CNN ran a damning report on Los Angeles over not properly funding their fire department despite dire warnings from one of their fire chiefs a month ago, saying they desperately needed more firefighters and more money to hire mechanics to fix a ton of broken down firetrucks and emergency vehicles.
Here’s the report from Senior Investigative Correspondent Kyung Lah:
Below is the transcript from CNN:
KYUNG LAH: The fire department has warned of dire consequences saying that they need more money, they need more firefighters. And they warned of this as recently as last month:
LAH: At that commission meeting, you said it’s dire, someone will die.
FREDDY ESCOBAR, PRESIDENT, UNITED FIREFIGHTERS OF LOS ANGELES CITY: It’s eerie listening to your words because that’s what occurred.
So, it’s — let me just take a minute. Sorry.
LAH (voice over): Fire Captain Freddy Escobar.
ESCOBAR: You’re not supposed to make me cry.
LAH: 35-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department wishes he’d been wrong and this had not happened. For years, the LAFD union president warned that a disaster like the Palisades fire could happen.
And while the cataclysmic weather conditions were historic, Escobar also blamed something predictable that hurt the firefight, money.
ESCOBAR: This is a woefully understaffed fire department. We’re either going to have a fire department that’s going to reflect 2025 or we’re going to have a fire department that’s going to reflect the 1960s.
LAH: A CNN analysis shows out of the ten biggest cities in the nation, Los Angeles ranks ninth when it comes to the number of firefighters per resident. And it shows. Millions of dollars in rescue equipment is just sitting in a lot unused because the fire department can’t afford to hire the mechanics to repair it.
L.A.’s fire chief said in a recent memo, the fire department staffing levels were half the size of what they should be.
ESCOBAR: If we cut one position, if we close one station, if we close one resource, the residents of Los Angeles are going to pay the ultimate sacrifice and someone will die.
Firefighters were warning this would happen because of such severe funding levels that they were severely understaffed and they couldn’t even afford to fix firetrucks which are just sitting un-repaired and unusable.
All of those running Los Angeles need to go, especially the mayor and the city council who did this.
