LAX right now, and I can smell the fire. Many on this flight in panic or heartbroken knowing their homes are already gone.”
I know we all rip on California for all sorts of good reasons, but we actually love our brothers and sisters out there and absolutely do not want to see this kind of danger or carnage unleashed on them. What you are seeing right now is Los Angeles – one of our jewels that has a long, beautiful history in many ways – on fire and burning to the ground.
In Pasadena, senior citizens were rushed out of a senior living facility with some still in their hospital beds. What were they going to do? What was the alternative? They had to get them out.
Mayoral Mismanagement
And as this fire rages, so too does the anger among the residents who are saying that, while wildfires are not uncommon in California, the state’s disgusting mismanagement – going back for decades – is at least partly to blame here for these fires not being better contained.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana when the fires first broke out. She is on her way back now, but she is not even in the country. Meanwhile, The L.A. Times reported that firefighters have been radioing their stations with reports that the hydrants were dry in the Pacific Palisades, which was a risk the city reportedly knew about but failed to fix.
The paper also published a report back in November – we are now in the beginning of January – that the lack of water in hydrants was to blame for the difficult efforts combating the mountain fire in Ventura County in the fall.
They have been aware that there is an issue with the water not being in the fire hydrants, and what did the L.A. mayor do to protect her citizens? Well, we will get back to you when she gets back from Ghana and someone has the chance to ask her.
DEI Chief
As if all of this is not enough, it turns out that the L.A. fire chief has made not filling the fire hydrants her top priority either. Instead, “diversity” is among the top priorities for her LAFD.
Her name is Kristin Crowley, and she has been fire chief since 2022. In an interview shortly after she was elevated to this position, she talked about being “super inspired” to make the fire department more diverse. She is also a “proud member of the LGBTQ community.”
Who gives a shi-t if the fire chief is gay? We don’t care about your lady parts, and we don’t care who you want having access to them. Can you fight fires? Can you make sure there is water in the fire hydrants?
Under Crowley, the department created a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Bureau” to train firefighters – not on refilling the hydrants or what to do when they are empty, but on the importance of DEI. “Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Bureau– now we actually have the staff to do the work when it comes to doing a deep dive in regard to how we do business, how we take care of one another in the fire stations, and in our work environment,” Crowley said in an interview.
We don’t care about any of that. I don’t give sh-t about how you’re taking care of somebody inside the firehouse. Take care of me, and my home, and my kids, and my animals when the fires hit. That is your real job, madam.
I realize natural disasters hit and that is life in California and the country at large, but these fires were foreseeable and – I think we are now seeing – largely preventable.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 978 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.